Melrose Colonial First-Floor Redesign

This Melrose colonial had a closed-off kitchen with oak cabinets, a bay window over the sink and an old covered porch at the back. The owners asked us to improve the layout of the ground floor, with a full kitchen remodel and fewer walls between the kitchen, dining room and living room.

We measured and drew the existing first floor, worked through design options and built from our own plans. The old porch was enclosed with new exterior walls on a new block foundation, keeping its roof, so the kitchen could grow into that space. Temporary walls held up the house while an engineered beam went in with posts down to the foundation, opening the kitchen to the dining area. We framed a new opening from the kitchen to the living room and took down the living room's applied ceiling beams.

The new kitchen has white Schrock cabinets with glass-front uppers and tall pantry storage, a blue-gray island with seating and a built-in microwave, stone counters, a stainless farmhouse sink under a new double-hung window and a herringbone tile panel behind the range. We also added a powder room and a new kitchen heating zone with a toe-kick heater. Outside, we built a granite porch with stairs, put in new exterior doors and wove new cedar shingles into the existing siding.