Imagine your 100-year-old home needed a renovation and, based on the recommendation of a childhood friend, you blithely hire the first and only architects you interview. Imagine that, in doing so, you successfully land an inspired design collective whose recent projects include workplace meditation rooms for Google. That is the kind of luck that launched the first-floor do-over of the 1920s row house Gary Comorau and Regina O’Malley share in the Glendale neighborhood of Queens, New York, which resulted in a light-filled and playful home.

Gary, an IT director for a company that supplies parts to the tech industry, has lived in the Glendale Townhome since 1979. Over the years, he had undertaken some minor renovations with his brother, bringing the old kitchen and pantry up to date and shoring up a sagging rear deck, but he’d grown used to a living room so dark that he needed lamps to read midday. Regina, an actor and theater teacher, who Gary met as a widower when he enrolled in the acting class she instructs, longed to take down the walls and introduce light to the house when she moved in with Gary three years ago. The duo decided to undertake an extensive renovation of the home’s ground level despite decades’ worth of history and an accumulated strata of stuff.

Before: Foyer

Can Vu Bui and Lane Rick, New York-based principals at Office of Things, a young firm with offices in New York, Charlottesville, and Chicago, took on the project in collaboration with another local architect, Matthew Storrie.

After: Foyer

use color to draw people through space and pinpoint various locations,” Bui says. A sculptural yellow Roly Poly armchair by Faye Toogood is situated beneath the new skylight." layout="wide" credit="Photo by Nicholas Venezia" photoUserId="6782826634481356800"/>

While the existing, 600-square-foot ground level had a narrow and chopped-up floor plan, Regina and Gary wanted to retain some details of the working-class row house. The architects used the original curved openings to the stairs and dining room as inspiration for the arch motif that is incorporated throughout the design for the overhaul.

Before: Dining Area

After: Dining Area

A load-bearing masonry wall previously blocked light from the living and dining rooms, and partitions between the staircase, kitchen, and dining area inhibited the flow between the spaces. The team decided to open the plaster wall between the stairs and dining room and add three steps to the base of the stairwell that turn toward the dining room at a 90-degree angle to create a more seamless connection. Custom oak millwork built into the new wall opening provides a pantry, storage cabinets, and a low bench. Curved, open shelving with cabinetry underneath covers the opposite wall in the dining area.

Before: Staircase

Before: The narrow stairs, formerly hidden from the adjacent dining area by a plaster wall, ran straight from the second floor to the living room." layout="" credit="Courtesy of Can Bui, Office of Things" photoUserId=""/>

After: Staircase

Before: Kitchen

After: Kitchen

“By removing load-bearing walls between the cellular rooms, the arched openings guide light and air into the core of the house,” says the architect. Meanwhile, the introduction of color—including the red-painted window frames and doors, and the pale-mint archways—lends a fresh and energetic vibe. “We wanted to use color to draw people through interior,” Bui continues. “The clients didn’t want a solidly modern and minimal space. It’s not their character.”

At the end of the project, Regina and Gary got everything they wanted in the renovation of their home’s 600-square-foot ground level: a sunny, inviting, and open layout conducive to family visits, social gatherings, making art, leading acting classes, and reading during the day without lamps.

More Before & After:

14 Row Houses and Brownstones “Before & After” Their Much-Needed Makeovers

A Brooklyn Couple’s Dim, Sequestered Kitchen Becomes a Luminous Gathering Space

Project Credits:

Architect of Record: Can Vu Bui and Lane Rick, Office of Things / @officeofthings; in collaboration with Matthew Storrie

Builder/General Contractor: Tomak Group

Structural Engineer: Justin Fabrikant, Laufs Engineering Design

Cabinetry Design: Office of Things (millwork), Tomak Group (fabrication)