building for our future

We have a great property located in Bucks County, Pennsylvania that features almost 4 acres of beautiful wooded areas and an expansive park-like lawn. One portion of our 1900 sq ft home, a stone structure, dates to the mid-1700s and adds a timeless feel to our environment and a nearly two story great room featuring old barn beams and a large, walk-in fireplace is truly grand.

When we purchased the property in late 1999, it was ideally suited to our “DINK” lifestyle, although we have since done a complete kitchen renovation that is both a cook’s dream and a big improvement in space utilization and light. In late 2005, we became parents of two beautiful school-aged girls through adoption...and quickly determined that the existing bedrooms and single full bathroom were going to be inadequate over time for our family needs.

“Move or add on” was the first question and we called on our friend and real estate professional, Pat Pignitor of Kurfiss Real Estate to help us get a current value for our property as well as identify local opportunities that might fit our needs and solve our concerns. She and her associates felt that we had done well with appreciation in the nearly 6 years we have lived here. Moving, while certainly a viable option, would not necessarily provide a comparable land situation nor a home that would not require additional work to meet our desires. So here we are, diligently working on a prospective home addition that will get us what we need as well as what we want.

And what we want includes a new first floor guest room with bath, a new formal entry that takes advantage of our property, a multi-purpose room for music, games and entertaining, a new second floor master suite including a sitting area/office and a new 2nd floor laundry. (After all...where does one take off their dirty clothing most often?) This equates to about 1500 square feet of new living area over our current 1900 square feet. The project also includes a new driveway that provides safer ingress/egress from the property as well as a better view of the wooded and landscaped environment. The latter is actually the first step and is already underway, with some required tree removal scheduled to meet the demands of the PENNDOT permitting process and quotes coming in from excavation firms “as we speak”.

Formal planning for the new living space has also been in progress. We interviewed a few architects about two months ago and chose to work with James W. Gray & Company associated with Kaufman & Gray Architectural/Interior Design of New Hope, Pennsylvania. Jim coincidentally was recommended to us by Pat from Kurfiss and felt like an old family friend from the moment we met with him the first time. He seems to have an innate feel for things important to us, like preserving the character of our home while enhancing its functionality. His ideas relative to relocation of a stairway and siting of the new formal entryway have been outstanding and as you’ll soon see when I post some drawings and renderings, really make the new areas feel like they belong.

As of this writing, we have a nearly final floor plan for the addition and the architect is working on the elevations. We hope to have those soon and upon approval, will move toward finding out how much this is likely to cost (ouch)...which is a final opportunity to re-examine the “move or add on” question before proceeding with the project. Stay tuned for more news as those activities progress.
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I decided to create this new site as a journal, rather than a typical static web site. This will allow for regular (?) activity reports, an organized posting archive over time and feedback/commentary from readers. (moderated...) I like this journaling (BLOG) format a lot and may transition my woodworking site in this direction in the future...it’s overdue for a re-design, anyway! And combining the BLOGing features with normal material presents just enough new programming challenge that it should be fun!