Review About: Turley Architects

Author

 Jim Bychowski (N/R)
Rating:
*****

Relationship
Thursday, July 05, 2007
Review #2601

Can you imagine your home having it's own personality and sense of what it wants to be? I always thought that a home is what you want to make of it and it becomes a reflection of your personal tastes. Chris Turley and his associates at Turley Architects showed us how the flow of a house can continue into new space while maintaining it's character and charm.

After living in our 1902 Winnetka home for a few years, my wife Barbara and I decided that we needed to expand our living space to accomodate more friends and family. We had recently hosted a 40th wedding anniversary for my parents and we decided that our 10 by 12 family room just wasn't going to cut it anymore. Although we had a fantastic deck and yard, we were limited to outdoor gatherings or clearing out furniture in other rooms to accomodate guests.

When searching through the phone book (yes, before I learned to Google), I came across Turley Architects, based in Evanston, IL. We invited Chris Turley over to brain storm on my ideas for expanding our house. Being an engineer, I had a pretty solid idea of what I wanted and thought that all I needed was an architect to put it on paper so I could get it to a contractor to build. Was I wrong! After a short conversation, Chris had opened my mind to several much better possibilities, educated us on the design and function of our existing house and identified our desires and needs for the new space.

Turley Architects first performed a feasibility study, providing us with several basic conceptual designs. Some were very interesting and stretched our imagination while some were very simple. We learned how to bring natural light into our new spaces and how to improve the circulation and function, in addition to effectively connecting our family room to our back yard. After selecting a direction and concept, we entered the design phase and worked with their team to style the interior features. Through the whole design process, we always had a very clear and visual understanding of what we would end up building. Most importantly, Turley Architects kept us within our budget for their services and our construction budget.

We are extremely happy with the results of their creative work and the living space that they designed for us. Our friends, family and even the Chicago Tribune have provided a constant stream of compliments on our house. Our Turley Architects designed addition/renovation was featured in a Chicago Tribune / Your Place article titled "Divide and Conquer" by Elizabeth Brewster on October 27, 2006. We highly recommend Turley Architects for your project.

Jim and Barbara Bychowski
Winnetka, Illinois
 
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