Photoshop Redo: Buffing Up a Neo-Colonial

Plain Facade

“We love the long front porch and the pillars, but it’s just very plain,” says Jason VanderWoude of the 1968 home he shares with his wife, Kristi, and their three children. Unlike most homes in their Grand Rapids, Michigan, neighborhood, theirs has yet to be renovated.

The VanderWoudes moved into their 3,000-square-foot house a year ago, not because it’s bigger than their old house, but because they “wanted to be in a neighborhood with kids and sidewalks,” says Jason. It has five bedrooms and 3 ½ baths.

After the Photoshop Redo

For ideas on where to start, we turned to architect Jon Sarkesian, from across the state in Royal Oak. The home’s builders, he says, must have been going for a kind of Colonial Revival, but they didn’t get the proportions quite right.

The VanderWoudes are certainly sold. “Oh my word, it’s spectacular,” says Jason. “We’ll have to have someone price it out to see how soon we can get started.”

Proper Proportions

“The columns aren’t out of place, but they’re too tall and too spindly,” Sarkesian says. To remedy the scale, he beefed up the columns and halved their height with a second-story porch that gives them purpose.

Replacing the original round columns with 1x12s over structural posts—either in cedar or a cellular PVC material such as Azek Trim—gives the facade a much more substantial look.

Stylish Porch Addition

Of course, an upper porch needs an access point, so French doors replace the window in the master bedroom. “Having French doors coming out of the bedroom to a porch is very appealing,” says Jason.