Robin Chenoweth
Columbus Dispatch

The Goal:
Their 1950s Upper Arlington ranch needed updating, but Deb and Tom Montesanti didn’t want to change certain aspects.

Tom longed for a gourmet kitchen, and Deb wanted to keep the window above the sink.

They both wanted to add a family room and eliminate the maze of walls and doorways in the foyer.

And they weren’t willing to give up their screened porch.

The Strategy:
The logical place for a new family room would have been behind the expanded kitchen, toward the center of the property.

But to save the window, renovator R.J. Landis planned to build the addition into the home’s side yard. The company’s original blueprint extended the exterior wall from the garage and laundry area toward the back of the property.

That would give the contractor room to build a courtyard beneath the kitchen window, spanning the area between the screened porch and new family room.

The Challenge:
When the company applied for a building permit, it discovered that the addition would extend 3 feet beyond current setback requirements, the farthest edge of the property that the city will allow a structure to be built.

The city refused a variance, and contractor Ron Landis went back to the drawing board to “take another stab at it.”

The new plan nixed the courtyard, placing the addition directly behind the renovated kitchen.

The window also was sacrificed, but in the new design, the kitchen overlooks the family room and its 12-foot expanse of windows and transoms.

Matching French doors open from the addition and the dining room onto the screened porch, and a patio wraps around the porch and the addition.

Time required
Eight months

Cost
A similar kitchen renovation that involves some structural changes can cost $320 to $400 a square foot. A similar family room addition would cost $200 to $260 a square foot.

Contractor’s observation
“I am fully satisfied in that we far exceeded what we wanted to do,” Landis said. “They got a bigger room, a more open design. The renovation still accomplished their goals but did it within the zoning regulations of the Upper Arlington community.”

Homeowner’s observation
“It took us a long time to digest that we weren’t going to get (our original plan),” Deb Montesanti said. “We even considered not doing it because we didn’t think it was going to be what we wanted.

“What we ended up with turned out to be much better than we thought it was going to be. Bumping the addition up to the screened porch now gives us a nice flow because we can open the French doors from the dining room and the addition (to the porch).

“We do a lot of entertaining, and it’s a contiguous pattern now from the kitchen and the dining room and the addition and the outside. Now, with the open design, it’s much, much easier to entertain.”