A Crisp Renovation is a SNAP for this Stale Gingerbread House

Jen and Albert knew that they had found a sweet gem in purchasing a dated cottage just outside of Washington DC.

Built in 1939, the original house featured the peculiarities of a “gingerbread” style - complete with minty green shutters, scalloped eaves, and a sharp cascading roof. Jen and Albert admired the cottage’s humble curb appeal, garden, and perimeter canopy of mature trees. Several distasteful additions and renovations throughout the years made portions of house look undercooked. Luckily, Jen and Albert had the perfect recipe in mind.

In order to maintain valuable tree canopy, their renovation work focused within the original house footprint, improving the home’s insulation and energy usage, while organizing disjointed roof lines and abrupt material changes. Old single pane windows were replaced. Stripped to the studs, the home was spray insulated and rewired. New electric heat pumps and an efficient electric hot water heater were added.

On the exterior, window sizes were enlarged and replaced with frosted gold aluminum casements. The existing window sills on the rear of the house were dropped to open views to the backyard while bringing in ample morning light.
Masonry remained largely intact and was repainted, while wood framed portions of the house were reclad in a shimmering corrugated aluminum siding. Deemed to be in mint condition, the slate roof remained at the front of the house. Altered roof lines were clad in standing seam aluminum to match the color of the new siding.

At the rear of the house, an old tar hipped roof was carved out to make a terrace to serve the new primary bedroom space.
Circulation issues abounded on the interior. The original primary bedroom was positioned diagonally opposite the original stair, creating so much wasted circulation space that in moving the stair, the house gained an additional bedroom! With the interior stairs relocated to the center of the house, Jen and Albert flooded the house with natural light via a series of skylights. These Skylights orient slightly North, inviting in bountiful diffused light while allowing hot air to escape through one of the operable skylights, a function called “stack effect”.

Light travels down and through a 2-story bookcase for the couple’s extensive cooking and art and architecture book collection. A slatted white oak wall filters light to all levels of the house during the course of the day.

The basement level is a play space, adjacent to a large light well with a terracing garden. Without ample natural light, basements are not inviting spaces. The new lightwell elevates the appeal and comfort of the basement to other spaces in the house.