In 2016, Dublin Life will focus on remodeling projects in the City. Check back each issue to learn more about residents’ renovation preferences and individual projects that stand out from the crowd.
As Dublin residents seek to improve their homesteads, they focus on a variety of parts of the house: kitchens, bedrooms, master suites, outdoor living spaces, the usual.
One area stands out from the rest, though, says Jeff Tyler, director of building standards for the City: basements.
Tyler and his department have certainly seen their share of home projects; any time a homeowner needs to get a permit for work on his or her house, it comes across Tyler’s desk for review.
For homeowners contemplating overhauls, basement and lower-level remodels are among the easiest to reconcile with zoning regulations, Tyler says.
“Of course, there’s the traditional den-type setup, but we’ll see home theaters, that next bedroom as long as you have the egress window to get out … (or) exercise rooms,” he says.
Game rooms, wine cellars and sports-themed spaces – frequently, as you might guess, with Buckeye themes – are among the other popular uses.
Tyler doesn’t often see additions, but when he does, they are frequently three- or four-season rooms. Kitchens and bedrooms are also common addition choices.
Kitchens often grow to facilitate the insertion of islands. Kitchen islands are a fairly recent trend, so owners of older homes often seek to add them, Tyler says. Large commercial appliances are also becoming more popular, he says.
“Opening up space to provide more eat-in kitchens, as opposed to really distinct and separate rooms” is another trend, says Tyler, noting that open space is a fairly common theme among City projects.
When a bedroom undergoes changes, it’s usually the master bedroom or, by extension, the master suite. Projects range from minor modifications of existing rooms to ambitious efforts that increase the size of the homeowners’ space.
Bathrooms make up a decent-sized percentage of renovations in Dublin. Some projects follow national trends, but Tyler often sees alterations based on lifestyle changes. For example, homeowners are generally moving away from soaker tubs and toward showers, though the opposite is still the case on occasion.
“As people become empty-nesters, we’re seeing more changes from that soaker-tub type mentality to showers, vanities and that type of thing,” Tyler says.
A master suite addition on Marion Street demonstrated the City’s commitment to quality projects and good customer service, says Susan Dyas, owner of Historic Dublin-based residential and commercial design/build company Epic Group Ohio. An initial application was rejected due to a mistake in the lot setback information provided to the company, so the City worked to get everything straightened out and ensure the project could be completed for the homeowner, who was out of the country on a mission trip.
“They worked with our homeowner to get their lot re-platted so we could do their addition,” says Dyas.
One area where Tyler isn’t seeing the open-space trend pick up: living rooms, which aren’t often being enlarged and/or turned into great rooms unless as part of a larger kitchen remodel. Improved kitchens, bathrooms and basements have the most substantial effect on resale value, so that’s where homeowners most often invest, he says.
Because additions are uncommon in the City, efforts to enlarge master suites sometimes take creative approaches to avoid increasing square footage, such as altering the ceiling or rafters.
“I have seen, in the past, where (homeowners) take attic space … to increase space for master bedrooms,” Tyler says.
For improvements outside the home, areas that can become outdoor living spaces are in vogue.
“You see a lot more with outdoor fireplaces, fire pits, pergolas, trellises, those types of things,” says Tyler. “I’m starting to see a lot of people go from decks to patios because of the maintenance issues.”
When the City does see decks, they are most often made with synthetic wood products to avoid those maintenance struggles, Tyler says.
Because Dublin has its share of older homes, an occasional quirk of remodeling projects is homeowners uncovering unexpected dimensions to their houses. Tyler gives as an example a house on South High Street whose homeowner took out the existing walls and encountered the original timbers.
“Sometimes, you don’t know what’s behind the walls or the ceiling until you open it up,” Tyler says.
On the whole, historic homes don’t see much alteration, though Tyler has seen major interior remodels from time to time. It’s less common to see new construction on infill sights, he says, or structures previously used for businesses being gutted and restored for residential use.
“The last three (infill projects) that we saw were large homes on small sites trying to maximize the square footage on those sites,” he says.
Being part of the department that oversees home improvement projects means getting many a look at Dublin residents’ creativity, from exterior living spaces to open floor plans, and that’s experience Tyler and the other members of the department appreciate.
“I get to see a lot of this,” he says. “We do get our fair share of really nice projects.”
Garth Bishop is managing editor. Feedback welcome at hbealer@cityscenecolumbus.com.
