John Fread's lament about not having a master suite led to an extensive 14-month remodel of the "little ranch burger" house off Northeast Prescott.
While Fread and Bill Tritt figured out how to add a master bath to their bedroom, their conversations about what else might as well get done while they're at it resulted in bumping out the living room and dining room, stretching the tiny third bedroom 24 inches to become a den and adding a "garden room," which has become their go-to cooking and dining spot.
Fread laughs at his own story, saying there are four words you don't ever use when you're remodeling: "While. You're. At. It."
When Tritt and Fread bought their house 21 years ago -- from the original owners -- their plan was to flip it.
Obviously, that didn't happen.
They found out they were the first new neighbors in 40 years -- and there's always something to be said for a rock-solid neighborhood -- and over the years, they have never found anything they liked as much.
So they, too, settled in.
Then, two years ago, Fread uttered his complaint about the lack of a master bath and the ball of change rolled through their house.
Fread, Tritt and their then-2-year-old golden retriever, Agnes, moved to the family room in the basement while work that would eventually add nearly 1,000 square feet to their approximately 2,000-square-foot house got under way.
Only the fireplace in the living room, the kitchen (which they'd updated 10 years ago) and a bare-minimum roof remained throughout the ordeal.
LIVING ROOM:
Fread says that before the renovation, the living room was a typical room: one entrance (he refers to that as a dead-end room), a large plate-glass window facing the street and a small window along the side wall. Now, a 4-foot bump-out to the front provides a home for the grand piano, and a second interior opening in the heretofore solid wall allows for much better flow and connectivity in the house.
Fread and Tritt said they rarely sat in their living room before because it felt isolated. "Hands down," Fread says, "if you can't see a room, you won't use it." Now, they use it all the time.
DINING ROOM:
"We used to joke that the dining room was like an airplane because it was so narrow," Fread says. "When family was in, once you sat down, the chairs went back to the wall. So you were stuck until the dinner party was over."
Now, another 4-foot bump-out to the front breathes space into the room that Fread and Tritt have edited to include only the table and chairs, with a built-in display for the Murano glass they collect.
They removed the chandelier and went with numerous small can lights that can be manipulated to shine light however needed. Here, too, they added French doors and sidelights to expand the sightlines of the room -- especially when the doors are popped open.
MASTER BATH:
The start of it all, the bedroom, used to be just that: a bedroom. At one point, Fread and Tritt popped in some French doors for access to the backyard, but the bedroom lacked its own bathroom, and they disliked that guests had to go through their room to get to the patio, where they entertain often.
Now, where once was a wall -- and the doors to the outside -- stands a master bath, with a barrier-free access to the shower (they were thinking about their aging parents when they designed the shower) that is primed for hand rails.
The bathroom is designed with two entries, so you can circle through to the built-in closet and exit that way back to the bedroom.
THE DEN:
The den became a key component in the remodel. It was a little third bedroom, but moving the interior door to line up with the new opening to the living room opened up the center of the house both visually and for traffic flow.
Bumping out the back wall 24 inches and putting in French doors created a new entry to the garden and makes the garden visible from the living room at the front of the house.
Fread also had built-ins frame the entrance -- including above the door -- giving the room a cozy, clublike feel.
THE GARDEN ROOM:
"We live out here," Fread says about the garden room they built off the patio in the backyard. "This is our eat-in kitchen," he says, adding that the kitchen in the house works well for cooking but has no place to sit.
"We use it full time."
The light fixture, which became the room's focal point, had for 30 years been in the attic of their "adopted mom's" house on Council Crest. She'd never liked it, so Fread and Tritt rescued it.
At first, plans for this space were to create a barbecue area. But when venting became an issue, they went back to the drawing board and came up with a plan to build a room and enclose it with doors that accordion back and disappear into a wall casing. When costs scrubbed that plan, they went with windows. The paned, French casement windows open entirely (the center mullion goes along), creating an airy, outdoors-in feel.
In their new "sit-down kitchen," they added the second oven that Tritt, who does the cooking, had always wished for in their indoor kitchen.
EPILOGUE:
Fread and Tritt credit Mike McNamara of McNamara Construction for bringing all their ideas to fruition. "There was not one blowout, not one argument, not one raised voice in over a year," Tritt says about the project.
Ironically, after they'd lived in their home for 17 years -- both gainfully employed for years -- their decision to make all these changes came with a huge, two-fisted blow: Both Fread and Tritt lost their jobs. Had they foreseen that, Fread says, they obviously would not have gone through with all the changes.
But they pushed on.
Both have found full-time work again.
"Jump," Fread says, "and a net will appear."
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