An In-Budget Unconventional Addition in Bethesda

• June 18th 2018

by Nena Perry-Brown

While many suburban renovations convert small homes into mini-McMansions, today UrbanTurf features a house in Bethesda that was given a more modern, yet modest, expansion. 

Originally, 5601 Lincoln Street (map) was a two-bedroom, single-story bungalow. Piecemeal additions had been appended to the house over time, creating a carport that darkened the kitchen and an attached apartment that the owners were able to use as a third bedroom.

After owning the house for over a decade and adding two children to the family, the homeowners were looking to add bedrooms and play space but didn't want to "lose one another" in the process. Contractor Think Make Build put them in touch with the DC-based architecture firm EL Studio, which had the task of designing an addition that would fit within their budget.

"It took some time to make sure they got them everything they wanted and also met their budget, and with the contractor helping, being there through the design process, we were able to meet that goal," architect Mark Lawrence told UrbanTurf.

The carport and accessory area were replaced with a 1.5-story addition, which also created three bedrooms on the second floor, two of which share a jack-and-jill bath. With the addition, the house went from 2,265 to 2,980 square feet and expanded from two bedrooms to five. 

The new height of the remodeled bungalow still fit within the surrounding context while also requiring some consideration when it came to increasing the light and air flow into the house. Several custom windows were deployed in the new design in order to accomplish this, including a narrow double-height window that takes advantage of the new double-height playroom while unifying the addition to the original house.

"One of the things the owners were really sensitive to was getting as much light in as possible, so that double-height space, because the neighbors are so big, is the darkest room in the house, so we wanted to make sure there were lots of ways that light could penetrate that space," explained  Lawrence. A south-facing angled skylight sits above the new stairwell and brings sunlight year-round into the living space as well as the covered outdoor space beyond, which sits below the new master suite.

The addition was completed last 2017. Check out EL Studio's other projects here. 

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/an-in-budget-addition-in-bethesda/14061.