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in, pour concrete to connect the piles, and build concrete piers about 15 feet tall. Being down on the water, there’ s no reason for metal beams because salt water corrodes absolutely everything.”
However, creativity under constraint often means rethinking the house entirely rather than simply adding to it. On a separate shoreline property, a 1904 beach cottage that had never been used as a full-time residence, the team quickly discovered there was no insulation and very limited usable space. The new owners wanted a larger, more functional kitchen, but expanding the footprint was not an option.
“ Zoning constraints would not allow a bigger footprint,” Travis explains.“ So, we had to look at what we already had and figure out how to make it work differently.”
Improving functionality
Instead of adding square footage, the team reallocated it, removing an enclosed front porch that was rarely used and restoring it back to an open porch, before redistributing that square footage to expand the interior where it mattered most.“ We took space from one part of the house and gave it to another,” Travis says.“ The client
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