Home Extension in Falls Church, VA

Quiet Modern: Timely space for a growing family

Builder: T.W. Herren 

Identifying the Reconfiguration: Bigger or Better

A young couple fell in love with their modest Holmes Run Acres one-story mid-century modern home in Falls Church, Virginia — a suburb of Washington DC. With two bedrooms and an office behind a large sliding door, the house was just right for two. When a daughter arrived, however, their perspective changed. They needed more space — a home extension — to accommodate the equipment and toys that come with raising a child. The layout was open and appealing but seemed to defy repurposing. To tackle this challenge they reached out to deJong Studio, a specialist in mid-century modern design preservation and alterations, for a fresh perspective on their options. They understood that investing in the right architect now would pay dividends later should they ever decide to sell.

The homeowners came to the project knowing what they wanted at a practical level but needing help translating that into an architectural solution. The primary goal was to add a large playroom where a little one could play and remain visible from the kitchen. The former homeowners had loved to entertain, and the space adjacent to the kitchen contained a generous dining room — the perfect candidate for conversion. The search for a new home for the displaced dining room, as is often the case in good design, set the whole plan in motion. Consolidating the existing office into a compact desk nook off the living room freed up the square footage for a new open dining area — one that would read as a seamless extension of the living room. A new connection cut through to the kitchen completed the circuit, transforming what had been a closed-off room into the social heart of the main floor.

The seamless addition shown extends the house footprint in a very linear way to provide much needed space for an expanding family

Designing the Addition and Entry

In reviewing the opportunities, deJong Studio identified a secondary issue worth solving: the home lacked a proper entry foyer. The front door, located on the side of the house, opened directly into what was essentially an extension of the kitchen — an awkward condition that affected both daily life and the home’s street presence. Repurposing the dining room at the front of the house created an opportunity to correct this with a new entry off that space.

With a modest 8′ x 10′ foyer addition, the project could deliver three meaningful improvements at once: the playroom the family sought, a new dining room with proper access from a second kitchen door, and a main entry that would transform the appearance of the front of the house. Then, with the design solution in place and all moving forward according to plan, the family’s plans — as they are wont to do — changed again. They were expecting and a third bedroom was now essential to the program.

With office walls and sliding door removed the new dining area provides an airy extension of the main living space

Planning for the Unplanned

A larger addition meant a larger budget, and a new baby meant an unmovable deadline. We embraced both, moving quickly to engage a contractor with one eye firmly on the due date. The project also carried a bureaucratic hurdle — an existing non-compliant setback encroachment required retroactive approval from the Fairfax County Zoning Department before a building permit could be issued. With careful guidance through this process the project stayed on track. The solution for the additional bedroom was elegant in its simplicity: extending the home’s post and beam construction to elongate the existing hallway, opening it to light with a new window, and tucking a new bedroom/nursery at the end of the house. The result placed the two children’s bedrooms side by side and across from the master — a quietly perfect arrangement for a household with young children.

The new bedroom addition provided an opportunity to bring light and connection to nature with a floor to ceiling window at the end of the hallway

Architectural Transformation Complete

By relocating during construction the family was able to avoid the inevitable chaos and disruption that comes with relocating spaces. They returned joyfully, after a frenzied construction completion, just in time for the arrival of the new baby. What began as a modest two-bedroom home has grown quietly and gracefully alongside the family it shelters — still unmistakably mid-century, still very much at home in the competitive real estate market of the Northern Virginia suburbs.

The existing modular post and beam structural system allows for a seamless extension into the new bedroom/nursery addition at the end of the house