| While opening up the living room and kitchen, Airoom had to remove two load-bearing walls and install steel beams to support the ceiling and the second floor. Ductwork for the second floor had to be rerouted. The project turned out to be easier than Turner had anticipated. What he assumed to be a chase for ductwork to the second floor was empty, allowing him to stick to Plan A. "The clients' architect had completely missed the possibility of the ductwork," Turner says. "But the cards went in our favor. We redid the plans to include the wall units next to the fireplace. And the living room still has the open look the clients wanted." Windows: Weather Shield. Doors: Pella. Photos by Fritz Geiger |
When Seymour Turner, vice president of Airoom (Lincolnwood, Ill.), talked to the owners of this 40-year-old, two-story house, they made their wishes clear. Now that their children were older, they wanted to update their house by adding a casual dining area and bringing in more natural light.
Airoom accomplished this by combining the old recreation room with the kitchen and moving a screened porch that had blocked light from the kitchen to the other end of the house. Part of the renovation involved combining the old formal dining room and living room to create an open space. A new see-through fireplace is part of the wall that now separates the living room from the new eating area.
Turner's design won Airoom a Bronze award for whole-house remodel over $250,000 in Professional Remodeler's 2002 Best of the Midwest contest.
Open spaces bring in sunshine
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