With this post I'm starting a new category at House Enthusiast where I'll share "KHS work-in-progress". I posted some exterior and interior progress photos of this project over the winter in a "New-Small-House book tidbit" about transformation. Now the Touisset small-house renovation/addition is nearing substantial completion.

This is a kitchen/dining/family area addition off a c. 1910 ish cottage bungalow. We designed it to resemble an enclosed porch inside and out, though it's new construction. Windows wrap three sides and a cathedral ceiling with mahogany beams give it a porch-like quality. Daylight is shared by each of the overlapping kitchen/dining/family spaces and the increased ceiling height allows the various spaces to feel larger than the sum of their parts.

Because windows line the counter work surface there are no overhead cabinets and therefore no undercabinet lights, so to provide task lighting, low-voltage cable lights stretch between beams. Tall cabinets, not seen to the right, provide storage for items that would otherwise have occupied overhead cabinets. A sliver of the built-in banquette is visible beyond the shaker-style cabinets and soapstone counters. The banquette and the built-in bench adjacent to the stair provide discreet locations for intimate gathering and slight remove from activity elsewhere in the space. A new gas heating stove is yet to be installed on the other side of bar-counter wall. The existing stair to the right, which used to run along the exterior wall of the house, now opens into the addition and sports a new guardrail on the addition side of the stair which plays off the existing square baluster design of the original guardrail on the other side of the stair.

Southern yellow heart pine floors tie the addition into the existing home and a family of industrial-inspired light fixtures with smoked glass and exposed filament bulbs provide cohesive warm accents throughout the kitchen/dining/family area. This multipurpose space offers a variety of spatial experiences for a variety of activities which will allow it to live larger.

by Katie Hutchison for House Enthusiast