Traditional Open Concept

This house started life with a plan commonly seen in the neighbourhood, featuring a formal living room at the front, a ‘U’ shaped stair behind, then a dining room, before a closed off kitchen at the back.  Planned at a time when guests were meant to be greeted in the formal living room, and fed in the formal dining room, and should never see the rest of the house, save perhaps the foot of the elegant stair that bisects the plan front to back.  Consistent with this common plan, the stair to the basement isn’t nested under the stair to the 2nd floor, but rather enclosed in space that feels like an afterthought off the kitchen at the back.

The Client wanted to create connection through all of the main spaces, as well as through the house to the back yard.  After opening up most of the interior walls at the ground floor, the dining area was moved to the front room.  A dining room benefits from length, but can be perfectly happy in a narrower space than the other main spaces in the public area of a house.  So, it works well beside the front entrance, so long as a sense of separation can be created.  It also looks at home with the traditional old fireplaces that we often find in these front rooms.  The kitchen moved to the middle of the house, after the opened-up stair, and looks on to the living room at the back that now opens up to the back yard and the stair to the back door and basement.

Traditional and Open Concept can seem like mutually exclusive ideas, but with tasteful finishes that compliment the existing original features, Traditional can indeed be open.

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