River House
The owners of the River House are totally into the mid-century style. We added two bedrooms and a bathroom with the same outside appearance as the original house. Hidden behind the wide overhangs and low pitched roofs are thicker insulated walls and ceilings and higher plates that allow storm doors to open outwards without hitting the eaves. We opened up the plan, replacing a large brick fireplace with an efficient Danish wood stove. We replaced wood single pane windows with operable insulated fiberglass windows that were in some places larger than the original. Where wall heights did not allow room for wood headers, we used steel. All of the original portion of the house was sprayed with high density foam, both for thermal performance and to discourage the many rodents that had moved into the cavities from coming back. A lot of the renovation work is hidden. Photos by John Whipple