• Services
  • Portfolio
  • Ethos
  • Press
  • Blog
  • Contact
Schedule a Call

3 Ways to Add Value to Your Home

 

Before After 🙂

There is a very high quality of life in the urban core but our housing is often not meeting our needs for how we live these days. No storage, segregated rooms and not quite enough space. We’re all for renovating existing urban housing into your ideal home because research confirms again and again that commuting drastically lowers our quality of life.

So we doubled the size by adding a two story addition onto the back of the house and it’s lovely and still a modestly sized home by todays standards at 1600 sq ft but so accommodating.

 

 

 

The Story

Our flients (clients who become friends) asked us if we would build the design a local architect had done. The answer is yes if the design is fully resolved.

After they saw our concepts they decided to walk away from a considerable investment and start over with us and here’s why.

1. Renovating the Existing House is Often Essential

Its a fallacy that not renovating the existing house and merely adding onto it saves money. The problem as you can see from this example is that it devalues the whole project i.e.

– Wasted real estate for huge hallway
– Back to back living and family room
– Bathroom & laundry room is in the prime real estate- cutting off the main living areas from natural light and the connection to the outdoors. (2 full bathrooms is too much)
– The rooms are segregated because of the original bathroom location, so it feels tight instead of spacious and these days we like to live in one room.

As Built Plan Architect’s Proposed Plan

 

2. Design to Let the SUNLIGHT in & Invite a Relationship With the Yard

In our design the whole back of the house is open to let in the light and embrace the outdoors as part of the home. (In the other design because they were not renovating the existing house, it dictated that the bathroom and laundry room be in the prime real estate, blocking the view and light of the back yard.)

This is what we proposed. Our flients fell in love with it and decided to walk away from their investment with the other firm. Notice that the living dining and office areas are all flexible and can be interchanged. They do actually change it with the seasons. Also we have a main floor bedroom and bathroom which is ideal if viable.

During Construction Exterior Detail

 

3. Cultivate Harmony With the Existing House & Neighborhood

 

Architect’s Proposed Elevation MKDB’s Proposed Elevation
 

 

Categories


  • Uncategorized (30)

Recent Posts


  • Holiday Wishes From MKDB
  • How do you feel about double islands?
  • HomEcology Podcast – HomEcology
  • HomEcology Podcast – Investment Homes
  • What Means DESIGN BUILD

A Note From Moneca


Having been in business for a quarter century now, we are laying the foundation to serve for generations to come. Elegant, eco friendly design is critical to our planet’s survival. Together let’s leverage our  homes to build the change we want to see in the world with elegant design, built to last with eco effective materials and practices, healthy for us and for our  planet. Plan it for the Planet : ) 

Tags


Your site doesn’t have any tags, so there’s nothing to display here at the moment.

Follow us on Social Media


  • Instagram
  • Facebook
  • YouTube
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • LinkedIn

Moneca Kaiser Design Build Ltd.

254 Columbus Ave Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1K 1P6

Instagram
Facebook
Youtube
Pinterest
Linkedin

©2022 MKDB