North Evanston Residence

The owners loved the mid-century modern character of this home but were not crazy about the tiny kitchen or the fact that it did not have a master suite. The vaulted first floor ceilings were wasted on the kitchen which had a low dropped ceiling and was separated from the dining room by a wall. So how do you create a master suite in a split level home when you don’t want to lose any of the existing bedrooms?

Our solution was to use the space of the carport for a one story addition to keep the low-slung mid-century modern aesthetic. (There was room in the back for a garage). The new first floor master suite with an office will allow the owners of the family to live here for decades…and also make for a short walk to that first cup of coffee in the morning under a newly vaulted ceiling. We removed a wall that chopped up the kitchen and dining room spaces, and expanded towards the street with a new dining space; the addition on the front of the house has a shed roof that amps up the mid-century modern character of the home that attracted the owners in the first place. The addition is traditionally framed with an engineered wood beam picking up the load of the original exterior bearing wall. Closed cell foam insulation makes for a tight, well insulated envelope and the first is clad in fiber cement siding.