Jaynor Johnston and Claudia Rast remodeled the interior of their modest Ann Arbor home over the course of 15 years, turning it into a showplace of small space that lives bigger.

Photo courtesy of Custom Design/Build

The house only had one cramped bathroom and the kitchen was so small, Johnston called it a pivot kitchen. “You could stand in the middle, pivot and reach any counter,” she said.

But Johnston didn’t want to move from the three-bedroom house in the southeast neighborhood, off of Packard Road, where she had lived in since 1964. “This house has been everything to me,” she said..

So beginning in 1996 and over the course of the next 15 years and as their budget would permit, they would turn what Johnston called “a very basic three-bedroom ranchette” into a roomy showpiece with a Zen-like patio, a kitchen that holds a small crowd, a wine bar and a basement office with enough storage for a clothes horse.

Builder Debra Moore of Custom Design/Build calls it the Tao of Not So Big. Not So Big is a national movement lead by North Carolina-based architect Sarah Susanka. While the renovations only added a handful of square feet, the house lives bigger than its size.

“The owners had a commitment to the neighborhood,” Moore said. “They didn’t want a McMansion.”

The feeling of space was, in large part, created with two bumpouts, one in front, adding space to the living room, and one in back, yielding more space to the kitchen area. Moore took advantage of the deep overhangs to add the modest additions.

“The word of the day was bumpouts,” Moore said. “It’s a way to add space without a full-blown addition.”

They added about 64 square feet to the 980-square-foot house.

"It’s not huge,” Johnston said. “But it made all the difference in the world for how we feel in the room.”

There were other ways to make a small space live larger. A wall dividing the kitchen from the eating area was removed. The slope of the living room ceiling was made more dramatic, with three large rectangular skylights letting in daylight and adding to the visual space.

The curved bathroom vanity top created a roomier feel.

The makeover included:

• A pergola and fencing made of high-grade cedar at the front of the house creates a peaceful and sheltered outdoor refuge, with a gurgling fountain and container garden. “It also makes it so we’re not looking into each other’s picture windows,” Johnston said.

• A basement renovation that included a second full bathroom, a study, a living area with a high-efficiency wood burning stove (it can heat the house in case of power loss), laundry room and a combination yoga studio/wine cellar.

• A reconfigured front entrance that created better traffic flow. An entry foyer floor of cut and polished river rock was installed. Brilliant red entryway walls added interest.

• In keeping with the modest theme, Moore said most of the work was done with an eye on the budget. The semi-custom cupboards came from a big box store and the laminate kitchen floor made to look like washed pine was $1.79 a foot. “Other than the lighting, everything was cost efficient,” she said.

• The lighting was a splurge. The curvy track lighting was curled around wine bottles to create a whimsical design. There’s an assortment of recessed cans and technical track lighting, creating flexible zones of light. A Solatube in the shower lets diffused daylight in.

Squeezing out big rewards from a small space was carried outside, Moore said, with a French intensive garden. Raised beds are used to maximum space in the small backyard. Water from a series of rain barrels is used for watering.