When Jennifer Norris walks through her home after its renovations, it still feels like a different place from the 1947 Cape Cod she’s lived in with her family for 10 years.
“It really does feel like a new house,” she says.
The remodel of the Upper Arlington home that Norris, her husband, Joel, and their son, Jack, live in included a substantial kitchen renovation and the addition of a room above their garage. The house, when they purchased it, was listed as 2,200 square feet, Norris says, though that didn’t include the finished basement, which adds another approximately 700 square feet.
Norris found the kitchen’s original layout to be quite closed off. The renovation, which took about 3 and a half months, rectified that.
“It created as open a floor plan as we’re going to get,” she says.
The two-floor home includes a basement with storage, a bedroom and full bath, and a living room area with a wet bar. The kitchen, living room, dining room, powder room and sun room make up the first floor. The second floor now has four bedrooms: the master bedroom, Norris’ son’s room, a guest bedroom and the room above the garage.
The kitchen work included tearing down a wall that separated the kitchen from a room that Norris’ husband used as his office. While the kitchen stove and sink remained in the same place, the refrigerator moved, and they added an island in marble with a black soapstone perimeter. The kitchen was made over with new cabinets and countertops. The tile floor was replaced with hardwood in a color that matched the rest of the house. The room that used to be Joel’s old office was made into a sitting area.
Even before she approached J.S. Brown & Co. for the remodel, Norris knew how she wanted her kitchen to look. White cabinets, marble counters and stainless steel appliances would create a more classic look to mesh with the overall home’s design.
“It came out exactly as I envisioned it,” Norris says.
As a person who loves to cook and entertain for friends and family, Norris requires a lot from her kitchen.
“It’s a much better layout than it was before,” she says.
Norris had the opportunity to put her kitchen to the ultimate test when Christmas rolled around. She entertained about 20 people, including her husband and son, and fixed a turkey dinner. Some guests sat in the dining room, while others sat on the porch and the sitting area. During previous holidays, the kitchen’s closed-off design would make for a tight and awkward space.
This time, Norris says, “it went off without a hitch.”
While the kitchen renovation was much needed, it left Joel without an office. And because he works out of the home, the family needed to come up with a viable replacement. Norris was unwilling to give up a bedroom on the second floor, so the family decided they would build a room above the garage.
The idea took a bit of fine-tuning, but they ended up reconfiguring the upstairs guest bedroom and building a hallway to the new room above the garage.
“The hallway turned out really well,” Norris says.
At around 200 to 300 square feet, the room is as big as, if not bigger than, the master bedroom. Two large windows allow for ample natural light. And, unlike the old office, the design doesn’t require family members to walk through the space to get to another part of the house.
Norris took advantage of the renovation to update the living room furniture, which they had kept when they moved from Powell 10 years ago. The room is now done in muted neutrals with green, grey, cream and brown.
“It turned out very well,” Norris says.
Sarah Sole is an editor. Feedback welcome at ssole@cityscenemediagroup.com.
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