Blue-Green Renovation

Turning An Old House Green;

Design Goals: Our clients purchased a dilapidated two-family house in South Portland because of its location. Their challenge to us: to transform the building into a home with low energy demands, incorporating modern design within the context of the traditional New England structure and neighborhood.

Description of Design Solution: We began with a brand new floor plan that called for removing all bearing walls and replacing them with Maine hemlock beams. These beams and their structural connections became an expressive part of the design that set the tone for the rest of the building. We added a small addition to house a new stair that allowed us to open up the floor plan on the first floor and add a third bedroom to the second floor.

The project features Maine materials and craftsmanship throughout: a custom-turned, one-off column made of reclaimed cypress at the front entry; bold Maine made cabinetry; reclaimed antique doors; and Maine ash flooring.

Sustainability: After putting the building back together, a blower door test was performed by our energy consultants and the air tightness rating was the second-best tested to date, in spite of the messy nature of an addition and renovation process. The owners have found their energy costs to be amazingly low as demonstrated by the fact that they used less than a cord of wood as their primary heat source for the house during its first heating season. An emphasis was placed throughout the process to use local materials and craftsman and to pursue and overall timeless design that would be conducive to easy future renovations.