As a real estate sales professional, Catherine C. Robertson is used to giving home sellers tips on how to improve their property’s sales appeal. But when it comes to what to do to update her own house, she has been in a quandary.
“I need help,” she wrote us. “We’re the second owners of this house and have lived here 25 years; I would like an architect to suggest what can be done to update the kitchen and bathrooms, and an interior decorator to give me advice on new rugs and draperies.”
For help, we called upon Riverside-based architect Richard Borvansky, and his wife, Barbara, both of whom are interior designers. On a sunny autumn day they met to discuss possibilities and prices with Catherine and her husband, Leigh, at their rambling ranch house on a quiet street in The Woodlands section of Hinsdale.
Metal windows, arched doorways with plaster returns, carpeted plywood floors, a mantelless stone fireplace, white metal kitchen cabinets, separate heating and cooling systems and a single-car garage reveal the age of the house-41. It was built with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, two half-baths (one of them in the partial basement), a living room, dining room, study, laundry room and a U-shaped, eat-in kitchen. A year later, the original owners broke through the exterior wall of the dining room and added, in tandem, a wood-paneled family room with fireplace, a hall, a bathroom and a bedroom.
“Let’s take a look at the exterior first,” suggested Borvansky, who studied architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology during Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s tenure. “On the way in just now I noticed spots where fascia should be replaced and you probably should put up new gutters to prevent further rotting.”
The foursome moved outside, where the architect pointed out places that needed work; the Robertsons readily agreed with him. Next, everyone took a critical look at the red Roman brick, which is trimmed with lannonstone on the lower part of the front.
“The house was built in the ’50s and it looks ’50s,” Borvansky said. “Roman brick isn’t manufactured anymore.”
“I know,” Catherine replied. “It’s practically a collector’s item. Someone stopped by and said if the house is ever torn down, he’d be interested in buying the bricks.”
“You might want to consider painting the house white to tone down the brick and unify the appearance. Picture windows are passe, too,” he continued, referring to the two facing the street, each flanked by double-hung windows. “These windows could be done differently. What’s more, landscaping is burying the building; you have a major landscaping problem.”
As they rounded the corner of the attached single-car garage, Borvansky suggested they tear it down, replace it with a driveway and add a new, two-car garage at the rear of the deep lot.
“The size of the garage is disproportionate to the size of the house; in the ’50s one car per family might have been OK, but that’s no longer true. In fact, many houses built today have 2 1/2- or 3-car garages,” he said.
“I guess the only way we survived was because of the circular driveway,” said Robertson.
The women paired off, as did the men, talking as they walked past a patio of concrete squares to reach the back of the yard, where they turned to survey the intrusive, white-painted frame addition.
“Your husband and I have agreed it will take at least $100,000 to bring your place up to the ’90s and beyond,” Borvansky told Robertson.
They re-entered the house and began their excursion of the interior in the small front foyer.
“The layout leaves something to be desired,” said Catherine, adding that when their children were growing up, “visiting friends were forever laughing about getting lost in here.”
Opposite the front door is a closet; to its right is a hall to the kitchen, with doors on the right opening to the wood-paneled den, a large half-bath and a big laundry room, in that order. To the left of the foyer is the spacious, formal living room, whose rear wall features, right to left, a niche with built-in shelves; a stone-faced fireplace and an arched entrance to another hall, which affords access to the dining room on the right; a bathroom flanked by bedrooms ahead; and the master suite, which boasts a large bedroom, a closet/dressing room and a big bathroom.
“This was a wonderful place to raise four children because there were plenty of bathrooms, which cut down on arguments,” said Leigh.
But as empty-nesters, the house obviously is too big for them; they see retirement 5 to 10 years down the road.
After talking about cosmetic possibilities, including replacing shag carpeting and giving the living room fireplace a facelift, the Borvanskys targeted major areas the owners might consider redoing to increase their comfort should they decide to remain in the house until retirement time.
“I think there are probably two major changes you might make,” said Barbara Borvansky. “Your letter indicated you already know your kitchen needs to be improved; you can open up the wall between the kitchen and the laundry room to gain space and you can also extend the room into the yard. I’m visualizing a big, beautiful country kitchen.”
The Borvanskys also recommended tearing off the frame addition; the bathroom is not in working order, the bedroom isn’t needed and there’s a knotty pine-paneled room in the basement to replace the family room. Reducing the square footage might serve to reduce annual real estate taxes, now upwards of $10,000.
“Putting French doors across the rear wall of the dining room would provide light and turn it into the lovely formal room it should be. You might want to install a deck or a patio of interlocking stone outside,” Barbara said.
In Hinsdale, often nicknamed “the teardown town,” many lots have become more valuable than the houses upon them. The Robertsons’ 100-by-205-foot lot would interest any of a number of local contractors who are building homes that cost $1 million and more, a fact the two couples discussed.
As they thanked the departing Borvanskys for their suggestions, Catherine said, “We were becoming rather paralytic, but you’ve presented us with several constructive ideas for change.”
