A Home Waiting for Its Moment: The Auburndale House Before Renovation
Every renovation begins with a clear-eyed look at what exists. Season 32 of This Old House visits Auburndale, Massachusetts, where a 1940s Colonial Revival with Georgian influences sits along the Charles River, owned by Raveen and Allison Sharma. The house has a prime location in a leafy neighborhood with solid structural bones, but suffers from design compromises that hold it back. Before general contractor Tom Silva and architect Christina Chu begin the transformation, the house presents a textbook case of what thoughtful renovation can achieve. The Sharma family bought the home for its location, not its condition, and the renovation corrects decades of accumulated shortcomings. For homeowners considering a similar overhaul, examining the original state offers a valuable lesson in identifying hidden potential. A companion look at the full transformation in Transforming a 1940s Colonial Revival: Inside the Auburndale House Renovation covers the completed vision.
The Exterior in Its Original State: A Facade in Need of Character
The most obvious flaw in the Auburndale house is the facade. The house is a Colonial Revival with a hipped roof, a style defined by symmetry and proportion. But a jutting garage with a flat roofline sits at the front of the property, clashing aggressively with the main house. This single element throws off the entire visual balance. The garage protrusion creates a disjointed appearance that no amount of landscaping can fix. The rest of the facade is equally featureless. A small front door offers no sense of arrival. The flat plane of the front elevation lacks the depth, shadow lines, and architectural detailing that give Colonial Revival homes their dignity.
The Garage Problem and the Entry Solution
Architect Christina Chu’s plans address the garage issue with a clever strategy. Rather than rebuilding the garage, which would be prohibitively expensive given the site constraints, the design introduces a projecting entry hall addition. This new element extends outward from the front of the house, framing a much larger front door with sidelights. The projecting form breaks up the flat facade and draws the eye toward the center of the house, away from the garage. To further soften the garage protrusion, a pergola will be added to the left of the new entry. This simple architectural element creates a visual transition between the garage and the main house, turning a design flaw into an opportunity for added character.
Curb Appeal Principles Applied
The exterior strategy for the Auburndale house follows principles that apply to any home with facade challenges:
- Draw the eye upward and inward. The projecting entry and new window create a vertical focal point that competes with the horizontal garage.
- Use soft architectural elements. The pergola provides visual screening without the bulk of a full structure.
- Unify with color. A fresh coat of paint across all exterior surfaces will tie the disparate elements together.
- Maintain period character. The Colonial Revival style is preserved even as new elements are introduced.
For more on how to approach exterior renovations on period homes, see How to Modernize a Cape Cod Style Home: Porch Design, Garage Additions, and Exterior Remodeling Strategies, which covers similar principles for a different architectural style.
Windows: Balancing Character and Performance
The original metal casement windows in the Auburndale house have reached the end of their useful life. They leak air, collect condensation, and offer poor insulation. The homeowners could have switched to double-hung windows, a common choice in Colonial Revival homes, but they chose to stay with casements. The new windows will be fiberglass rather than metal, offering dramatically better thermal performance while maintaining the same operational style. This decision respects the architectural character while upgrading energy efficiency. Fiberglass casements also require less maintenance than wood or metal, making them a practical choice for a family home near the river, where humidity swings can be significant.
Interior Spaces Before the Transformation
Walking through the Auburndale house before renovation reveals a home that has been patched together over decades without a cohesive vision. The interior is a series of disconnected spaces, dark corners, and outdated finishes that no longer serve the way a modern family lives.
The Dark and Dreary Entry Hall
The existing entry hall is the first interior space visitors encounter, and it makes a poor impression. Heavy knotty pine paneling stained a dark brown covers the walls. Bulky shelves filled with clutter occupy one entire side. The space feels cramped even though it is not particularly small. The only light comes from a French door on the left and a single window. Christina Chu’s plans call for removing the shelving entirely and painting the knotty pine to lighten the space. The new projecting entry hall addition will bring additional natural light through the sidelights flanking the larger front door. The result will transform the entry from a dark tunnel into a welcoming transition between outdoors and in.
The Living Room and the Wall That Must Go
The living room centers on a stone fireplace, but the room feels closed off from the rest of the house. A wall opposite the fireplace separates the living area from what will become the new rear addition. That wall is coming down. Removing it will open the living room into the new addition, creating a flowing great room that takes advantage of the river views at the rear of the property. The attached dining area will remain in place, but new windows cut into the wall will frame views of the Charles River that the current layout completely ignores. This single intervention does more to transform the feel of the main floor than any other change in the renovation.
What the Wall Removal Teaches Us
| Before | After |
|---|---|
| Cramped living room with no connection to rear of house | Open great room flowing into new addition |
| Dining area with blank walls facing the river | Dining area with new windows framing river views |
| No visual connection to the outdoors | Continuous sightline from front to rear |
| Separate circulation paths for each room | Unified open floor plan for family living |
The Kitchen: Two Dining Areas Become One Great Space
The existing kitchen is one of the most inefficient spaces in the house. It has two separate dining areas located right next to each other, one informal and one formal, with a wall separating the kitchen from the informal eating space. The formal dining room sits adjacent, surrounded by the same dark knotty pine shelving that plagues the entry hall. The renovation calls for removing the wall between the kitchen and the informal dining area. This creates one large kitchen with room for a central cooking island. The formal dining room will remain, but the dark shelving surrounding it will be removed, creating a lighter, airier space. One surprising element remains unchanged: the position of the kitchen sink. Allison Sharma likes the front-facing window above the sink because it lets her watch the children playing in the front yard. The architect has designed a larger casement window for that spot, improving the view without moving the sink.
The Two-Story Addition and the Riverfront Vision
The rear of the Auburndale house faces the Charles River, which should be the property’s greatest asset. But the existing sunroom, a rickety structure with poor insulation and limited windows, is barely usable. It leaks, it sways in the wind, and its windows do not frame the river views in any meaningful way. The sunroom will be demolished and replaced with a two-story addition designed to capture the water views the current house squanders.
First Floor: Entertainment Room at Grade
The first floor of the new addition will sit at the same level as the walk-through basement, creating a seamless connection between the existing lower level and the new space. This entertainment room will serve as a flexible space for the family, equipped with large windows that open the room to the river. The existing part of the basement will be transformed alongside the addition. The cramped room with the stone fireplace will open into the new space, creating one large activity room. A new drywall ceiling will conceal the exposed pipes that currently make the basement feel unfinished. Laminate wood flooring will replace the old tile. The family can use this expanded lower level for recreation, a TV room, or whatever their lifestyle demands.
Second Floor: Informal Gathering Space with a View
The second story of the addition will be an informal gathering space, designed with large windows that frame the river views from an elevated perspective. The rooftop of the addition will serve double duty as a deck accessible from the master bedroom. Raveen and Allison will be able to step out of their bedroom onto this rooftop deck with their morning coffee and look out over the Charles River. This connection between the private master suite and the outdoor living space transforms the upper floor from a simple sleeping zone into a genuine retreat.
Bathrooms and the Master Suite
The upstairs bathrooms in the Auburndale house are connected by a pass-through room containing a shared bathtub. This awkward layout is a relic of the original 1940s design. The renovation eliminates this configuration entirely and replaces it with two separate, well-designed bathrooms. One bathroom will be accessible from the hallway for the children and guests. The other will connect directly to the master bedroom. The master bedroom will also receive new built-in cabinetry, adding storage without sacrificing floor space. The access to the rooftop deck completes the master suite, creating a private outdoor connection that the original house never offered.
Lessons from the Before Phase
The Auburndale house in its pre-renovation state offers a master class in identifying renovation potential. The house had good bones, a prime location, and a style worth preserving, but it also had a featureless facade, a cramped and dark interior, a dysfunctional kitchen, a rickety sunroom that wasted its riverfront location, and outdated bathrooms. Every one of these problems had a solution that respected the original architecture while improving livability. The renovation plans demonstrate that the most successful transformations come from understanding what a house needs, not from imposing a generic vision. For homeowners planning their own renovations, paying attention to Selecting Authentic Reproduction Hardware for Historic Home Renovations is one of many details that add up to a cohesive result. The Sharma family understood that they were buying a neighborhood and a view, and they trusted the professionals to build a house worthy of both. In doing so, they created a template for how to approach a mid-century home renovation with intelligence, restraint, and a clear vision of what the finished home can become.