Small Home Designs and Remodeling 
Custom Designer Leigh Douglas Johnson

Smaller Homes

A Mediterranean - Craftsman Home

This is a small house with a large potential.  The main floor contains 1,600sq'.  In addition, the lower level may be finished to add 1,400 sq' of living space. Set into the hillside on a sloped site, the lower floor level extends out onto a stone patio at the rear.  This lower floor would accomodate two Bedrooms and one full Bathroom; a large sized Game Room or Lounge with nice large windows; and a generous storage area.  On the main floor level is the Master Suite; the Open Plan Living - Dining Room - Kitchen; and a Half Bath for guest use.  This floor also opens out onto an outdoor Patio which has a lovely trellis roof with flowering vines intertwined.  This forms an open air yet shady Outdoor Room for Dining and relaxing.  The exterior is finished in stucco and stone with a colorful tile roof and generous Cedar beamed gable trim, porch, and trellis'.

 
A Vacation / Lake or Mountain Home

This is designed as a Vacation / Weekend Home equally suitable for a Lakeside site or as a Ski Lodge in a Mountain setting.     This design can be built at 2,600 or 3,200 square feet with 3 Bedrooms, 3.5 Bathrooms, an Open Loft, Great Room, Dining area, and Kitchen.   The two Guest Suites flank the Open Loft area on the Upper Floor level.  The Loft over looks the Central Great Room with its big stone Fireplace.  On one side of the Great Room is the Master Suite and on the other are the Kitchen and Dining areas.   The exterior can be finished as an all log home or with rustic siding and peeled log structure supporting the extended roof line over the Patio.

 

 

Remodeling Project

Custom Kitchen Design

This Kitchen remodeling was done in an older, smaller home and has greatly. increased its livability.   The original kitchen space was enlarged by removing a wall of closets and then opening it to the Dining Room beyond with the arched pass through shown.  The client chose a traditional Craftsman cabinet style, Chestnut stain, Stainless Steel appliances, and Granite slab counters.   Hand blown lighting completes the kitchen design with a little color and whimsy. 
 

         Whole House Remodeling

Shown here are before and after photos of two of our large scale remodeling projects which involved most of the house and replacement of an old, outdated/unfortunate addition with a new one which respects the historic nature of the home's original style.

Victorian Home Restoration with Appropriatley styled addition The original Victorian home (left) had suffered from a poor later addition, the shed roof, picture window and floor levels 2 feet higher than those of the original house.  We used an expert in  demolition to lower the bedrock under that garage to allow us to get the floor levels to match the original house.  There was no damage to the original home. We then built the 2 additions (one behind) which are totally in keeping with the original style.  We added some period architectural detial to the exterior as you can see in the finished version at right.  The new garage is there in the same location, though not visible in this image.

Lake Tahoe View Home The before version of this home was built on a 65% slope above Lake Tahoe in the 70's and had all the lack of character and spaciousness typical of that time.  The remodeled version shown at the right shows the added top floor, which opens the Great Room up to two and a half stories in height as you can see by the tall central windows.  The Guest cottage with the garage below was also added with a driveway accessible in Winter (which the old house did not have).  The upper drive was retained for Summer use, but the paved section was reduced to add one area of level lawn to the site.  (The photo at right is of our architectural model, it is impossible to photograph the new home effectively due to the very steep site.)