Lyon Park House

2017 Remodeling Design Awards
Whole-house Remodeling under $500,000: Grand

A young family of four had lived in their Colonial-style home in Arlington, Va., adjacent to Washington, D.C., for seven years and were ready for a change. They wanted to open up its space as well as expand to better fit their lifestyle. Excluding the basement, the house comprised less than 1,400 feet and had just two bedrooms and one full bathroom.

“[The] existing house was in bad shape and needed an upgrade,” the architect, Robert M. Gurney, says. For cost reasons, the owners sought to keep as much of the old house as possible, something that Gurney appreciated.

The plan involved building three small additions that added 660 square feet spread over three floors, all on a 250-square-foot building footprint. Existing spaces were completely reconfigured. The second-floor exterior walls and roof were removed and rebuilt to provide high ceilings and light-filled spaces. On the main level, floor-to-ceiling windows allowed expansive views of the backyard, while large windows on the street side provided a connection to the neighborhood. A stairwell was moved to one side of the first floor, freeing up the floor plan and making for a wide-open dining space.

The decision to replace the second-floor walls and roof was made in an effort to have the house feel bigger. “In buildings that have small footage, the space doesn’t feel that big,” Gurney says. “We wanted it to feel very large.”

The huge windows in the front and back are located where they can take advantage of the best views. The placement of each window was carefully considered before installation. “Even the window in the corner of the dining space stops where the property on the other side starts,” Gurney says. The windows represent perhaps the biggest change for the house, as it went from being plain and symmetrical to striking and asymmetrical.

The windows are not the only source of light, however. Next to the stairwell, Gurney saw an opportunity to harvest the light coming in without exposing the homeowners to the view of their next-door neighbors 10 feet away. Here, a translucent panel was installed, barring visibility but allowing light to pass.

The completed exterior marks a drastic change from the original, as wood siding paired with gray stucco and charcoal fiber cement provides a quiet warmth that “blends into the wooden environment,” according to Gurney. He says the dark cement panels draw people’s eyes to the lightest element, which further blends the wood siding with the surrounding environment.

“I like [that] we barely changed the footprint but drastically changed the house,” says Gurney. He says all of the clients’ requests’ were met, and that they were able to go from two bedrooms to four.

The judges were happy, too. “It’s a complete transformation and pretty cohesively well done and detailed,” one said. “They got a lot for half a million, I’d say.”

All this was accomplished despite tricky building codes –Arlington limited the amount of space they could add. Additionally, the homeowners requested the builders to keep the backyard unchanged. This forced them to renovate in an extremely small area. “We had to shoehorn our way in--there was only 8 to 10 feet to the property line,” Gurney says.