Blurring the boundary between indoors and out, an imaginative renovation transforms a 1970s ranch home in Wyckoff.
Written by Leslie Garisto Pfaff
Design by Dan D’Agostino
Photography by Dan D’Agostino
Perfection wasn’t on the market. After eight months of searching for a house in Bergen County, Kristin Sinoway and her husband Steve realized they were unlikely to find exactly what they wanted. So they switched gears, deciding that to get their ideal home, they’d have to create it themselves. They found the potential to do just that in a 1970s ranch on an expansive lot in Wyckoff, with an appealing great room and a cramped, outdated kitchen.
It was their architect, Dan D’Agostino of Plan Architecture in Little Falls, who devised the perfect solution: Rather than renovate the kitchen, they’d turn that space into a mudroom/laundry room/work station combo. They’d situate the new kitchen in an existing outdoor room with a dramatically vaulted ceiling, retaining both the ceiling and the large multi-paned window that originally overlooked the backyard. Beyond the kitchen, they’d create the kind of lavishly appointed outdoor room that Kristin Sinoway remembered from her childhood in Florida.
The outdoor room and kitchen, says D’Agostino, “naturally flow into each other, effectively blurring the line between indoors and outdoors.” Banks of large windows and two sets of French doors flood the room with light throughout the day, and virtually all the surfaces—from the pale wood flooring and the white concrete pendant lamps to the bright-white cabinets and quartz countertops—are reflective, with the exception of dark wood beams and open shelving, which provide a striking contrast. That’s in keeping with Sinoway’s penchant for mixing light and dark, old and new, modern and rustic—evident in the priory-style dining table with its weathered gray finish that is surrounded by clear plastic chairs. While D’Agostino devised architectural solutions, Sinoway came up with all the furnishings and finishes, curating the kitchen with finds from Amazon, Etsy, local flea markets and traditional furniture outlets like RH (formerly Restoration Hardware). Pondering that eclecticism, she describes the room’s style as “industrial, coastal, modern, farmhouse.”
The unseen genius of the kitchen, Sinoway notes, is its smart design. All of the lights, as well as the Sonos sound system, are operated by Amazon’s Alexa cloud-based voice service and Wink, an app that allows homeowners to coordinate all their electronics. “I don’t even know what my light switches connect to,” she says. “We just tell Alexa what to turn on or off, or how to set the mood.”
To accommodate Sinoway’s large extended family—and to balance the height of the ceiling—D’Agostino created an extended kitchen island with room for six stools. While the kitchen isn’t fully open to the great room—Sinoway says she wanted to maintain its “den-like feel”—a large entryway and the transom window above it encourage flow from one room into the other. The flow goes both ways. Large panorama doors showcase the back deck and can be opened and closed as desired. And a single windowed door opens onto the outdoor room—a space D’Agostino likens to a studio apartment, with multiple “living zones”: a living room space and an outdoor kitchen under a beamed, vaulted roof and a dining area beneath an open trellis. To add to the sense that you’re in a room rather than on a patio, D’Agostino built in an actual fireplace rather than the standard fire pit. “A fire pit is very informal, with almost a ‘camping out’ feeling,” he says, “whereas a fireplace is more refined.” Relaxing in front of the fire on a balmy night, you might just believe you were inside a house—if your house were equipped with gentle breezes and a symphony of crickets.
The outdoor room reflects not just Kristin Sinoway’s Florida upbringing but also Steve’s passions for football and golf. The large flatscreen TV mounted above the fireplace—along with a series of heat lamps installed in the ceiling—allows him to watch the games outside from early spring through late autumn and beyond. The downside to all this comfort, Sinoway quips, “is that my husband never comes inside.”
If the outdoor room reflects her love of hygge—the Danish word trans-lates roughly as “cozy”—the mudroom is the embodiment of her affinity for organization. The room’s laundry section mixes open shelving with closed cabinetry for storing cleaning supplies, and a granite countertop offers ample folding space. Opposite the laundry area is a daily office system that includes a bulletin board, a chalkboard, a filing space and a charging station. And in the mudroom proper, next to a dedicated leash hook for the couple’s rescue dog, Taco, there’s a built-in home organization station with plenty of room for stashing shoes, outerwear and sporting gear. Luckily, it’s also spacious enough to accommodate a slew of outdoor toys, since Sinoway gave birth in August to the couple’s first child, a daughter named Evie. Whatever outdoor play spaces she inspires, they’re sure to be both highly organized and extremely cozy. And, no doubt, they’ll flow seamlessly from inside out.