Residential Addition & Dormer | Wantagh, New York

From Cape to Two-Story Home in Wantagh

A full dormer, a rear great-room addition and a reworked first floor turned a small Cape into a two-story home with a new presence on the street.

LOCATIONWantagh, New York

PROJECTCape renovation & addition

Completed two-story Wantagh home with pale yellow siding, covered porch and front bay window — The completed house. Project photograph, retouched for presentation.

The original Cape had its living space on the first floor and bedrooms tucked under the roof.

The project set out to add usable space upstairs, create a larger room at the rear and give the house a different presence from the street.

BAWI looked at the house as a whole: the upper floor, the existing rooms, the rear addition and the way the house meets the street, so that each change supports the others.

The Starting Point

The Challenge

A Cape's second floor lives under its roof. Sloped ceilings and low eave space limit where bedrooms, a bathroom and storage can go. Adding a full second floor and a rear addition also meant rethinking the original rooms, and the finished house still had to read as one design rather than a series of add-ons.

Color illustration of the original one-and-a-half-story Cape — Before — Existing Cape
Color illustration based on the original drawings, not a photograph.

Color illustration of the proposed two-story front elevation with porch and bay — After — Proposed Front
Color illustration of the proposed design.

Inside the Transformation

BAWI's Approach

We studied the house floor by floor and from the street, then set four moves that work together.

01Full dormer

The second floor was taken down to the floor joists and rebuilt as a full story with bedrooms, a bathroom and upstairs laundry.

02Rear addition

A new great room at the back of the house, with the basement extended beneath it.

03Interior reconfiguration

Living and dining areas in the original house were reworked to connect with the new great room.

04Street presence

A covered porch, a projecting bay and a revised roofline give the house a new face.

Existing and proposed floor plans

Existing spaceNew spacePorch and atticRemovedKitchens, baths and utility rooms are a shade darker · Each pair is drawn at the same scale

First floor

Reconfigured living and dining areas connect to the new great room at the rear.

Proposed first-floor plan with rear great-room addition — Proposed

Second floor

The full dormer makes room for a revised bedroom layout, a bathroom and upstairs laundry.

Proposed full-dormer second floor with bedrooms, bathroom and laundry — Proposed, full dormer

Basement

The lower level extends beneath the new rear addition.

Proposed basement plan extending beneath the rear addition — Proposed, rear extension

Roof Design

One roof for the whole house

The roof plan shows how the dormer and rear addition meet the original house, tying the new upper floor to the porch, the bay and the larger footprint.

Presentation illustration based on the original roof drawing.

Roof plan presentation illustration showing the dormer, rear addition, porch and bay

The Exterior

The Result

The finished house reads as a two-story home rather than an enlarged Cape. The upper floor works as a full story, the great room adds a larger living space at the rear, and the porch and bay give the house a welcoming front on the street.