RENOVATING FOR A NEW NORMAL
Working, schooling from home has homeowners considering major upgrades
Kristen Meehan’s home office is often a brown Adirondack chair on her front lawn, with hedges that make a halfway decent Zoom backdrop.
“Every time I’m on a video call, people are like, ‘Are you in a forest?’ ” said Meehan, 31, who lives in a four-bedroom house in Montclair, New Jersey, with her husband, Mark Meehan, and their three children, all under the age of 4.
Kristen Meehan has used indoor alternatives in the months since the family has been home during the pandemic — in the living room, at the dining room table or in a bedroom. But none are particularly quiet since the children, have claimed a den off the living room as their primary play space.
Mark Meehan, 34, who works in sales, also needs a place to work, so he and Kristen Meehan often swap spots and parenting duties. They’ve had no consistent child care since February. “In practice what that tends to look like is my husband and I running around frantically trying to find a quiet spot for conference calls,” Kristen Meehan said.
Because the game of musical office chairs couldn’t last indefinitely, the couple started work on a $200,000 addition this summer, a project that will add a family room, deck, mudroom and move a bathroom. Once the space is complete in January, Mark and Kristen Meehan intend to claim the front of the house as the quiet adult workspace and relinquish the addition to their children.
“We initially didn’t think we needed all the space and now we’re like, ‘Oh, my God, we need more space,’ ” Kristen Meehan said. “We’re going to be home for the foreseeable future.”
As the country approaches the six-month mark since stay-at-home orders were enacted, and coronavirus cases surge again, millions of Americans are struggling to stay in their homes through a punishing recession.
But the pain has not been
evenly felt. While many Americans are suffering through a historic economic crisis, those who have not taken a financial hit are focused on ways to make an extended period of isolation more comfortable.
As bans on construction have lifted, designers, architects and general contractors have begun fielding calls from homeowners who are looking for ways to improve or expand areas in their home for work, school and exercise. In June 2020, professionals who list their services on the home renovation site Houzz reported a 58% increase in requests from homeowners from June 2019, with queries about home extensions and additions up 52%. Those who may have started projects
before the pandemic are looking at those original design plans and realizing they need an overhaul to work in this new world order.
“People want to be ready. We weren’t ready in March and now we’ve had the summer and we’re able to reflect,” said Alessandra Wood, the vice president of style for Modsy, an online interior design service. “I don’t know if it’s a fear or an expectation that in the fall we’re still going to be living this life.”
No more room inside? Consider a shed
Some homeowners are looking to their backyards for additional space, adding customizable sheds to use as offices, classrooms or workout studios. Such
structures, which can be assembled quickly on site, avoid the stress, time commitment and high cost of an interior renovation. Sales in May 2020 were up 500% from May 2019 for Studio Shed, a Coloradobased company that sells customizable backyard shed solutions ranging from simple storage spaces to elaborate tiny cabins.
Most of Studio Shed’s modular pods run around 120 square feet, exempting them from permitting and zoning requirements in most American cities. The average cost per unit is around $20,000.
Marlo and Michael Aragon, who live in Malibu, California, installed a shed in their yard as a classroom for their four teenage children who were suddenly
studying at home. They spent about $6,000 on the shed and upgrades.
“We were going to call it the Corona schoolhouse,” Marlo Aragon said of the shed that they erected on their 1-acre property. “It made them feel like they were going to class.”
Space for school
For families of schoolage children, the pandemic has turned their homes into virtual classrooms. Now, with more remote learning on the horizon, many families are grappling with how to accommodate an entire year spent at home. Adam Potter and Tom Wallace, a married couple in Greenwich, Connecticut, looked at the first floor of their 5,000-square-foot home and saw an opportunity to turn the space into a schoolhouse for their daughters, ages 6 and 7.
They hired a retired elementary school teacher, an aide, and invited six other girls to join them in what they describe as a home-schooling co-op. “We want our kids in a school without social distancing, without wearing masks,” Potter said. “We want to create this great school environment for them.”
In late July, they finished a $60,000 renovation of the first floor, which already had a family room. If it hadn’t been for COVID-19, Potter said he would not have spent the money on the renovations.
Plans upended
Todd and Heather Wigfield were just beginning to design the interiors of a 4,800-square-foot house they were building in Charleston, South Carolina, when stay-at-home orders were enacted. Overnight, their needs changed.
Before the pandemic, Todd Wigfield, 42, who works in real estate development, traveled regularly for work. Now, for the first time in years, he hasn’t traveled in months. Instead, he’s working at home in the Charleston rental where the family is living temporarily. With two school-age children who also need work space, and an infant who needs room to play and nap, it became clear that the family’s priorities had changed.
The Wigfields added built-in desks to the children’s rooms, an office space in the master suite where Todd Wigfield could work, and a gym in the basement with a television so Heather Wigfield, 37, a stay-at-home parent, could take virtual workout classes.
Above all, they wanted a house that would be comfortable and inviting when they move into it in September.
“You’re living in your space differently and we wanted to make sure that ultimately we were really thoughtful,” Todd Wigfield said. “It had to be comfortable. It had to be something that if you’re going to be spending a lot more time at home, it had to be functional too.”