Home suite home
Crafton addition beautifully accommodates mother
Mitzi Smetters didn't want to leave her house of 35 years in Madison, Ohio, to live with her daughter and son-in-law in Crafton. She had room for her antiques and a piano. But a place of her own above the three-car garage they were building sounded like a good compromise. Then plans changed. “But what if her health goes?” two of her sons wondered.
“We decided we'd rather have her here with us,” said her son-in-law, Michael Trask.
So he and his wife Helen decided to create an apartment for her as part of an addition on their 1899 house. It was such a success that it was chosen as the winner in the large residential category (over $50,000) of the PG’s 2016-17 Renovation Inspiration Contest.
Judges from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Design Center Pittsburgh loved how the addition blends with the house and allows them to gather for meals and conversation yet also have their privacy. A glass door on Ms. Smetters’ bedroom gives easy access to a new aggregate concrete patio.
“I have my morning cup of coffee there,” she said.
In the evening or on warm fall afternoons, Mr. Trask enjoys the outdoor television hanging above a gas fireplace on the same patio. The see-through fireplace that also serves the new family room was
the idea of contractor Todd Klippa of TK Construction.
Many more design ideas came from Robert Gaskill of Gaskill Architecture, whom Mr. Trask found at a Monroeville home show. The Trasks worked closely with the experts and came up with their own ideas, too. One was an induction electric cooktop in Ms. Smetters’ kitchen. Because it magnetically heats pans instead of burners, it does not burn skin or create a hazard if left unattended.
“I'm more impressed than I thought I would be,” she said. “I was used to gas but now I can boil water in 30 seconds.”
Her apartment, which is linked to the main house by a hallway and the original exterior door, also has a gas fireplace, a modern bath with glass shower and rain head and a large bedroom with a desk.Downstairs is a spacious livingroom and storage.
“It's like a great room downstairs,” Mr. Trask said.
Ms. Smetters’ apartment accounts for about 1,800 of the addition’s 2,500 square feet. The house now has about 6,000 square feet of living space. The Trasks gained a larger kitchen, a family room, a walk-in closet and the patio. “We got a new kitchen; I got that TV wall,” he joked.
The old kitchen, which could barely fit the three of them at a table, has doubled in size. Five stools at the 10by 4-foot granite-topped island are enough for most meals. The kitchen and familyroom can accommodate 20 people; Mrs. Trask has four siblings, all with children.
“We wanted to be able to have both of our families. At holiday time, everyone comes here,” Mr. Trask said.
The house on 2 acres is one of the largest in the area and close to the city’s Crafton Heights neighborhood. Mrs. Trask, who travels often for work, liked its proximity to the Pittsburgh Airport and its tree-lined streets.
“We both wanted an old home with character,” her husband said. And her mother? “It’s hard when you have lived in your house for 35 years,” she said. “I am very happy here.”