Ditmas Park Renovation

When our Brooklyn-based clients wanted to step away from apartment living after many years in the city, they settled on a single-family house in Brooklyn’s Ditmas Park neighborhood. With its lower density, the area allowed them to have a home with outdoor space, but with easy access to the subway. Charming though it was, the house was in need of extensive repairs and updating.

Over the years, the house had been changed in ad hoc ways, so our strategy was to peel back the added layers and work with the original design. The area that had been changed the most and which was in most need of updating was the kitchen. There, we did a gut renovation, replacing the floors, cabinets, lighting, and appliances. To increase natural light, we made the kitchen skylight more prominent and open above the sink. Now sunny and open, the new kitchen offers an airy and comfortable space for cooking and entertaining. Custom details, like new toe-kicks on the cabinetry, tailor the space for our clients.

In the dining room, walls had been added that interfered with natural light and interrupted circulation between the kitchen and dining areas. To change that effect and to restore the room to its original dimensions, we removed the walls. This created a better sense of symmetry and proportion.

We refinished the original wood floors on all three levels to create a sense of cohesion throughout the home. Certain existing elements, like arches and bannisters, were also preserved and rehabilitated to reference the home’s original details.