This grand home started life as a once-humble one storey Tudor in the desirable Virginia-Highlands neighborhood. We were hired by the clients to turn it into a grand two storey home for a family with two small boys. We began by digging new large footing under the entire existing home and installing 3 foot concrete footings and changing out the homes beams for LVL beams to support the new weight. We removed the rear wall of the original house, as well as the entire roof. To see the process of the renovation, click on the photojournal link below. As we enlarged and expanded the house, we knew it was key to make sure that the Tudor maintained its character and so we carefully removed all of the existing woodwork, light fixtures, medicine cabinet, etc and restored them for reinstalling. In the new upstairs of the home, we repurposed salvaged matching antique doors and hung them with antique hardware. Every detail of the house was carefully restored from the original painted butler’s pantry, now a gleaming built-in antique, to the giant heart of pine columns that frame out the dining room. The house is now a 5 bedroom, 3 bathroom dream home boasting historic character and charm.
The Coat of Arms House Virtual Tour
(click on the photos to view the tour)
In this large scale project, we tore off the original roof and added a second floor. We added and restored this gorgeous Craftsman style front door and customized it by adding rails and stiles to make it structurally sounder. The original slag glass light fixture was removed, restored, and reinstalled. The mailbox is original. Finally, we added our signature Laughing Sun plaque to the portico.
This large elegant living room is the original footprint. We stripped the paint off the woodwork and milled replacement pieces from the original Tudor roof sheathing when necessary.
As per the client’s wishes, we installed reproduction solid fir wood windows in the same lite pattern as the originals. We salvaged the original panes for re-use. This house was a time capsule of sorts was wonderful in that it still featured gorgeous original light fixtures.
We removed the original castle-like Tudor sconces, rewired them and reinstalled them on the newly rewired electrical boxes.
The fireplace mantel was stripped of its paint, sanded, refinished and shellacked. We added 99.9% efficient gas logs in the fireplace to heat the living room space. In the spirit of restoring green, we installed soy-foam insulation throughout the entire houses’ framing members.
The dining room was modified to add a staircase to the new upstairs and a staircase to the basement. The house had a few original arches and this theme was carried throughout the restored and new spaces.
They celebrate openings, transitions, and stairwells. To support weight from the upstairs, we installed reclaimed heart of pine porch columns underneath structural, load bearing pedestals that we custom crafted from the house’s 2x8 roofing sheathing.
The stunning 1930s chandelier is a genuine Tudor fixture hailing from old England and features striking art glass globes. This gracious dining room opens into the chef’s dream kitchen and is perfect for facilitating parties.
This dream kitchen was custom crafted to fit the 1930’s Tudor theme.
The Coat of Arms House kitchen
Eclestical arches, heart pine upper cabinets milled from reclaimed wood, and fine woodworking details such as flush inset drawers and doors, elegant brackets, profiled toe kick, opaque art glass, and soft close drawers complete the experience.
The spacious kitchen is topped with traditional Calacatta gold marble counters and the island is topped with St. Sebastian antique granite with a texture similar to that of leather.
The large custom pantry affords a plethora of storage.
The original butler's pantry was moved to the breakfast nook of the new kitchen and extensively restored. We stripped the paint, spent hours sanding, rebuilding it, and varnishing the piece. It’s now a beautiful built-in antique.
The breakfast nook also boasts a unique antique light fixture.
This original bedroom was located in the rear of the house. To add the second floor, we had to remove the original oak flooring and rebuild the entire structure of the foundation and then put the antique oak flooring back in.
All of the original doors in the house were restored, as well as the beautiful door hardware. The HVAC registers were also restored. We did add the antique French doors to open up the space to the kitchen. The homeowners use this bedroom as a family room.
This space is the location of the original bathroom. Because of the need to beef up the structural underneath this space, we gutted the bathroom down to the studs. That process uncovered termite & water damage that we repaired.
We went back with subway tile in the shower; refinished the original cast iron tub, installed new faucets. The homeowners chose a similar white hexagon tile for the floor. The Tudor sconce is original and we rewired it. The pedestal sink is an antique provided by LSR and restored. The medicine cabinet is the restored original.
This bedroom is in the footprint of the original downstairs bedroom.
