Articles — Women's Day, Fall 1995 - Page 2

Preserving the backyards rugged beauty, the Dobrow's addition right is angled so it won't disturb an outcropping of rock just beyond the patio.

With its ceiling open to the peak of the hipped roof, the small sitting area far right feels surprisingly spacious. A red oak floor with a zigzag border defines the "cozy corner."

Angled Addition

Squeezing three high chairs into a cramped 9x12-foot kitchen worked for Richard and Paula Dobrow in their early days as parents. But a decade later, the debate—Do we move or add on?—was growing as fast as the children, and the family's needs were changing.

A year of serious house hunting in Marblehead, Massachusetts, struck a familiar cord. Most of the properties needed kitchen

"It's amazing how just adding...to the original kitchen has made the house liveable."

remodelings, too, so why buy someone else's problem? The right move, they decided, was adding a "cozy corner" to the kitchen of their 1960s builder's Cape Cod, nestled on a quiet cul-de-sac and backed by wooded conservation land.

"It's amazing how just adding to... the original kitchen has made the house liveable," says Paula.

From the outset, Marblehead architect Erling

Falck advised to focus on their specific needs rather than tackling a larger project that would price their home out of the neighborhood. To enlarge the kitchen and create a dining nook, Falck added a 10x22-foot rectangular addition at the back of the home. Beyond that, he bumped out an angled bay for a compact, glass-wrapped sitting area with a pyramid-shaped ceiling. (See plan, page 34).

"Quite Frankly, I didn't want it to be a family room," says Paula. "This is the meeting place. Everything goes on here. Everybody can be here at the same time, and it's not crowded. Yet, it's not a rumpus room." The space's moderate size controls the activity level, she says. That means television, homework, casual meals, and evenings together as a family, but no ball playing.

"We added only what we had to to satisfy the Dobrow's [needs]," says Falck. "It isn't the size that counts. They have such a nifty site in terms of orientation...They're in a world of their own back there."

In fact, "Blueberry Hill," a rocky outcropping that set firm boundaries for the addition, dictated the shape of the bay. "It's just a dumb old rock that we call Blueberry Hill," laughs Paula. "You can't take that away.