Working on small kitchens and extracting every ounce of useable space from them has always been one of the underlining Strengths of our Company, rarely do you find a home that has the space it needs to make any kitchen it wants. There is always an opportunity cost, you always most time must trade something off. Sometimes it is a closet, a dining, a bathroom, or some other space that needed to give up its original intent and now forms part of a larger more meaning space in the home… usually the kitchen. Then on occasions, you have to bump out in the yard and in some homes, even that comes with its own sets of problems and fixing this kitchen was no different.

The home owners were frustrated with the kitchen from day one and it did not really get better as the years go by, it was just getting more and more frustrated to deal with it. When we walked into the room we can immediately see why. This kitchen wasn’t suffering from a bad location syndrome, it had everything it needed to be a really great space, it had the views and the access to the private back yard, it had the access to the garage, the access to the dining room and the living room, even access to an office off to the right. The Original Architect could not have put this kitchen in a better space even if he had tried. The rest of the rooms were proportionally appropriate for a home this size even the kitchen was, it just was very poorly design. While it had features like a walk-in pantry, a Pwd room and some storage, it was a struggle to work in.

We set about to fix this once and for all. We kept the range where it was, it was in a good spot, we just center it up on the wall and gave it a real hood that does some serious venting, we had the room so we made that a 36” range instead of the original 30” which was there. We kept the sink where it was too. It was in a good spot, but the view was somehow obscured by the window that interfere with really cool view to a wonderful backyard, so we design the space for a triple slider with minimum obstruction to the view.

We then turn our attention to the major eyesore, that Pwd room, while it was the only one on the main floor it was just in the wrong spot, got rid of it from where it was, Powder rooms are not and should not be considered focal points and this one was doing just that, tying to be the center of attention and ultimately blocking other much needed lights and  sight lines from the kitchen. We make it smaller and moved it out of the way, (Here is a look at that transformation

1 2 Next »

This allows us to then make way for a lovely feature wall that we painted in blue flanking  a second sink there where the original Pwd room was, so instead of that window giving light to the pwd room it was now giving light to the kitchen.

The family wanted an island it if was possibly and they wanted a bit more countertop space if that was possibly as well, not only did we got an island in there, we also were able to pick up more storage for a new “beer” refrigerator, the client would be upset if I said “wine” refrigerator. We picked up an additional glass cabinet, wrap around cabinets leading all the way down to the dining room. What we had now was a space that has finally got the opportunity to shine and to be all that it can be, especially for finally being able to serve the family well.

We had some challenges here as well, we had to redo the floors twice, then one of the family the family pet.. not going to call his name, he is famous now but he walked on the floors just when we thought we were done, we had to do it again. Had a few design changes on the fly on site, had to re-build and paint a cabinet due to last minute site adjustment but its part of what we do. The New powder room has a toilet bowl that has 3 different ways to flush, one with your foot, the other with a wave of your hand an the third with an actual button so there goes on for technology. Overall, this was a really great experience working with this family to transform their beautiful home.

One more happy client now onto the next!