Remodeling in Dr. Phillips, Where a Third of the House Is Rooms You Walk Past

Not necessarily remove — reassign. In most of these plans the formal rooms hold the best light and the best position, so the question is what deserves to be there. Sometimes the right answer is opening them into the kitchen so one large space does the work of three small ones. Sometimes it is keeping the walls and making them a genuine office, a guest suite, or a second living room. What rarely makes sense is leaving them exactly as they are while the family crowds into a breakfast nook.

Usually yes, and it is one of the more satisfying changes in these houses — it removes a barrier, makes the space read as one room, and takes away a step that becomes a real problem as people age in place. What it involves depends on the slab and the framing at that transition, so it needs to be assessed on site, and any structural implications require the appropriate engineering and permits. It is rarely trivial, but it is rarely impossible either.

It can be, but it is usually better planned together. The screened enclosure in a Dr. Phillips house is directly attached to the rooms you are already changing, and decisions inside — where the openings go, what the sightlines are, whether the kitchen reaches the outside — determine what the outdoor space should become. Doing the interior first and the lanai two years later tends to produce two projects that do not quite agree with each other.

No. SAVAM House serves Dr. Phillips and the surrounding southwest Orange County area, and we do not claim a premises there. We come to the house, assess it in person, and plan from what is actually built.