225 Hillcrest Rd

Renovation & Addition

Raleigh, North Carolina

Construction by Owner

• 640 SF Kitchen, Bath, & Laundry Renovation

• 320 SF Front Porch Addition

These clients first came to me in 2021 after they bought this historic Dutch Colonial and desperately needed a functioning kitchen and extra bathroom spaces for their familiy. Two years later they came back because the existing front patio foundation was in dire straights and they needed to rip it off and wanted to add a porch instead.

The original house had great bones but some very odd additions were made to it over the years, including a secondary back stairway into the kitchen off the middle of the main stair, and a passthrough half-bath. The laundry also took up a good portion of the kitchen, and the small connecting room between the kitchen and dining room was largely unusable.

By removing the secondary stairs and moving the laundry into the girls’ bathroom in what had been the old stairway headroom space, the kitchen opened up enough to add a large island. The old half bath was also replaced with extra pantry space which was much preferred to walking around a toilet. The small adjoining room between the kitchen and dining was opened up and turned into a wet bar and sitting area where the kids like to hang out after school.

Upstairs, the large closet off the primary bedroom was split into a primary bath and closet to give the owners their own bathroom, and the shared bathroom was updated with a water closet for more privacy, and a larger tub/shower combo.

The front porch replaced the existing front patio and unconditioned bootroom which had structural issues, and now acts as extra living and entertaining space for the whole family.