South Candler - Decatur

Loving the classic brick one story bungalow design, my wife and I bought this 100-year-old home in the South Candler Historic District in mid-2007. When we bought this house…it was in sad shape. There was abundant ivy growing up the exterior of the house. There was a crazy circular staircase going to the “second floor”, that was in fact…the built-out attic space with no insulation. The backyard was an overgrown mess.

As architects and preservation advocates, it was known immediately this would be a LARGE multi-year renovation project.  We never had the budget to take on the whole renovation at one time…so we would have to “design” the renovations to occur in multi-year Phases.

The first phase renovation was the build-out of the attic space into two bedrooms, a playroom and new full-height bathroom. A non-historic circular stair was removed, and a “hard staircase” going to the second floor was built. The second floor required complete remodel, including new HVAC, electrical, and a new bathroom was plumbed with a dormer window.

Many years later, we added a primary suite and mudroom in the back of the house. This 650 square foot addition allowed us to have a great formal closet space, a large bathroom and mudroom rear entry piece. Over the years, large projects have occurred, such as rear back yard landscape remodel…new roof, and a complete laundry room remodel.

The architect painstakingly removed ALL the hardware from the doors, and cleaned all the knobs, plates, hinges and even stripped and refinished the interior doors. The mandate was to save as much of the original materials as possible, and the addition on the back was thought of as just an “extension” of what was there, and not a “new room”. Ultimately, the design’s intent was to have any additions to appear as they are always there, and we just did our best to take care of this 100-year-old house.