The clients had already beautifully restored a 100 year old Victorian house but it was an energy hog with no bathroom on the ground level. In addition to making the house more energy efficient, they wanted to update it with a master bathroom, work space and laundry room. We designed the master bath with a steam shower room, extra closet area, with a clearstory bring in beautiful daylight and winter heat and with a private south-facing balcony off of it.

Since we did not want to ruin the look of the original house by changing its walls for energy efficiency, we built a passive solar sunspace that acts as a free furnace for the rest of the house. The sunspace has large southern windows, great concrete and brick thermal mass and inexpensive ducting to the historic parts of the house. The sunspace also doubles as a plant room. 2008.