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We went with Bulthaup to design and manufacture our kitchen and we are thrilled with the results. We wanted a clean, modern kitchen with European design and sleek fittings. We visited the showrooms in and around Boston for not only Bulthaup, but also Pedini, Poggenpohl, and SieMatic. Each had good points but we felt the […]

I used the renovation and addition project as an ideal opportunity to build a showcase for my collection of Apollo lunar mission artifacts. It was important to plan for where things would go from the start of the project more than two years ago. We set aside the original entrance hall as the gallery space and

More than a year ago, we climbed a ladder and walked the second floor of our addition while it was in a very rough format with Mark Tierney, our master electrician. We were looking for what seemed like mundane things like where power outlets should be placed. I’m glad that I took this process seriously.

The main stairs go from the new entrance hall up to the second floor of the original Techbuilt part of the house. At the top of the stairs we have a balcony that overlooks the living room and gallery. The balcony leads to our new master bedroom suite. We chose to go with a custom-built

Our Techbuilt house sported some awesome redwood shingles that were used as siding in the entrance hall and one wall of the living room. When we gutted the house, we asked the builder to keep the usable shingles. As the house was being rebuilt, we looked for places that we could re-use the material and

The main room is getting close to completion and it looks great. This room is the entire ground floor of the original Techbuilt house plus half of the second floor (which we opened up by removing two bedrooms). We particularly love the 8″ wide plank “character grade” oak floors in the main room. We went

In ten degree  late December  we journeyed to New Hampshire to choose our soapstone slabs. Mike Myers, an owner of Jewett Farms took us out to look at the slabs. Each has different qualities of color and veining. We chose Santa Rita Venata from Brazil. It was the most “alive” of the choices. Since our

After a year of construction, the barrier between the original Techbuilt house and our new addition has been removed. We chose to live on our house during construction. This proved a challenge because we didn’t want to get in the way of the builders. When we first started construction in November 2015, a barrier was

The exterior of the entire house is nearly complete. The new roof of the original house was installed last week and the painters need just two more days to finish a second coat of trim. The paint on the shingles and around windows is Sherwin Williams Colonial Revival Gray (ironic given it is a modern house!).

The most frequent question we’ve received during the (so far) year-long construction project has been “What are you doing with your old garage?” A variation on this I heard a few times was: “Why do you need 5 garages?” No, we don’t have five cars. The new 3-car garage built as part of the addition is the