One of the features of our renovation is to join the current main house to the cottage – a structure used variously in the past as a servant’s quarters, granny cottage, yoga studio and, most recently, as a gym.

We’ve chosen to work with Andy Kriek, an architect recommended to me by a friend whose gorgeous new house on Kensington Ridge he has recently completed.

The current house structure has the kitchen in the front, facing the pool, with the cottage off the right separated by a split level deck. The two structures are completely separate and thus joining them into one house, that looks and feels like it’s meant to fit together, is challenging.

The current structure with kitchen (left) and cottage (right)

 

Extending the actual house by, for example, adding a room has various drawbacks. Firstly the pool is in the way. Secondly this would involve a lot of structural change – extending the roof and potentially cutting the kitchen off from all the natural light it currently enjoys.

Thus we have decided to explore what may be called an “add on”. The best example of this from this example on Pinterest:

The use of glass and steel let’s this area stand apart from the main structure but also be completely different in style to it. It’s a kind of conseravatory which, in our case, will link from two sides joining the kitchen to a new passageway into the new master suite.

Ambitious? Perhaps. We haven’t yet seen the quote 🙂

Here are the rest of our inspirations shared on Pinterest: