Designed

From House Beautiful

Tudor-style bungalow homes from the 1940s with small kitchens and disjointed flows are fairly common in northeast Portland, and the one that JHL Design was hired to renovate for a family of three was no different. But rather than seeing problems, the Portland-based interior design firm saw possibilities: original mahogany woodwork, original hardwood doors, and small details like intact picture rails in the formal living spaces. So, together with Thesis Studio Architecture, the team worked out a plan that added only 150 square feet to the footprint—but through what JHL Design principal Holly Freres calls “a rearrangement of space” made the home feel significantly larger.

The first step was to reconfigure the entire main floor, which contained a narrow kitchen and two bedrooms at the back of the house. The bedrooms, Freres explains, “monopolized access to the private,