Features
Part of Old House Projects Planning: Scope Through Closeout
Old House Projects Ideas for Gaining Space
Old house projects ideas for gaining space focus on secondary rooms, hidden cavities, reversible built-ins, and better light without gutting the house.
What to take away
- Put change where the house cares leastback stairs, service rooms, closets, additions and attics rather than the front rooms.
- Small old houses were built with deep wall cavities, wide stair landings and unused chimney chases. Use what already exists.
- Reversible built-ins beat structural changes in a small plan, both in cost and in resale flexibility.
- Light and sightlines gain more usable space than square footage does.
Looking for old house projects ideas? Rowhouses, cottages, bungalows, and workers' houses are small on purpose, and opening them up usually destroys their charm. Better moves begin with learning how the plan was meant to work.
The Park Service overview of the rowhouse as a building type is a useful primer for anyone living in a narrow, deep, party-wall house.
Change the back, keep the front
Almost every old house has a hierarchy. Front rooms hold plaster cornices, the good mantel, and the stair. Back rooms hold service space never meant to impress.
Front vs. back room zones
Front (primary)
- Finish quality
- High
- Ceiling treatment
- Cornices
- Trim detail
- Ornate
- Original function
- Show rooms
- Put here
- Parlor, stair
Back (secondary)
- Finish quality
- Service-grade
- Ceiling treatment
- Plain
- Trim detail
- Simple
- Original function
- Service space
- Put here
- Kitchen, bath, laundry
Federal rehabilitation practice formalizes that split. Park Service guidance on identifying primary and secondary interior spaces tells how to distinguish them by finish quality, ceiling treatment, door and trim detail, and original function.
Applied to a small house, the rule is simple. Kitchens, bathrooms, laundry and storage belong in the secondary zone. Do not put a second bathroom in the front parlor because the plumbing is closer.
Use the cavities you already have
- Plaster-on-lath walls in a masonry rowhouse often have furring cavities deep enough for shallow shelving.
- Abandoned chimney chases can become vertical duct runs, dumbwaiter-sized storage or a pantry.
- Stair landings on a half-turn stair frequently hold a full-depth bookcase without narrowing the walking path.
- Knee walls in a story-and-a-half house hide substantial storage behind small access doors.
- Deep window reveals take a seat and a lift-up lid without touching the sash.
Each of these adds function without a footprint change, and none of them requires touching a load-bearing element. Windows have their own version of the same idea, since an interior storm panel adds comfort without altering the sash.
Reversible beats permanent
Reversible?
- Freestanding or scribed-in cabinetry
- Yes
- Pocket doors added to an existing opening
- Partly
- Removing a wall between two principal rooms
- No
- Attic conversion under existing rafters
- Partly
- Rear addition
- No
Notes
- Freestanding or scribed-in cabinetry
- Removes without patching plaster
- Pocket doors added to an existing opening
- Requires opening one wall face
- Removing a wall between two principal rooms
- Changes plan and often character
- Attic conversion under existing rafters
- Ceiling height and egress rules apply
- Rear addition
- Design review likely, and the most expensive path
Reversibility is not sentimentality. In a small house it keeps future options open, and it is far cheaper to undo a bookcase than a beam. It is also where the daily gains sit, because the interior upgrades that pay back every day are mostly the recoverable ones.
Light does the work of square footage
Restore blocked transoms, clean and repair sash instead of replacing it, and reconsider heavy window treatments before removing walls. Paint colors and reflective surfaces do more for a fourteen-foot room than a structural opening. None needs a permit.
For where these moves sit in a full project, see our start-to-finish planning guide. For which changes cross the line into a different treatment altogether, see the four treatments compared.
