Luxurious Lake Home | Oconomowoc, WI

Kowalske Kitchen & Bath

New Front Porch, Stones, Railing and New Stairs

Experts Remodel

New deck made of composite wood - Trex, New railing, entrance of the house, new front of the house - Porch

Eastview Before & After Exterior Renovation

nancekivell home planning & design

Enhancing a home’s exterior curb appeal doesn’t need to be a daunting task. With some simple design refinements and creative use of materials we transformed this tired 1950’s style colonial with second floor overhang into a classic east coast inspired gem. Design enhancements include the following: • Replaced damaged vinyl siding with new LP SmartSide, lap siding and trim • Added additional layers of trim board to give windows and trim additional dimension • Applied a multi-layered banding treatment to the base of the second-floor overhang to create better balance and separation between the two levels of the house • Extended the lower-level window boxes for visual interest and mass • Refined the entry porch by replacing the round columns with square appropriately scaled columns and trim detailing, removed the arched ceiling and increased the ceiling height to create a more expansive feel • Painted the exterior brick façade in the same exterior white to connect architectural components. A soft blue-green was used to accent the front entry and shutters • Carriage style doors replaced bland windowless aluminum doors • Larger scale lantern style lighting was used throughout the exterior

Weston Manor

Cummings Architecture + Interiors

Farmhouse

Bret Franks Construction, Inc.

Maple Street

Marina Rubina, Architect

New Gambrel on the Block

CHRISTOPHER STROM ARCHITECTS

This new, custom home is designed to blend into the existing “Cottage City” neighborhood in Linden Hills. To accomplish this, we incorporated the “Gambrel” roof form, which is a barn-shaped roof that reduces the scale of a 2-story home to appear as a story-and-a-half. With a Gambrel home existing on either side, this is the New Gambrel on the Block. This home has a traditional--yet fresh--design. The columns, located on the front porch, are of the Ionic Classical Order, with authentic proportions incorporated. Next to the columns is a light, modern, metal railing that stands in counterpoint to the home’s classic frame. This balance of traditional and fresh design is found throughout the home.

Modern Seattle Renovation

User

A custom D1 Entry Door flanked by substantial sidelights was designed in a bold rust color to highlight the entrance to the home and provide a sense of welcoming. The vibrant entrance sets a tone of excitement and vivacity that is carried throughout the home. A combination of cedar, concrete, and metal siding grounds the home in its environment, provides architectural interest, and enlists massing to double as an ornament. The overall effect is a design that remains understated among the diverse vegetation but also serves enough eye-catching design elements to delight the senses.

Larkspur Farmhouse

HEYDT DESIGNS

Photography by Golden Gate Creative

New Stone Pavers & Brick transform Front Porch of this Craftsman home

CuttingEdge Built LLC

This beautiful new construction craftsman-style home had the typical builder's grade front porch with wood deck board flooring and painted wood steps. Also, there was a large unpainted wood board across the bottom front, and an opening remained that was large enough to be used as a crawl space underneath the porch which quickly became home to unwanted critters. In order to beautify this space, we removed the wood deck boards and installed the proper floor joists. Atop the joists, we also added a permeable paver system. This is very important as this system not only serves as necessary support for the natural stone pavers but would also firmly hold the sand being used as grout between the pavers. In addition, we installed matching brick across the bottom front of the porch to fill in the crawl space and painted the wood board to match hand rails and columns. Next, we replaced the original wood steps by building new concrete steps faced with matching brick and topped with natural stone pavers. Finally, we added new hand rails and cemented the posts on top of the steps for added stability. WOW...not only was the outcome a gorgeous transformation but the front porch overall is now much more sturdy and safe!