Private Residence Addition – Chicago, IL, USA

Expanding a 125 year old home to last another generation.

The needs of a growing family of 8 prompted the exploration of expanding this beautiful 3-bedroom home. Moving to a new home was an option, but the family desired to stay with their established roots. To determine the feasibility of staying in place, we explored iterations of the following priorities:

Additional Sleeping Space for their growing family and guests
Separation of living and sleeping spaces if possible
Maintaining the Victorian-esque charm of the existing home

SOLUTION = Add on and Renovate Our Existing Home

After determining that staying in place was the right choice, we dove into the design process. Focused on the big-picture priorities, we also pursued the following ideas:

Aging in place (as we get older, can we live on a single level?)
Sell-ability (we want the home to be uniquely ours yet sellable in the future)
Future “Garden Apartment” (basement can be adapted into a small apartment-like space)
Purposeful / Functional (no wasted space, design elements have a purpose)
Flexible (can the space adapt to our needs?)
Flow (the family can move around the home well)

Many iterations and ideas brought us to the following final direction:

Second Floor