By Sybil Fix | Special to The Post and Courier
Rudd and Pat Smith have lived for many years in a distinguished white house in Summerville’s nicest old parts. Tall, with vast porches and staircases, on a generous and wooded corner property, the house was third home to Charleston’s famed federal judge Henry Augustus Middleton Smith, who retreated there to escape the mosquitoes. Rudd’s father, a military man, bought it in the 1960s. It was the family home where Rudd grew up.
Rudd came to own the house through kind deliberation on his parents’ part: They came to him back in 1980 and said they would give it to him if he would build them a smaller, one-story cottage on the property. They were aging, they said, and the big house was just too much.
Pat Smith (back), with the help of her daughter Karen Duncan, hangs window treatments in the renovated cottage behind her and her husband’s house in Summerville. The Smith’s are moving to the cottage and their daughter Karen will take over the main house.
Enlarge Pat Smith (back), with the help of her daughter Karen Duncan, hangs window treatments in the renovated cottage behind her and her husband’s house in Summerville. The Smith’s are moving to the cottage and their daughter Karen will take over the main house. Brad Nettles/Staff
And so he did. Rudd, a well-established estate attorney in Summerville, built the elder Smith a 1,600-square-foot cottage on the footprint of an old servants’ cabin on the property, and there his parents lived happily until they died a few years ago. And, as agreed, Rudd and Pat moved into the big house. “It was my home as a teenager. I loved it,” Rudd said.
Recently, though, after more than 30 years there, Rudd and his wife began to feel as overwhelmed by the big house, its stairs and size, as his parents once had.
“My wife and I are one joint short of having a good body, and between the knees and the hips and the aches and the pains, we need to say the same thing my parents said,” he said.
Following in his parents’ footsteps, Rudd and his wife have sold the big house to their daughter, and are getting ready to move into the cottage — but not without a complete renovation that enlarged it by 1,000 square feet and rearranged the space to suit their needs.
“We wanted to live in the same way we lived in the big house,” Smith said. “Now it has the function we wanted … and we are very excited. The wheels have turned full circle.”
The Kulicks’ renovations included an updated kitchen that brings both halves of the old kitchen together. Among the new elements are beams, new cabinets, appliances, an island and new lighting.
Enlarge The Kulicks’ renovations included an updated kitchen that brings both halves of the old kitchen together. Among the new elements are beams, new cabinets, appliances, an island and new lighting. Mike Kulick
It’s a familiar adage, with many variations: You wake up one day, after 10 or 15 years in the same house — in the process of divorcing or having a baby or, in the case of the Smiths, aging — and suddenly the kitchen seems small, or the dining room, walled in and dark, sits unused. Or you buy a house, and you love it but for the 1950s bathroom or the den that confines you.
Lucky for us, houses can be renewed and redone. Indeed, renovations are often the simplest way of bringing harmony to our living space or order into our live, or turning some kind of new leaf, while giving an existing building a new story, another chance at happiness with someone else. There is a certain practicality to it when compared with moving or building anew.
“Often people like their neighborhood and the neighbors, and the access to friends or family or work, but somehow the house does not suit them anymore,” said architect Rachel Burton, who designs new homes but also handles many renovations, among them the Smiths’. “So you might as well renovate and stay where you are … particularly if you do the math.”
After a renovation, said Mount Pleasant architect Trevor Draper, “Almost universally people are excited about the new space, whether it’s fitting the Christmas tree that would never fit or the king-size bed that they wanted to have, or whatever the truth is that they are looking for. It’s an accomplishment.”
Perhaps that’s why nearly every house bought and sold is a renovation project in the making these days, said builder Chuck Bennett, a fifth-generation Charlestonian in construction for three decades. He said renovation work in the area is back up to pre-recession levels, and contrary to new construction, it’s a welcome way of preserving land and keeping old architecture and civic texture alive.
The Kulicks’ new living room features a reclaimed brick fireplace redone in rainbow sandstone, with custom maple built-in cabinets to both sides.
Enlarge The Kulicks’ new living room features a reclaimed brick fireplace redone in rainbow sandstone, with custom maple built-in cabinets to both sides. Mike Kulick
Renovations, what he calls “giving houses a new life,” are his passion.
“I look at it as being stewards of something for a new generation,” he said. “I like the challenge. You get into an old house and you scratch your head and figure out what to do with it.”
A new take on space
Popular in renovations today are larger, more spa-like bathrooms and socially minded kitchens combined with great rooms, architects say. The long-professed truth that people want to hang out in the kitchen is finally translating into design. More spaces are shared and activity-driven rather than dictated by pre-conceived ideas of rooms, said Burton. “It’s really a different life than 30 years ago, when space was so much more structured,” she said.
Dining rooms and living rooms that no one uses are becoming obsolete, and people want more interaction between inside and outside.
“Friends want to hang out and have a beer while you grill outside, so you have a much more integrated, vibrant series of spaces off the kitchen,” Burton said.
AFTER: A view of the island and new flooring and windows in the Kulicks’ kitchen.
Enlarge AFTER: A view of the island and new flooring and windows in the Kulicks’ kitchen. Mike Kulick
People with children or having a first child often want to rearrange space to accommodate changing needs including playrooms and, through the years, bedrooms, too, said Draper, who handles between 10 and 15 renovations a year.
The Smiths’ renovation added a library and a porch on one end of the cottage and an expanded master suite on the other. They are getting a more functional combination of living room and dining room, and a larger kitchen where they can share cooking. Pat gained a craft room where she will sew, and Rudd gained a writing nook where he will write historical fiction.
“That gives me a little room where I can pull the door shut. It is not a space I share,” Rudd said. “The house is much better suited to our needs. It’s a nice combination of the old and the new and some things my parents had, too.”
Costly and challenging
Of course, none of this comes without a price: patience, time, and money. “It took seven approvals, five and a half months and it involved 26 people,” said Smith. “It’s disruptive while it’s happening.”
The challenges are even greater in the renovation of important historic properties, which face the task of accommodating modern conveniences in the context of historic architectural value, said Glenn Keyes, one of Charleston’s pre-eminent historic preservation and restoration architects. Those renovations carry a certain noble responsibility, but also face bigger restrictions.
BEFORE: The Kulicks’ kitchen prior to renovations.
Enlarge BEFORE: The Kulicks’ kitchen prior to renovations.
“There are so many parameters you have to work with,” said Keyes, who in a 30-year career has done more than 400 renovations of historic homes. “You have to have the right mindset.”
Among the challenges are updates to heating and air, plumbing and electrical systems in built spaces that did not imagine such updates — no hidden wall space for ducts or wiring, for example; and accommodating larger kitchens and living areas or master bathrooms where such needs had garnered no thought, all while respecting the historic significance of the structure.
Most of Keyes’ clients are ennobled by that respect, and they honor it in the decisions they make. But, he said, “Sometimes bad things happen to good buildings.”
And then there are the surprises one has to brace for: termite damage that was hidden behind plaster, or masonry damage from the earthquake that was masked but not fixed. After the Civil War, said Keyes, “there was so little money in Charleston that people were just patching things up. They put Band-Aids on things … I’m still seeing that, houses redone in the ’30s. People did things down and dirty, cost-effectively.”
As a result, discovering the truth of an old house, said Keyes, is like expensive detective work. “You have to work with the owner on how to prioritize,” he said “I am an advocate for the house … and good preservation.”
Surprises are common in not-so-old houses, too. Burton said a homeowner client of hers wanted to renovate the kitchen and den in a 1970s home on Sullivan’s Island, but when they began taking down walls they found mold plaguing the insulation, which had been covered with plastic sheeting. The renovation shifted unexpectedly.
“Renovations have to be fluid. Sometimes you open up a wall and realize that you can’t put a beam there as you wanted,” said Burton. “It is an ongoing series of decisions that people have to make at every step in the process.”
Space epiphanies
Conversely, sometimes you open up a wall, Burton said, “and the client finally gets it. It changes everything.”
In that regard, renovations — of a house or workspace — can bring about epiphanies of sorts.
Mike and Jen Kulick hired Bennett to renovate a building on St. Andrews Boulevard to serve as an office for their business, Smoke & Mirrors Restaurant Group. Until then, it had operated out of their West Ashley home. Merchandise for their venues at the time, the Voodoo Lounge in Avondale and the Tattooed Moose downtown, sat in piles around the house, Kulick said, while the bookkeeper tried to balance the books while shooing off the dogs and children bearing peanut butter sandwiches.
“Trying to accomplish something with toddlers running around the house is impossible,” Kulick said.
Renovation of the office gave an old Avondale home a new life and, when time came for the Kulicks to open a third restaurant, the Tatooed Moose on Johns Island, they had a place to put the staff needed to operate. “It gave us a place to go to work. It radically changed our home life,” Kulick said.
Meanwhile, the Kulicks’ house, a white cottage fronted by a delightful garden full of planters with flowers and vegetables, an olive tree, and peach, cherry and fig trees, got a new roof and a graceful porch rescreening. The house had been added onto a number of times over the years before they bought it, transforming it each time, and small renovations here and there have continued to make the house into a better version of itself, now filled with light and with a gourmet kitchen.
“What would have been a starter home for the 1950s was turned into a new starter home for the 2000s and is now a really gracious house minutes from the city,” said Kulick. “The changes made to our business and home life are hard to overstate.”
Renovation wisdom
Renovations can be positively life-altering. But, before you embark on one, here are some words of caution:
Be prepared to spend more than you hope, think, or imagine. Plan.
Beware of the “50 percent rule,” ordained by the Federal Emergency Management Agency: If you spend more than 50 percent of the appraised value of the home on renovations/additions, you must bring the entire house up to the FEMA regulations that apply to your area. In a beachfront flood zone, that can mean raising an on-slab house. Local building codes also may force updates — for example, if you update the electrical system in some part of the house, you may have to do it all. Some municipalities can consider some updates maintenance rather than renovation; nonetheless, these regulations can be vexing and they could force one to abandon a renovation plan. Be informed.
Renovations that will force updates to foundations or other major construction can be very expensive. Ideas that in construction seem simple on the surface can be very complicated. Sometimes building a new house may be more cost-effective in the long run.
Plan for the unexpected — the HVAC that you thought would last another five years but won’t, or the rotted wood, or the termite damage that no one saw.
Hire an architect if possible. Architects imagine space differently and see and think of things that builders often don’t. Several said they have had clients who came to them after a renovation had already begun and asked for help.
But, involve a builder early on in the cost-assessment process to make sure everything is considered in the estimate. Builders know the costs of building.
Be clear in your objective, but flexible about reaching it.
Before getting attached to the dream of an addition, review all applicable zoning regulations: setback lines and laws regulating the percentage of coverage of a property may prevent an addition.
Make sure you put the best space to its most appropriate use. “Sometimes people want to use prime space for something secondary,” said local architect Rachel Burton Burton—like putting a closet where the porch should be. Think it through.
Communicate clearly.
