Built in the same valley as Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin, this home maintains a low profile on its hilly site.  The three bedrooms and den are aligned along the north side of the house, facing the road, while the public living spaces face south toward the private hill top.  The partially exposed basement contains additional finished space.  

Horizontal bands of windows, a continuous light deck encircling the great room, a built-in window seat, earthy colors on the exterior and the use of limestone accents reflect the Wright inspiration.  

With its vaulted ceiling, the great room feels more spacious than one would expect from the home's outward appearance.  An adjacent screen porch and deck provide additional space for entertaining family and friends.  

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Summer is drawing to a close, and I've been busy getting out to photograph some of my recently constructed projects, including this prairie style home.  Its 20+ acre site is located in the Town of Mazomanie and includes a pond and a marshy area adjacent to Dunlap Creek.  Coincidentally, the site sits across the valley from another home that I designed in 2013.  The property has beautiful views of neighboring hills and farms.  My clients have owned and camped on the property for years and have been planting trees and making other improvements in anticipation of building their new home.  

Interior characteristics of the home include light decks, bands of windows and an open plan with spaces that are visually connected yet maintain a separate identity due to the design of the ceiling and the walls.  The partial view of one space from another creates a sense of mystery, calling one to explore.

A special feature and focal point of the home is the masonry heater around which the living area, dining area and kitchen radiate.  This highly efficient fireplace includes a heated bench, firewood storage nook and a small cooking oven on the kitchen side of the masonry mass.

My clients desired a home that would be unobtrusive, and so it was designed to nestle into the gentle slope as much as possible, connecting to the outside with a breezeway between the home and garage, a series of patios and rock retaining walls.  Future plans include a stone stair connecting the sunset terrace to the west side of the property.

As is characteristic of the prairie style, there are hip roofs with broad overhangs and horizontal banding of windows and materials to emphasize the expansive nature of the prairie.

One of my current projects is an addition to a four-square style house near Monroe Street in Madison, which was built in 1924.  Like most homes of that era, the kitchen is small by today's standards, measuring a little more than 10' x 10'.  In addition, the paths to the basement, the 1/2 bathroom and the mud room run through the kitchen.  The homeowners enjoy cooking together and would like to have about 50% more workspace than they currently have.

In addition the homeowners would like to expand their very tiny 1/2 bath and replace the existing mud room with one which is more functional and safe for their visiting parents.   On the second floor, they would like to either expand the only bathroom on the second floor (which is very compact) or add an ensuite bathroom to the primary bedroom.

CONCEPT #1
​I came up with two main concepts:  Concept #1 keeps the kitchen in its current location but expands it with a 6' addition into the back yard.  The addition would include a larger mud room as well.  On the second floor, an ensuite bathroom would sit above the new mud room.  The addition looks fairly small due to the fact that the second story of the addition is substantially smaller than the first-story portion.

Below are floor plans and elevations showing Concept #1.  In the elevation drawings, the white part of the house is existing, and the blue part is the addition.

CONCEPT #2
Concept #2 moves the entire kitchen to the addition and repurposes the current kitchen as a mud room with new 1/2 bath.  The second floor primary bedroom moves to the addition, and the current primary bedroom is remodeled into a larger walk-in closet and ensuite bathroom.

Advantages of this concept are that the kitchen and primary bedroom are larger and can have windows on three sides for more natural light, and the homeowners gain a larger bedroom closet.  The primary disadvantages of this concept are that it is 60% larger than Concept #1, and it has a boxier, more imposing look on the outside.  

My clients are taking some time to decide which concept they'd like to go with.  It's looking like they'll go with Concept #2, with some modifications.

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Last fall, my husband and I decided to remove several overgrown evergreen trees and bushes in our yard, leaving some large bare areas where weeds are happily sprouting up now.  We've decided to fill the gaps in our gardens primarily (although not exclusively) with native plants.  We're hopeful that native plants will provide a supportive habitat for birds, bees, butterflies and other animals.  We're also hoping that, once established, the native plants will require minimal maintenance and be resilient in the face of droughts and extreme heat.

I'd love to be able to achieve a look of abundance similar to the photo above (that photo is not of our yard.)

John Pohl, of Folly Afield LLC, located northwest of Spring Green, will be designing and installing our new beds.  We're excited to see what he comes up with!

Below are a couple of photos showing the two corners of the yard where the trees and bushes were removed.  I plan to post again to provide updates as things progress.

I'm currently working on a remodel and addition to a farmhouse built in 1936 in the Town of Brooklyn, south of Madison.  As is common in a home of this era, rooms are small by today's standards.  My clients have been gradually carrying out their long-term plan for bringing their home up to date.  Twenty years ago they added a new living room and primary bedroom suite.  They've also done a number of smaller projects over the years.  Now they are ready to remodel and expand the original kitchen.

To begin with, the existing kitchen is small.  Secondly, the path from the primary entry to the remainder of the house passes through the middle of the kitchen.  In addition, the range and refrigerator sit side by side with no counter space between them to use when cooking or to place items taken out of the refrigerator.

The alterations will include removing a stair and the non-bearing wall between the kitchen and dining room, giving the kitchen double the space that it has now.  An addition will make room for a walk-in pantry, 1/2 bath, laundry room, new primary entry with mud room and a garage.  The 3D floor plan below shows the enlarged kitchen on the right side and the addition at the bottom (garage not shown).  The new kitchen will be large enough to include wall ovens, a large island, coffee station and desk.  Circulation from the new entry to the rest of the house will pass behind the island stools rather than through the "working" side of the kitchen.

The 3D interior view below looks from the new dining room toward the door of the walk-in pantry.  The new larger window above the sink faces south and will bring in lots of natural light.

It's always satisfying to bring new life and functionality to an older home.

It has been a busy summer so far.  For a while it seemed that work was slowing down as I finished some projects, but then the phone started ringing again.  

My clients for the Richland County Farmhouse Addition project, which I wrote about in my post on March 17 of last year, were kind enough to send me some photos of their addition under construction.  As exciting as it is to design new projects, it's even more fulfilling to see them come to fruition.  Below are a couple of photos of the progress.  The project is being general contracted by Aaron Hubbs of Hubbs Construction Inc., who is located in Wonewoc, Wisconsin.  

This home was designed for recent retirees who relocated from Tennessee to be closer to their children in the Madison area.  The site is a former farmstead in the Town of Primrose.  The original home and barn had been torn down when my clients bought the property, but some stone retaining walls and a silo remain as evidence of the site's former life.   

The new home is designed with vaulted ceilings in most of the rooms; large window  and door groupings  on the south and west overlook views of the fields and neighboring wetland.  The sitting area, dining area and kitchen are combined in one large space with an asymmetrical vaulted ceiling.  The sitting area is at the south end of the home, with the best views.  The dining area is adjacent to a screen porch which can also be accessed from the primary bedroom.  

The design includes a continuous "light deck" that runs at a height of 8' above the floor on the north and east sides of the room.  A wood trim band on the outside face of the light deck hadn't yet been installed when I took these photos.  It will provide contrast to give the light deck a visual punch.

The general contractor for this home was Meier Construction of Barneveld, Wisconsin.

The bedrooms and bathrooms are also on the main level and have vaulted ceilings as well.  For privacy, they are separated from the public spaces by the basement stair and the entry foyer, which serves as a link between the public and private wings of the house.  The primary bedroom has its own hallway for extra privacy.

One of my recently completed projects is this new home for horse owners in the Town of Dodgeville.  They have a gorgeous 10-acre property with views of woods and farmland.  Building was restricted to the uphill portion of the property due to the presence of a wetland area along the south edge of the property.

My clients' original plan was to build a two-story home with main living spaces on the first floor and bedrooms on the second floor.  However, I demonstrated how they could use the walkout basement for living space, eliminating the cost of a second floor.  

My clients own horses, and they wanted to be able to keep an eye on their horses from within the house.  An abundance of tall windows were used along the south side of the house so that all of the major spaces, including the great room, all three bedrooms, the screen porch and decks and the family room on the lower level, could have views of the distant wooded hills and the horses.

The living area, dining area and kitchen are laid out in a triangle to create a long diagonal view.  The living area and kitchen share a vaulted ceiling.  The dining area is defined by windows on three sides and a lower ceiling.  A wraparound deck on the south and west and a screen porch on the east take advantage of the views in three directions.

The general contractor for this home was Gehin Builders of Belleville.  

I hope to come back next summer when the grass is grown in and it's sunny so that I can get some better exterior photos.

This home, currently on the boards, is designed for a flat site in the Town of Arena in Iowa County Wisconsin.  My clients came to me with the idea of building an A-frame house on their rural site.  However, we quickly came to the conclusion that the tight space constraints of an A-frame would not meet their requirements.  A-frames, with their steeply pitched roofs which double as the walls of the house, are big on ceiling height but small on floor area.  

​Instead we opted for a design with a 1-1/2 story great room, with the remainder of the house being 2 stories in order to create adequate space for four bedrooms, 2-1/2 baths, a large walk-in pantry, loft, mud room and laundry.

The front and sides of the home utilize standard sized windows, saving the drama for the great room window wall which overlooks the forested south end of the property.  Exterior materials include black metal vertical siding, black standing seam roofs and black windows, with stained wood entry door, overhead doors and screen porch framing providing warm accents.

In addition to the interior conditioned space, there is a screen porch for enjoying the summer months bug-free, and a patio which wraps around two sides of the great room.

This was a fun project that was constructed earlier in the year.  It is the first carport that I've designed.  My client wanted a carport to blend in aesthetically with the home, just like the existing pool house and shed do.  The shape of the roofs, materials and colors all reference the other buildings on the site.  

The carport was built under the existing trees, and beautiful new landscaping connects it to the site as well.  Downlighting built into the ceiling of the carport is wired to a motion sensor which turns the lights on when the car approaches the carport or when the owner walks out of the front door of the house.  Rather than pour a concrete slab, my client opted for a gravel floor, in order to keep the feeling casual.  When there's no vehicle parked there, the carport can be used as a covered outdoor space.