The story of accommodating families in the city is lived within this home. The 2-unit duplex was purchased years ago by 2 brothers when they were bachelors. Fast forward to the reality of a new baby about to outgrow his crib. The lower unit functioned as a pied-a-terre, the upper, a primary home for a growing family.  A small building footprint and site did not allow expansion laterally and the age and height limits of the building did not allow expansion vertically. We were tasked with finding a cost effective way to expand the upstairs unit into the downstairs unit's unused extra bedrooms and closets and still maintain viable code compliance for ingress and egress. After some extensive field investigation, puzzle work with existing stairs framing and detailed discussions with our structural engineer, we resolved the challenges and created a wonderful solution to accommodate all the variabilities of love and life for these wonderful families.