Project Description
This project puts the typical kitchen remodel in a unique situation that ultimately changes the look of the entire home.
The customers’ home is a 1940’s Cape Cod with a 100 square-foot kitchen and a small narrow attached garage. When the customer called us to enlarge their kitchen, we immediately saw the garage as a way to enlarge the kitchen.
The first step was removing the tons of masonry between the kitchen and garage. A temporary wall was built in the kitchen, covered in plastic, and sealed shut. We then induced positive airflow to the dining room to push all the dust from demolition out the garage door. HEPA filters in the kitchen made dust non-existent. Both floors above had to be temporarily braced up while we jack hammered away the wall and wheel-barreled debris through the garage door to the dumpster in the driveway. After the mess was cleared up we installed an engineered beam to carry the load.
We drove around the neighborhood looking at other house that had garages converted into living space. White vinyl siding and a vinyl window seemed to be the norm. In a city block of brick Cape Cods and bungalows, vinyl really degrades the look of the house. We decided we wanted to totally remove any sign of a garage on the front of the house and make it look like there was never a garage on the house when it was built.
We completely removed the curb, apron, sidewalk, and driveway from property line to property line. Then we installed new curb and concrete sidewalk with pavers to the front porch, curving through the old driveway to the rear of the home. The entire front of the house was re-landscaped with flowerbeds and new sod.
We closed off the overhead door by matching the 60 year old brick and mortar, ordered the same size window that is on the first floor of the home, custom-built a wood frame and brick mold to mimic the original, and wrapped it in white aluminum to match the others on the front of the house. The last detail was a set of matching shutters with hidden fasteners.
Finally, we installed new, cabinets, granite, hardwood floors and stained them to match the oak in the dining room, which carries the feel of the old home into the new space. The owners love the organized feel of the kitchen and realized they spend most of their time in the new room. As for the front facade, a car drove by and stopped. We could hear the passenger say to the driver, “I’m telling you, there used to be a garage in there!”
To see the kitchen, check out “Bethlehem Kitchen” in the Kitchens photo gallery.
