Remodelling Single Family Homes In Chicago
by John Brown & Matthew North on September 1st, 2010
This is Day 225 of the Slow Home Project and we need you to join us in our quest to evaluate the design quality of houses in nine North American cities in nine months.
Welcome to September Slow Homers! Today is Wednesday, September 1, 2010 and today we have a “Chicago Design Challenge”! We need you to re-design the main floor plan of the “Grant”, a 2,430 sq ft single family home in Chicago and email us your scheme before 9am (MDT) tomorrow morning – Thursday, September 2, 2010.
Email your floor plans to john@theslowhome.com (don’t post them on the site!) – we will be awarding a book prize to the best scheme – which will be announced in a special “Live” Slow Home episode airing this Friday!
Last time we did a “Design Challenge” was in Miami and we received 39 entries so we are hoping to beat our record this time! Please send us your plans! We look forward to seeing them!
This house has several major problems including:
1. An front entry with no adjacent coat closet.
2. A back entry that is shared with laundry and no storage.
3. A side yard den that is only accessed through a back hall.
4. A poor kitchen design with a fridge outside the work triangle, no island and not enough counter space.
5. A separate and redundant formal living and dining space.
6. A family room with no focus or sense of how to place furniture.
Please leave the stairs and the exterior doors and windows and put back the following:
1. A front entry with a coat closet.
2. A back entry with a closet and a bench.
3. A laundry room.
4. A guest bathroom.
5. A well sized kitchen with a proper work triangle.
6. A decent living and dining area – both with focal points and logical places for furniture – you decide if you want to include both formal and informal living spaces.
7. A study that is conveniently located and has natural light.
Day 225 – PDF
Day 225 – Existing
Day 225 – Demo
Day 225 – Full Symbol Library
Good luck everyone! See you tomorrow for our final “In Detail” episode where we will look at parking in single family houses.
Comparing Single Family Homes In Chicago
by John Brown & Matthew North on August 31st, 2010
This is Day 224 of the Slow Home Project and we need you to join us in our quest to evaluate the design quality of houses in nine North American cities in nine months.
Today is Tuesday. August 30, 2010 and we need everyone to participate in our “Which House Should I Buy?” segment!
Our clients are Ned and Stacy – a soon to be retired couple who want to re-locate from their large, single family house to a more modest tow bedroom home in an adult community. The couple have opposing schedules with Ned being a night owl and Stacy being an early riser, so their new home needs to address this lifestyle. In addition, they would like a second bedroom for when their kids come to visit.
They like the community of Shorewood Glenn, which is about an hour west of Chicago.
The first house they are considering is the “Charleston”, which is a 2,015 sq ft and has 2 bedrooms, 2 baths and a den.
The second house is the “Plymouth”, which is 2,238 sq ft and also has 2 bedrooms, 2 baths an a den.
Which house do you think Ned and Stacy should buy? Leave your comments on the site and let’s have a discussion! When you are ready, click on the player below to see which house John and Matthew think is the better real estate choice.
Join us tomorrow for another Design Project where we will be transforming a badly designed single family house in Chicago into a Slow Home!
Week In Review For Townhomes In Chicago
by John Brown & Matthew North on August 27th, 2010
This is Day 220 of the Slow Home Project and we need you to join us in our quest to evaluate the design quality of houses in nine North American cities in nine months.
It’s Friday, August 27, 2010 and today we are reviewing the floor plans that were submitted on Wednesday. Thanks to everyone who submitted a scheme this week! We had a lot of last minute entries, so hopefully we have captured all of the best ones to review!
To see what the floor plan of this townhome in Chicago looked like before the Slow Home renovation, click on the link below.
With the stairs fixed in place, a design trend emerged. All of the plans we have chosen to look at today have consolidated the “closed”, “service” or “mechanical” spaces into a “block” that is located in the top right corner of the plan. This allows the rest of the spaces to be open concept. We have highlighted this “block” on all the plans in yellow. Some people had the “block” align exactly with the stairs, others had it step slightly forward or slightly back.
1. This plan is by Manolo. He had the clearest scheme this week. The kitchen is a great peninsula design with lots of counter and storage.The study is also the perfect proportion for the size of this unit and is ideally located in the “block”.
2. This plan is by Nicole – her “block” integrates a study desk, but not an entire study space – very clever. We recommend that the hallway is shortened by adding some storage at the end and moving the doors to the guest bath and laundry further forward.
3. Steve in Van was the only person to include the back wall of the kitchen within his “block”. With this type of scheme, we would recommend that he forgoes the typical dining table and integrates the dining into the island either as an attached, lower table (think Poliform) or an oversized island with counter chairs. All in all, this is quite a creative solution.
4. Catherine Taney had the simplest scheme this week. Her “block” was slightly more narrow than the width of the stair case which allows a little more room in the living area for circulation behind the furniture.
We are also posting five other schemes that treated this idea of a “block” in interesting ways. Overall, good work everyone!
We need you to vote for who you think should win the Award for Best Townhouse Design in Chicago! Have a look at the links to the nominees below and then cast your vote. We would also love for you to leave us a comment telling everyone who you voted for and why.
Aqua Parkhomes – Typical
Wrightwood Crossing – Unit 101
500 Hyacinth Place – Type C
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And it wouldn’t be Friday without revealing the name of the “Slow Homer of the Week”. Click on the link below to find out who it is.
Make sure to join us on Monday for our last week in Chicago and our last week on the Slow Home Project! Can you believe it? Our nine cities in nine months is coming to an end!
1. This is a good parking condition. The double attached garage does not dominate the house, it takes only one third of the frontage and does not restrict light to any of the principal rooms.
2. This is also a good parking condition. The garage could almost be considered a “side attached” garage with all the service space for the house directly behind the parking.
3. This is a proportionately long and narrow house and because of this, the garage is barely acceptable. There is only one principal room that faces the front and this garage is on the verge of dominating the house.
4. This is poor parking condition where the three car garage dominates the house creates a large and really unusable side yard.
5. This is also a bad parking condition where over fifty percent of the house is taken up by parking and the living space is forced to wrap around the garage.
6. This parking condition is acceptable as the garage is pulled forward allowing the principal rooms to have light and it also could be detailed to create a nice entry condition.
7. This rear attached garage does not help this house as the dining room has very little light and the house has no back yard.
8. This rear attached garage condition is better, as a courtyard has been created to help reduce the impact of the garage on the back of the house.
