"BEFORE & AFTER"

A New Home with a Touch of Charleston, S.C.

There is a house type in urban Charleston where the narrow side of the house faces the street and the long side of the house faces the garden and catches the cooling breeze.  That is the inspiration for this house.  The narrow side of this house faces the street and long side faces a nature preserve.  

 

Another similarity with Charleston homes is the height of the first floor ceilings.  As you can see below, the collonade and living room have distinctive, high, coffered ceilings.  The owners wanted a very open plan.  High ceilings are really important when you have a large space, especially a space with a view.

 

Another interesting twist in this project was that we needed to use the existing foundations and thus were working to an existing configuration.  The nature preserve includes wetlands.  The original house predated and has a bigger footprint than would be allowed with the current, more restrictive zoning code for wetlands properties. So we used the existing foundations in order to have the larger footprint.  And, by the owner's request, we kept the existing family room intact (the room to the left in the picture above).

 

Everything else is new.  Click the button below to see the before and after photos and you will see how we transformed the house from dark and cramped to bright and open with maximum exposure to the nature preserve.