The Rothwell Home

One of Custom Contracting's larger projects of the past few years involved the Newtonville home of Ken and Pamela Rothwell. With work of this scope, having a plan and sticking to it is of the essence — as the Rothwells can attest.

Ken and Pam''s project involved:

Building a two-story addition off the front of the house with a farmer's porch. The addition includes a dining room extension on the first floor and a bedroom extension on the second floor.

Adding a second-floor bedroom above the garage. The previous bedroom was poorly insulated and had little headroom.

The Ceilings and Walls Had to Go

The first part of our work focused on the bedroom above the garage. This presented interesting challenges, as the foundation already in place couldn't support the second-story addition. As a result, we had to dig down next to the foundation and form a new concrete foundation — all while supporting the existing garage wall. This isn't work for amateurs.

After removing the garage roof structure, we built the new bedroom. In addition to having more space, it addresses the headroom shortage with beautiful cathedral ceilings.

Next came the demolition for the two-story addition, which entailed removing the ceiling and front wall of both the dining room and the bedroom above it.

This addition has served a number of purposes for the Rothwells. The farmer's porch, which replaced a small entry porch, extends across the front of the house and is a great place to relax. The expanded dining room gives the family the extra entertaining space they craved. And the expanded bedroom better accommodates the needs of their growing son.

Living Up to the Client's Expectations

With the project completed, the Rothwells were impressed with our attention to detail. For instance, bumping out the dining room meant matching or seamlessly blending in with existing elements, such as dental molding, hardwood floors, a chair rail and a 1930s-era window. We passed the test — no small achievement, considering Pam is an art historian.

Pam was also pleased with the fact that our work caused minimal disruption.

"Ken and I both work at home a lot, and we were worried about how invasive the renovation would be," she said. "But Custom Contracting did the work quickly and sealed off the doors where necessary to keep the dust under control. Overall, the experience was much better than we could have anticipated."