Letter From the Editor : Spring 2003


There's a house not two blocks from where I live that used to be a bungalow. During some past decade, the roof was ripped off and what appears to be a trailer was plopped atop the first floor, creating a two-story monolith that looks precariously top heavy. The whole thing was then wrapped in aluminum siding and too-narrow fake shutters were tacked on either side of the windows in an attempt to class it up a bit.

It's painful to look at. Houses like this do more than offend the eye, though. They lower property values. Purchasing a home has more to do with emotion than most of us like to admit. An ugly house will dramatically reduce the number of potential buyers who will even look at it. And even house hunters considering a nice looking property on a street that contains several eyesores may hesitate.

What causes people to bring visual harm to their home, their most valuable investment? Certainly they're not trying to damage their property. But in the pursuit of legitimate goals such as expanding the amount of living space, making existing space more workable or reducing maintenance, all kinds of havoc is wreaked.

Problems begin when owners don't understand or care about their home's character and history. Once an older style falls from favor, it's considered unimportant, disposable. The newest look gets grafted onto the old, and houses become Frankenstein's monsters--unrelated appendages crudely stitched onto the original body. Nicely detailed windows get replaced with hexagonal "porthole" pop-ins. Solid wood front doors are traded for steel models with cheesy "Colonial" fanlight windows. The most damage to a home's character, though, is the result of increasing square footage.

Let's face it, bungalows are small. While I believe that most of us need less space than we think we do (you should see all the stuff piled in my basement), there are legitimate needs for more room--a growing family or the desire for a home office, for example. And yes, it's nice to have the refrigerator in the kitchen instead of at the bottom of the basement stairs.

But expanding a bungalow or other small house is tricky. Tampering with its overall massing or with the roofline can radically alter--and quickly degrade--curb appeal. Moreover, building codes in many cities, written with new construction in mind, demand ceilings of a certain height, stairways with a certain pitch. Under such constraints, what's gained in space is often lost in charm.

Where, then, should you turn when you can no longer bear to prepare another meal on a countertop the size of a "welcome" mat? Turn to the professionals. Ten or 20 years ago it was a challenge to find an architect who appreciated early 20th century homes and sought to maintain their style and scale. No longer. Architects are responding to owners who want their small homes made more workable, and many architects even specialize in older houses. They understand that large doesn't necessarily mean efficient and that small doesn't necessarily mean cramped. And unlike a clumsy modification, a professionally designed alteration will likely increase your home's value and help make your block one that people want to move to.

-- Tim Counts, editor