​Putting Contemporary into a Traditional House

I’ve worked with several clients that have traditional styled houses that want a more contemporary look for the property. The exterior of a house has many options to make this easy to do. This blog goes over one project that has started the transition from old-fashion to clean & modern.

Dreams of a Modern House
Lots of folks are moving into the suburbs of NYC. They have dreamed of owning something that looks like it walked off the pages of Dwell Magazine. What they are finding is far for that reality. Most of the housing stock in the NYC Metro Area was built from late 1800s to around the early 1940’s. Almost all of it is in colonial or Victorian styles. This means very few midcentury and modern homes are available. 
 
But don’t worry! You can still transform your house into an oasis of contemporary style. One way to do this is rethink your front walkway. Nearly 100% of traditional styled houses have a walkway that bisects their front lawn. You can see what I mean by the BEFORE image of one of my projects below.  

​We went through a master plan and decided that the first things to do were to replace the existing walkway and revise the plantings in front of the house. When transitioning a house, it’s important to use the “bones” of the house, or what I call its DNA as assets. For example, though the DNA of this house is colonial in nature, it has several aspects that can be used to make it feel more contemporary. It’s asymmetrical with twos of the house that are different heights and sizes. The windows aren’t unified either. Highlighting all of these attributes will easily make it feel modern without big structural changes to it.

​During the master plan, we talked about replacing the slate roof with a dark standing seam metal roof. That one change would be a big step in the right direction. Second, we wanted to redesign the front entrance. Below is an elevation of what we came up with in the master plan process. 

​It uses sustainable hardwood wood, lighting, railing and plantings to both open the front porch up while increasing its sense of semi-private-ness.

​The walkway was to be pushed against the driveway to open the lawn as well, and to also put more attention on the house than the hardscaping.
 
New Plants and Walkway Too
The existing plantings were also hiding the house, so we replaced them with grasses and perennials to both cover the skirt of the house and show more of it. 

​We used large nearly square pavers for the walkway and installed with to be permeable. This will allow rainwater to infiltrate into the ground instead of running into the stormwater system. It’s a nice sustainable feature for the hardscaping. 
 
During the installation, we had to make a couple of decisions that weren’t fleshed out during the master plan. Both had to do with the walkway. We didn’t want to cut the pavers to make them fit. 

The curb of the driveway curved as it approached the road. We straighten the curb so the pavers could be cleanly tucked against it. 

​At the doorway, the pavers needed to turn and meet the front porch in two different places. I made several sketches of how to do this as best as possible. Through email and a few phone conversations, the owners and I came to a conclusion and kept the installation on track.
 
This is only the first step in implementing the master plan. We have already started talking about redoing the kitchen to blur the lines between in and outdoors. As things progress, I’ll post more info about it here.