The client purchased a small 1,400 SF one-story brick cottage on a corner lot of a historic downtown neighborhood in Charlottesville, VA. Needing extra living space to make the new home realistic for their 4-person family, and not wanting to consume their small yard with an addition, they opted for the scheme that expanded upwards. We removed a failing roof that need to be replaced, underpinned the foundation at key locations, kept the modest brick box as the new base for a modern “hat” on top. The addition provides 3 new bedrooms and a home studio / office that can flex to a fourth bedroom in the future. In making the connection between the new and the old, we rearranged the spaces at the rear of the house to provide a large new family room adjacent to the kitchen and a large screen porch / 3 season room to improve the house’s connectivity to its back yard.