Seyburn House

My fiancé and I purchased a home in Detroit Michigan that had been vacant for 8 years. I am an architect and he is a mortgage banker. Working together, we knew we could transform this beautiful brick home built in 1912 into a place that would adapt to modern life. Programmatically, we flipped the dining and living rooms to reoriented the spaces based on how we spend our time. The large solid wood dining room table was discovered in the basement, under a tarp. With a new large opening to the kitchen, we connected the active kitchen with the living room. Removing instead of adding, we demolished an underutilized porch off the back, to allow evening sunlight to pour into the kitchen. We kept the palette neutral, to highlighted the original wood floors with a natural stain and cleaned the dark wood columns and trim. Upstairs, we took advantage of the pitched roof to make the spaces feel larger. As a final touch, I welded the steel handrail that wraps the stair in the loft space, a west facing room great for reading and enjoying the sunset.