Our plans

The stone portion of our house was constructed in 1851 and was very well built.  The walls are thick, the foundation was dug deep, and it has stood the test of time.  The addition, however, which was constructed sometime before 1938 (See Here), is not as well constructed, on just a crawlspace, and was experiencing some major sagging in the kitchen due to a lack of a sturdy foundation.  Since we purchased the house in 2007, we knew that the addition needed help.  Over the years we have discussed options with my father, a seasoned and skilled builder - thoughts included removing the kitchen floor and digging down to pour a slab foundation, but in the end it proved a better plan to remove the entire addition portion and rebuild to get the structure up to modern standards.  We have been saving our money and our ideas - always looking at pictures in magazines, on blogs, of houses for sale online, as well as of houses my father is working on in the area for inspiration to plan the construction and help envision how we wanted our home to be.  It has been a fun/sometimes stressful/ but always productive process, and finally in March 2011 we met with the architect.  He was very helpful and even had new ideas for us that we hadn't already thought of.  We would definitely recommend Marc Marion at Architecture Plus in Bridgewater, NJ.  He had great experience and ideas on how to smoothly incorporate the new addition into the old house without overpowering it.

The addition will include a nice large eat-in kitchen, laundry room, mud room, powder room, great room looking out to the barn/field downstairs; a full basement (!!); and 2 bedrooms with a full bath and a large linen closet upstairs.  We can't wait!

Here's the layout of the first floor design for the new portion: