Arlington Second-Story Addition

This was a one-story ranch. Every bedroom and the only full bath sat on the main floor, right off the kitchen and living room.

We measured the house and spent the winter and spring on design. We drew several ways to add space, from shed dormers to hip, cross-gable and craftsman-style roofs, and rendered three versions of the front before settling on a full second story with board-and-batten gables and standing-seam metal roofs over the entry and a wide bank of front windows. Upstairs there are four bedrooms, including a primary suite with a vaulted ceiling, two baths and a walk-in closet. Downstairs, two of the old bedrooms became a new entry with an open stair, a mudroom and a pantry.

Building a new floor on top of an older house takes careful framing. The original walls were 2x4, so we set new 2x10 floor framing, built the new walls in 2x6 and added LVL headers over the existing first-floor windows. We pinned down details early, like the trim brackets under the roof overhangs and the sloped bedroom ceiling, so there were fewer surprises on site. The new space beat the Massachusetts energy code by almost 12%.