For this home, we were tasked with updating the kitchen and improving the flow through the house while retaining the original character of the home in a neighborhood the family just loves. Part of the sweetness of the home were the many archways, even an arched front entry, though some were a bit small. And to get to the 2nd floor, you had to wind your way through an outdated kitchen to get to the narrow 2nd floor stair.
The solution? Rework the kitchen and back room to allow a new stair to the 2nd floor and the lower level to be accessed from the center of the home in the main travel path. And then, rather than totally removing walls between rooms, we simply enlarged some of the archways to create a better sense of connection between spaces. The new farmhouse kitchen blends beautifully into the rest of the house now and a new mudroom makes coming and going so much easier and organized.
