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Light from the small, window-filled addition now floods the kitchen. Homeowner Diane Amaral opted for storage in lieu of island seating, reasoning that guests would sit in the adjacent dining area instead. The cabinets are painted Benjamin Moore Santorini Blue.
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The kitchen before
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The front door and shutters were painted Sherwin-Williams Jade Dragon, the same color used to paint the telephone niche in the foyer.
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The wallpaper in the first-floor bath is GP&J Baker Birds & Cherries in aqua. The custom mirror frame is painted Benjamin Moore Yellowstone.
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The glass panel in the primary bath that now separates the shower from the vanity visually enlarges the space, designer Jessica Williamson says. The existing radiator was replaced with a wall mount, and the vanity was designed with toekick lighting to serve as a nightlight. The tile was sourced through Morris Tile.
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The bathroom before
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In the dining room, the artwork, antique transferware and Flow Blue platters are from the owner’s collection. Williamson says the end of the custom-upholstered banquette was rounded to provide a softer corner instead of a sharp edge. Amaral’s antique chairs were reupholstered in a Rose Tarlow indoor/outdoor fabric. Another performance fabric from Perennials was used on the banquette. The pendant light is by Urban Electric with a custom shade by Fermoi, and the custom pillows are from Schumacher and Parker & Jules fabrics.
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The dining room before
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In the addition, the sewing table looks out to the garden, which Amaral enjoys tending. Her sewing chair was reupholstered in Chantilly Maximalist fabric by Richmond designer KK Harris. The walls are wrapped in V-groove paneling painted to match the cabinetry, which visually expands the room.
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The artwork and antique bench in the sitting room are from Amaral’s collection.The bench is upholstered in Rebecca Atwood Marble Geode in Pale Marine.
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The original telephone niche was painted and relocated from the kitchen pantry to the foyer as a display niche.
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The telephone niche before
Diane Amaral was living on a ranch in California when she bought her home in Richmond, sight unseen. She’d fallen in love with the city during a visit for her granddaughter’s graduation from the University of Richmond.
“It was spring and absolutely, gloriously beautiful,” she says. “It’s a great-size city with a lot of things to do. When my granddaughter said I should move here when I retired, I thought about it a lot.”
Those thoughts turned to action when Amaral’s granddaughter called with the perfect listing: a nearly 100-year-old cottage in the Near West End.
She retired from her career in nursing, purchased the house and lived in it for a few months to get a sense of its flow and her needs. Then, she called JTW Design on the recommendation of her niece, a California-based interior designer who thought the Richmond firm was a good match for Amaral’s style.
Amaral came with a list of must-haves, including a full bath downstairs, an upgraded bathroom upstairs and a first-floor laundry room, relocating the latter from the basement. An avid cook and crafter, she also sought a more spacious kitchen and a sewing nook. Plus, she wanted plenty of color and natural light.
The one item that wasn’t on her list? An addition.
The home was already the right size for her lifestyle, Amaral felt, and she was working with a limited budget. She also didn’t want to give up any outdoor gardening space or lose the cottage’s historic charm.
With those parameters, Jessica Williamson, owner and principal of JTW Design, and Kristen Cary, lead designer, began a thorough assessment of every inch of the house with an eye toward maximizing the use of space.
By removing an unused exterior door and the wall separating the kitchen and dining room, they found they could expand the kitchen footprint, adding cabinet and counter space while creating a natural flow for entertaining. Upstairs, borrowing just 8 inches from an adjacent bedroom allowed them to expand the primary bathroom and add a full-size shower and vanity.
“It was a tiny shift,” Williamson says, “but those 8 inches packed a punch.”
Still, Amaral eventually concluded, to achieve everything she wanted, an addition would be necessary. Williamson called in Byron Knowlson of Richmond-based Menlo Architecture, who designed a first-floor addition that integrated with the existing floor plan to accommodate a full-size bathroom, laundry room, combination sewing corner and pantry, and plenty of kitchen storage — all with just 90 added square feet.
Knowlson says making the most of the small scale required lots of conversations and hands-on experimentation. For instance, he asked Amaral to sit at her desk and identify the narrowest width she felt comfortable using for her sewing station.
“I could make the addition 2 feet wider,” he says, “but if I’m just adding space for the sake of adding space and it doesn’t get used, what’s the point?”
Williamson adds, “It was one of those puzzle floor plans where every half-inch matters. Byron is so pragmatic and thinks a lot like we do. We believe you can have a really well-done project in a small space — it just has to be the right amount of space.”
Knowlson was also conscious of the cottage feel that dominates the neighborhood. He sourced materials and windows that seamlessly matched the original home and took into consideration their scale and visibility from the street.
Once the addition — built by local firm Spruce Construction — was complete, Williamson turned her attention to the interior.
She often starts projects by helping clients identify a set of words that guide every design decision moving forward. For Amaral, they settled on “inviting, cheerful, fresh, classic, collected and colorful.” Williamson then aimed for a design that balanced modern styling with historic touches that honored the home’s history.
A palette of soft greens and blues, including wallpaper and tile in similar tones, met Amaral’s request for color, while a color-blocking approach helped smaller spaces feel larger. Contemporary fixtures in the bathrooms and kitchen brought a sense of freshness.
Williamson also looked for opportunities to integrate and repurpose original details, such as moving a salvaged telephone niche from the kitchen to the foyer.
“We wanted all of the trim and cabinetry styles to be thoughtfully considered,” Williams says. “We weren’t just matching the old style but celebrating it. We didn’t want it to feel like a period piece, but we also didn’t want it to feel like a new house inside an old house.”
Amaral says the result is a perfect home made even more so.
“It’s light-filled and full of color and comfortable,” she says. “It’s an easy, livable home.”
