In 2012, Catherine and VW Fowlkes, the couple behind Fowlkes Studio, bought a small home in the American University Park neighborhood of Washington, D.C. At 1,200 square feet, the home had two bedrooms and one-and-a-half baths, as well as a finished basement where their two sons could play.

It was a plan that worked for the family for many years—until the boys started to literally outgrow their room. “The boys were in what was probably once the nursery, in bunk beds, and it just got to be ridiculous,” says Catherine. “I’ve got some tall family members, so we saw the writing on the wall.”

Before: Front Exterior

After: Front Exterior

Part of why the Fowlkeses were originally drawn to the home was its potential to be expanded. For one, the staircase was off to one side instead of bogarting the floor plan, so it wouldn’t need to be moved. “The stair and circulation was all justified to the side, so we knew this would be, hands down, so much more flexible when we were able to tinker with it,” says Catherine.

Before: Entry and Stairs

After: Entry and Stairs

Fowlkes Studio added a 1,720-square-foot, three-story addition to give themselves some much-needed breathing room. The architects moved the living room from the entrance to this addition, creating a flexible “away room” by the front door, where a hallway lined with large, built-in cabinets offers storage. The kitchen also migrated to the rear addition, and there’s a new powder room in its place.

The new configuration “allows there to be a couple of beats of pause before you’re in the thick of [the house],” says VW.

Before: Living Room

After: Away Room

Before: Dining Room and Kitchen

After: Dining Room, Kitchen, and New Living Room

At the basement level, the addition offered enough space to create an independent apartment, while upstairs, the architects converted the boys’ old nursery to an en-suite bathroom attached to the main bedroom, and then installed side-by-side, light-filled bedrooms in the addition for the kids to enjoy.

“Often what happens in houses of this vintage is that when you extend off the back, you end up with a landlocked space that gets no light in the middle,” says VW. “And you can end up losing a bedroom because there's just not enough width to accommodate a hallway, bedroom, and the stair.”

While this house’s original floor plan was the smallest that the couple saw in their initial property search, key factors made it easy to modify, and the couple made sure that their changes retained the home’s lived-in charm. “Even though it was so small and sort of stylistically bland, there was just a real sweetness to the house,” says Catherine. “And I think the renovation has retained that quality, from before to after.”

Before: Backyard

After: Backyard

After: Main Suite

After: Children’s Bedrooms

More Before & After:

An Architect Peps Up Her Midcentury Chalet in the Catskills

An Abandoned Austin Bungalow Springs Back to Life With Five Lush Yards

Project Credits:

Architecture: Fowlkes Studio / @fowlkesstudio

Builder: CGMR Construction

Structural Engineer: Neubauer Consulting Engineers

Interior Design: Fowlkes Studio