Vicente Wolf

Week 4

After showing the new plans to Mr. & Mrs. M a discussion arose over Mrs. M wanting a terrace off the master bedroom and Mr. M contemplating the option of an extra bedroom upstairs.  They already have 2 boys and are expecting the possibility of a third child, it could also function as an extra guest bedroom.  We started to play with the idea of building this extra room above the living room and using the area above the dining room as the terrace.  In my opinion I felt no one was going to use that terrace off the bedroom, I just couldn’t see them looking over their backyard and whistling at the birds but Mrs. M wanted to be able to watch the children from the terrace when they were playing in the backyard or pool.  I was also concerned about the budget of adding on a terrace, but she was adamant.

The challenge now was how to build an addition over the living room while dealing with the code restrictions; we were going to end up with a slanted roof in the new bedroom since the code restricted how high we could go.

Mr. and Mrs. M kept fluctuating between having 2 larger kids’ bedrooms and adding the third bedroom and making the others a bit smaller.  My sense was that adding a third bedroom would add value to their house with the only disadvantage being that 2 of the bedrooms would have to share a bathroom.  Since these rooms were meant for the kids it wouldn’t a problem, we would make the bathroom very generous in space and have two faucets so no one would be fighting over the sink.  We would also create closets for all the kids’ rooms and a new hallway to connect all 3 rooms and the new bathroom.

For the slanted roof in the new bedroom we proposed putting in skylights and placing a desk underneath it to solve the problem of the reduced headroom in that area. We also proposed a skylight in the new bathroom to bring in natural light since we did not want to have a window facing the terrace.

We prepared elevations of the front of the house so the M’s could see how the addition with the slanted roof looked from the street.  We also wanted them to see how we would balance the new bay window that we proposed for the living room with a large square window in the new bedroom above it.  On the right hand side of the house we balanced out the elevation by adding windows in the master bathroom above the side entrance and porch.

I was pleased about the addition of the third bedroom as it brought quirkiness to the house by giving it that character which you see in so many older homes but you just cannot find in a new home.

We proposed 2 plans for the upstairs and I guess you can see which one was my personal preference. 

Plan 1 – was with the 2 large kids rooms, no terrace, and 4 windows in the master. This was the less expensive plan

Plan 2- was with the 3 bedrooms and the desired terrace.

There is always a quandary when one shows two options and the client is fully committed to one of the two.  Do you skew the option by doing something like I did with the first plan by showing only windows and not the terrace, which I knew would immediately make the Mrs. M say “I want the plan with the terrace”?   We all have subtle tricks that we can use to guide the client, sometimes they backfire on us when the clients chooses the one you really didn’t like and then your stuck with it and will have to fight for the one you believe in.

I knew at this meeting Mr. M would give me the name of the contractor they wanted to use, Scott Fenelon of Fenelon Construction.

They were very pleased with the work he had done prior and the price he was coming in at, my next weekend in Montauk I would check out his prior jobs.

Plan 1

Plan 2

Front Elevation