7215 Linden in Prairie Village was held open this past weekend. When choosing a home to hold open, I like to look for homes priced on the lower end of comparable homes in the neighborhood, good bones and as much room for improvement as possible. I usually like to take the sketchbook and see if there might be a way to cook up some value.
7215 meets all the criteria and has the benefit of some additional space that appears to have been added in the 1970’s. Most homes in the area suffer from functional obsolescence. 7215 Linden is no different. The kitchen may have been considered adequate at the time the home was built, the single bath dates to that same era, and the closets are very small.
For this study, focus was concentrated on the kitchen and the adjacent dining area addition. The kitchen and dining area are carpeted (other than the bath, the remainder of the home has newly refinished floors). The kitchen layout is spartan at best and the cabinets have certainly seen better days. The lighting is not adequate and is only made worse by the wood paneling. The one nice feature is the vaulted ceiling over the dining room. Most people choose not to see past this existing space and I really can’t blame them.
The sketches indicate two different approaches, a modest remodel and an extensive remodel. The modest remodel freshens the space by replacing the wall paneling with gypsum board and the carpet with wood flooring to match the remainder of the home. The new kitchen presents a sleek look by moving the refrigerator to the north wall in a gypsum board alcove and installing a galley kitchen with separate cleaning and cooking counters (this was chosen over the “u” shape because it is more cost effective and eliminates the corner cabinets that are often inefficient).
The extensive remodel adds square footage to the home. While a nice feature, the tandem garage is not exactly large enough to handle two full sized cars. So instead of watching the rear part of the garage become a repository for needless baggage, this scheme opts for an additional bedroom. The new bedroom would be inexpensive space to claim as the area is already under roof and a footing and foundation exist at the location of the new wall between the garage and proposed bedroom. The kitchen would slide into the current dining area creating space for some additional support spaces. The sketch indicates a new half bath and a main level laundry but one could choose to add a full bath and leave the laundry space in the basement.
The below images represent the ideas in the modest remodel. The majority of the lighting is handled indirectly with inexpensive fluorescent fixtures installed on the top of the upper cabinets and within two light coves over the breakfast counter. The remainder of the lights include the recessed lights over the counter, task lighting under the upper cabinets at the cooking station, and a pendant fixture over the table (this and the backsplash at the cooking station would be the places to spend a little money). The windows on the south wall were adjusted in the model to create local symmetry with the dining table.
