Houzz Tour: Architect Reimagines A Garage As A Guesthouse

March 23, 2024/Sharing
Having renovated a young family’s midcentury home several years earlier, architect Colin Flavin was summoned once again by the homeowners, this time to create additional space to house guests and serve as a home office and yoga studio. An existing garage was repurposed as the new guesthouse, and the team also created a new carport and storage structure. The main home was built in 1958 by renowned Massachusetts architects Henry Hoover and Walter Hill. Flavin worked on that renovation and knew he wanted to stay true to the main home’s midcentury aesthetic when working on the new project.

“Our client had a deep respect for the original midcentury design and wanted to preserve the footprint of the original house. When it came time to add to the house, they wisely decided to convert the garage structure into living space and asked us to design a separate detached carport structure,” Flavin says.

Guesthouse and Carport at a Glance
Who lives here: A couple and their two young children
Location: Lincoln, Massachusetts
Size: Guesthouse: 769 square feet (71 square meters), one bedroom, one bathroom. Carport: 787 square feet (73 square meters)
Architect: Flavin Architects
Contractor: Perkins Custom Contracting

The project was completed during the pandemic, and the timing couldn’t have been better. “The guesthouse has been a perfect spot for the husband to work from home,” Flavin says. “It is also used daily as a yoga studio. The grandparents come for extended stays in the guesthouse as well. They love the connection to the outdoor terrace we designed with Lynch Landscape and Tree Service.” Flavin had the homeowners peruse for inspiration during the renovation.

Before: Here’s a look at the garage-workshop before the team transformed it into the multiuse guesthouse-studio. “It was quite rough inside; nothing had been done to it in years,” Flavin says. “Fortunately, we discovered the original Douglas fir roof decking was intact, and we were able to refinish it and it has become one of the most beautiful features of the building.”
After: For the new guesthouse, shown above on the left next to the main house, the architects kept some of the original features of the garage and added many improvements, including a wall of glass to replace the garage door, which faces a new patio and plantings.

“Connecting our houses to nature is central to all our architecture,” Flavin says. The unique timber ceiling was kept, and plywood trusses were replaced with steel cable trusses, a modern industrial look that’s also functional. “They are designed to carry the load of the roof, with the cable being in tension. The advantage of this design is it avoids the heavy appearance of the original structure,” Flavin says.

Here’s a closer look at the new steel cable trusses in the guesthouse, created by local structural engineering firm Webb Structural Services.
Inside the guesthouse, the team insulated the concrete floor and installed porcelain planks over it. “The existing concrete slab floor was cold in the winter, and we added insulation and radiant floor heat. It’s great for yoga in the winter,” Flavin says. New skylights and the wall of glass that replaced the garage door bring in an abundance of natural light and emulate the skylights over the kitchen in the main house. There are views of the patio and new carport beyond.

Floor tile: Oxford Blanco, Porcelanosa

The new steel-framed south-facing wall of glass reveals a woodsy view. The owner enjoys watching the seasons change while practicing yoga.
Counter-topped custom cabinetry is convenient for office work or snacking. Flavin used vertical-grain quartersawn white oak for the cabinets, which include storage and an undercounter refrigerator, and topped them with white engineered quartz. There’s an integrated sink at one end and open cabinets for more storage.
The guesthouse bathroom is like a woodsy retreat. It features a curbless wet-room-type shower and earthy green tile on the wall that visually connects to the foliage outside. The team custom-cut the tile for the shower floor from porcelain plank floor tiles.

Wall tile: Cadence Jade, Nemo Tile + Stone; bathroom floor tile: Oxford Blanco, Porcelanosa

The team installed a space-saving Murphy bed and storage on either side of it in the guesthouse bedroom.
The bed can fold up quickly to convert the space into a weight room.
The floor plan shows the cruciform shape of the main house at the upper right, the new guesthouse converted from the old garage to the left of it, and the new carport in the lower left.
This view shows the guesthouse in the foreground and the new carport beyond. The guesthouse terrace is paved in slate, with a sunken rain garden of plants intended to be irrigated mostly by rainfall.
Flavin designed the carport to mimic the low-slope gable of the main house. It can hold two vehicles and has space for storage. The cantilevered galvanized beams are architecturally attractive as well as functional. “We extended the overhang of the carport to cover the walkway to the house,” Flavin says.
Distinctive red cedar slats used as cladding on the open-air carport provide good ventilation.
Light inside the carport filters through the slats, allowing the building to glow at night. “The wood screen adds a warmth to the dark gray siding of the building and is spectacular at night when lit up from inside,” Flavin says.
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