When Nick and Tina Daniel moved to central Ohio in the back half of 2019, they saw the ability to have a patio and a yard as a major perk. After all, they had just spent 12 years in Brooklyn, which, for all they liked about it, didn’t offer much in the way of outdoor space.
before addition
So about six months later – after the whole world turned upside down and everyone was spending much, much more time at home and outside – it became clear that the outdoor space of their Upper Arlington home had a lot of room for improvement.
The family didn’t initially see a problem with the porch, which led down to a patio. But when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, it suddenly seemed small, and they began to envision a space for the whole family to relax together.
“They’re on a beautiful wooded lot, and they had a smaller porch,” says Margot Sheehan, project developer and design consultant for the Cleary Company. “They wanted additional space where they could watch TV, hang out and enjoy their beautiful setting.”
The Daniels worked with Cleary to make some major additions to the space – including a new covered porch, cabinetry and a stone fireplace – to transform it into both a gathering space for entertaining and, essentially, an outdoor family room.
“We can host people outside, we can have drinks, we can eat dinner with our kids, we can watch TV, we can sit around a fire,” Tina says.
The project took approximately five months to finish, Sheehan says, reaching completion just as spring weather made it appealing to the couple’s three children.
The new porch is built out of cedar, with composite Trex decking in Woodland Brown color. It’s surrounded by columns sporting stone veneers to match the house.
The centerpiece of the new porch is the Heatilator gas fireplace, made of
Photos courtesy of the Cleary Company
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Creative Mines Greypearl stone. Cleary designed it with space to fit a large TV as well as a mantle on which to mount it.
“We had the fireplace go up through the roof,” Sheehan says. “We didn’t need to do that, but we did it just for visuals.”
The old porch is used primarily as an outdoor kitchen now, accommodating a smoker, outdoor cabinets for barbecue and other kitchen utensils, a quartz countertop, a pizza stone, and even a flat-top griddle that makes outdoor pancakes a possibility.
That possibility, incidentally, is a very popular one among the Daniel children, though Tina is personally a fan of the grilled steaks and chicken.
“It’s made our (indoor) kitchen a lot more organized because we’ve been able to move a lot of stuff from the kitchen outside to the cabinets,” Tina says.
It was important to both Cleary and the homeowners that the addition match the design aesthetic of the house, so the company incorporated the brick, stone and cedar detail visible on the front of the house into its plans. They also kept the existing patio and added a panel of woven wire railing, both for safety purposes and to further match the house’s visual appearance.
“It looks like it’s always been there,” Sheehan says.
The gabled roof with double rafters over the new porch is equipped with ceiling fans to ward off insects and keep it cool in warm weather. Asphalt shingles and aluminum gutters match those on the house, and two skylights add light to the space.
Cleary also relocated a trellis elsewhere on the property to make way for the new porch and – as an additional safety measure – put in steps on the front and back sides of the old porch.
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The best part of the new and improved outdoor space, Tina says, is its ability to accommodate large gatherings. Multiple sitting areas, a new dining area, a sectional couch and more allow the Daniels to host all manner of groups – including, earlier this spring, their boys’ first Communion.
And despite the scale of the addition, Cleary made sure not to obscure the view, which was one of the things that attracted the family to the house in the first place. The creek, the hill and all the plants are entirely visible, Tina says, and the perfect complement to a cup of coffee outside on weekend mornings.
The project won local and regional Contractor of the Year awards from the National Association of the Remodeling Industry in the category of Residential Landscape Design/Outdoor Living $100,000 to $250,000.
Garth Bishop is a contributing editor at CityScene Media Group. Feedback welcome at feedback@cityscenemediagroup.com.
