Historic Skagit Farmhouse Renovation

The own­ers of this 1924 farm house came to us with the idea of adding on a sun­porch and a garage with ADU, ren­o­vat­ing their base­ment, and ad­dress­ing a laun­dry list of other “wants.” Af­ter work­ing through a Mas­ter Plan process for the the en­tire pro­ject, they re­al­ized that they would­n’t be able to af­ford every­thing at once, so pri­or­i­tiz­ing the work was key. The fo­cus shifted to emer­gency foun­da­tion re­pairs and ren­o­va­tions to the ex­ist­ing base­ment bed­rooms, bath, and laun­dry, ren­o­vat­ing the up­stairs bath­room, and com­plet­ing the ex­te­rior im­prove­ments they wanted. This in­cluded re­work­ing the front porch, the own­ers’ fa­vorite place to sit and watch the sun­ set over the val­ley.

The cou­ple had ren­o­vated the kitchen a few years be­fore and es­tab­lished a beau­ti­ful con­tem­po­rary farm­house aes­thetic with rich wood and stone ma­te­ri­als and warm paint col­ors. The goal was to blend the new work into the re­cently re­mod­eled palette and keep the time­less qual­ity of the house. An­other goal was to make the lower level ac­ces­si­ble, both for a fam­ily friend who vis­its once a year who is in a wheel­chair, and where the own­ers could age-in-place.

We had so much fun with the own­ers on this pro­ject. As with any older home, the sur­prises kept com­ing and they were able to grin, breathe, and even­tu­ally roll with each punch to get to the end. They choose the re­ally im­por­tant things to do – im­prove their ex­te­rior en­ve­lope and heat­ing sys­tem, com­pletely re­in­force the ex­ist­ing foun­da­tion (which also added head space in half of the lower level), and mod­i­fy the lower level into a space that is com­pletely ac­ces­si­ble to them and their guests. They hope to be able to some­day add the sun­porch and garage/​ADU they en­vi­sioned, but are so ap­pre­cia­tive to have made their ex­ist­ing home so much more liv­able and sus­tain­able.

“The house is fantastic. We love it more every day and we still walk around inside and out and marvel at the quality of the construction and how beautifully you managed to incorporate all the new with the old. The space is used so much more efficiently now and we are warm!”

— Owners