Rustic Farmhouse

The bulk of my time lately has been working on the design for a major renovation to a farmhouse down in Chester, SC, which is about 45 minutes south of Charlotte.  My client has been dreaming of her 'rustic farmhouse' renovation since they purchased the property several years ago.  The project has grown and changed so much since I started working with her on the details, but we will be starting construction soon and I feel that the design has reached a point where I can share it (i.e. there shouldn't be too many more revisions!)

Here's what we started with.  This is a photograph of the current front of the home:

And this is the current back of the home:

Since the front of the house has such a great view onto their 90 acres of land (and their 65 adorable sheep), we have decided to change the orientation of the house so that the current back of the house will become the new front entrance.  This works especially well since the parking is already here.  It also has a great space upon entering the new front door that can easily be converted into a foyer/mudroom.  

Here is a drawing of the new back of the house (formerly the front of the house), which is what you will see from the road, and as you drive up the beautiful curving pebble drive:

Hopefully you can hardly recognize it as the same house!  If you compare this drawing to the photograph, you will notice that many things were changed:  We pulled the front entrance out to enlarge the dining room and maximize the windows.  Second, we added a large outdoor fireplace.  Third, we extended the gables (removed the small one) and added porches across the entire facade.  Lastly, we added large french doors to replace the existing windows  As you can see from the drawing, the addition of the porches instantly gave the home a more casual, relaxed, and inviting feeling.  The metal roof, the board & batten on the gables, the exposed rafter tails, and the cupolas also help reinforce the farmhouse theme.   

Here is a drawing of the new front entrance:

The front has a similar feel to the back of the house, with the addition of the porches and metal roofing over the porches.

Here are the other exterior elevations, just so you can get a feel for the entire house:

As I mentioned, we should be starting construction soon because my client has already committed to have a large benefit at the newly renovated farmhouse on October 8th!  Wish us luck that it can be completed by then!

Thanks for reading!