Architects Katie Stranix and JT Bachman have many talents. Not only do they teach at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, but they’re also cofounders and principals at the multicity firm Office of Things, which designs residences, commercial projects, and artful installations (be it a meditation chamber or a lobby light fixture with 30,000 LEDs) for clients like Google and YouTube.

“With a lot of the work that we were doing, particularly at the beginning, the scope was very limited,” Katie explains. “It was questioning, ‘What are the basic elements? How can you rethink those to create a space that is exciting and unexpected within a small footprint?’” As it happens, that mindset informed the design of their own Charlottesville home.

Before: Front Exterior

When their teaching gigs began in 2018, the couple were renting a home a five-minute drive from the UVA campus. A year later, they saw a very similar, brick-clad 1950s Cape Cod–style house for sale just down the street: “the standard American starter home,” as Katie puts it.

The back and front yards were teeming with oak, maple, and cherry trees, and unlike their rental, this home came with a basement. These spaces would be useful as their family grew to eventually include two sons (now aged four and six), and Walnut, a rescue hound.

After: Front Exterior

After purchasing the property, the couple explored over a dozen different design ideas, some involving additions. But with their modest budget, Katie and JT asked themselves how they could work within the existing footprint but still make it feel expansive. “It was a rental for a long time, and the owner had intentionally chopped things up into a million rooms,” Katie says. “There were so many things to undo and rethink.”

Before: Back Exterior

JT and Katie both earned master’s degrees from the Yale University School of Architecture, which combines design theory with hands-on building, so they felt confident making DIY updates after picking up the keys. Soon, the downstairs powder room was fully renovated, and the wall between the kitchen and dining room was removed.

After: Back Exterior

But then the pandemic happened, and Katie got pregnant with their first son. “We kind of hit the pause button,” she says. JT adds, “we also wanted to live in the house for a little while, to figure out what exactly we wanted to do.” By 2022, after the birth their second son, the couple were ready for a second renovation phase, this time with the help of general contractor Element Construction.

Before: Living Room

After: Living Room

Katie and JT liked the original brick exterior, but it had been compromised by a previous owner. “They repainted the windows and just kind of globbed paint onto the sides of the bricks,” JT explains. “It was going to be more work and cost to remove that than to just paint the whole house.” The new color—Regent Green by Benjamin Moore—is “actually one of my favorite things about the house,” he says, noting how it changes throughout the day in different light conditions.

The entry opens directly to the living room which is full of light thanks to a large new picture window. They refinished the red oak floors, and enlarged the doorway to the dining area, which—combined with the removal of the wall between the kitchen and living area—helps to improve sight lines and connections.

Before: Kitchen

After: Kitchen

“It kind of made this larger transition to the backyard from the living space,” JT says. “By removing something, we actually extended that transition between inside and outside.”

Though they imagined an accordion-style collapsible glass wall in the dining room, the couple opted instead for a more economical pair of sliding glass doors. Even so, the transparency makes it easy for Katie and JT to keep an eye on their boys playing in the backyard.

Before: Dining Room

Upstairs, the modest second floor is defined by the slope of the gabled roof. Prior to renovation, it was a guest room and office, but now it’s the primary suite.

After: Dining Room

The couple added insulation, a mini-split air conditioner, and skylights to turn the dark, often overly warm room into what JT calls “ the most comfortable space in the house.” There’s a skylight right above the bed, and its light reflects off the white-painted walls. “The luminance of the space is just dramatically enhanced,” JT adds.

Before: Primary Bedroom

New plywood built-ins run along the wall and form a threshold between the bedroom and bathroom, eliminating the need for much furniture and freeing up space for hanging out. The material was an economical choice.

“We initially planned for white oak,” Katie explains, but when it proved too expensive, their table saw came in handy. “We just bought a stack of radiata pine plywood, which is about the cheapest, and then that was my summer project, building all of that millwork,” JT says. Now, the built-in dormer window seat is one of Katie’s favorite places to read or work with her laptop.

After: Primary Bedroom

$30,878 Site Work	$2,585 Foundation	$5,943 Structural
$17,285 Wall Finishes	$5,977 Flooring	$18,333 Roofing
$50 Hardware	$11,674 Electrical	$3,073 Plumbing
$17,020 HVAC Equipment	$7,810 Landscaping	$3,890 Kitchen & Bath Fixtures
$477 Lighting	$25,963 Cabinetry	$12,402 Countertops
$7,627 Appliances	$29,500 Windows & Glazing	$4,486 Doors
$6,902 Tilework	$13,515 Exterior Painting	$1,198 Permitting
$200 Furnishings & Decor	$61,175 Contractor Fee
Grand Total: $287,963

Before: Primary Bath

The primary bathroom beside their bedroom presented a different set of challenges. “We’re both pretty tall people, and before you kind of had to hunch over to take a shower,” Katie says.

After: Primary Bath

Adding a new dormer to expand the square footage was too expensive, so they removed the bathtub (and the low ceiling) and added a daylit shower that protrudes like a chimney from the sloping roofline. As an added bonus, the skylight is operable, “so you can open it up and have that kind of outdoor shower feel,” Katie adds.

Before: Boys’ Bedroom

In their sons’ bedroom, there’s a design moment that could been pulled straight out of the Office of Things oeuvre. Above the bunk beds, an opening leads to a small, plywood-lined hideout built into the attic. It’s just large enough for both boys to climb in together, and it’s naturally lit by a half-circle window that’s an original part of the front facade.

“Most of our attic is accessible for storage, but here the rafters go down in a way where you couldn’t get to it unless you punched a hole through the ceiling of the boys’ room—which is exactly what we did,” JT explains. “The contractor was like, ‘Yeah, that would be easy,’ and so we said, ‘We gotta do that!’”

After: Boys’ Bedroom and Hideout

After pulling up the basement’s original asbestos tile, the couple considered keeping the concrete slab exposed—they’d seen a puddle down there as they were initially touring the house, and they knew that houses in the neighborhood were generally prone to basement flooding. In the end, they settled on Regupol’s water-resistant Aktivlok floor tiles, which are made from recycled tires. “They’re really easy to put down. They don’t require any kind of fancy tools, and you don’t need an adhesive,” Katie says.

Today, the lowest level serves as an immersive entertainment area and an adaptable space. There is no TV in the rest of the house, but here JT and Katie set up a ceiling-mounted projector that can show movies, TV shows, and other videos on the wall. There’s also storage, a laundry area, and a playroom for the boys.

Before: Basement

Last December, the rubber floor tiles were put to the test when the home’s water supply-line broke and the space was flooded. “We pulled up all the tiles, let them dry out, mopped everything up, fixed the line, and then put the tile back down,” JT recalls. “And that worked to perfection.”

After: Basement

Initially, the couple dreamed of creating an artistic transition from the main floor to the basement, “something really funky, kind of like one of our immersive lighting installations,” JT says. They even installed an optical diffuser. But to stay within budget and finish the rest of the house, they decided to wait.

The couple aren’t sure how long they’ll stay in their self-described starter home—academia or their firm could take them beyond Charlottesville someday—although for now, their updates have made the house feel so livable and full of light, with touches of unexpected whimsy, that they could be happy here long-term. And some of their best ideas may still be yet to come.

More Budget Breakdown stories:

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Project Credits:

Architect of Record: Office of Things / @officeofthings

Builder: Element Construction

Structural Engineer: Engineering Solutions

Cabinetry Design: Poem Furniture

Stonework: Albemarle Stoneworks