Before Photo
This article was originally published by a www.houzz.com . Read the Original article here. .
This 1920s Spanish Colonial home in Kensington, California, has quite a history, including being the residence of J. Robert Oppenheimer during his time at the University of California, Berkeley. However, the home’s funky kitchen didn’t share that history; it was added on to the back of the home in the 1970s. The homeowner, who loves to cook and to host her grandchildren, looked to Houzz to find a designer when she was ready to remodel. She found interior designer Anne Norton, who came up with a design that would lighten the space and tie it in with the rest of the historic architecture.
Photos by Peter Lyons Photography
Kitchen at a Glance
Who lives here: A woman and her dog, Teddy
Location: Kensington, California
Size: 252 square feet (23 square meters)
Designer: Anne Norton of AND Interior Design Studio
Before we step inside, take a look at this photo, which shows the home’s classic 1920s Spanish Colonial architecture. It also introduces us to the homeowner’s dog, Teddy.
The homeowner wanted her kitchen to flow with the rest of the home’s historic architecture. “She’s a big cook, she even likes to make her own yogurt and kombucha,” Norton says. She also loves to gather around the kitchen table with friends and family, especially her grandchildren.
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Here’s a peek at the kitchen in the background, beyond the dining room. The arched opening in the foreground is an architectural element that’s repeated throughout the home. The existing opening to the kitchen had been squared off. Norton redesigned the opening, giving it a graceful arch that mimics the others in the house.
The dining room and the other original rooms had high ceilings. But the kitchen addition had a low, flat ceiling covered in dark wood.
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Before: “The kitchen had a much different look than the rest of the house,” Norton says. “It had been strongly influenced by the School of Environmental Design at UC Berkeley in the ’70s. It was very dark, it had post-and-beam architecture, and it had a flat, low, wood-covered ceiling.” You can glimpse the squared-off opening to the dining room at left.
The cabinets were dark-stained Douglas fir, the wood on the ceiling had a dark stain, and the floors were dark. “The layout was good but there wasn’t enough storage,” Norton says. “We also wanted to upgrade the cabinetry with doors and drawers that were easy to open. The goal was to modernize the kitchen while making it feel like it was part of the original architecture.”
After: While Norton kept the addition’s original footprint and its windows and skylights intact, she looked to the ceiling to help her tie the space to the rest of the home. First she turned to a structural engineer to help remove the post-and-beam structure. Two new large steel beams were installed to hold up the roof. This allowed the designer to raise the ceiling to 9½ feet at the highest point and add a curve to it that was inspired by the arches in the rest of the home. “Raising and curving the ceiling was the most important thing we did,” Norton says. She centered the range and vent hood on the curve. The refrigerator is located at the end of the cabinet run on the right.
With the other elements in the kitchen lightened up, Norton kept the dark floors. “I am a big believer in ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,’” she says. A Middle Eastern rug adds lightness. “I like the way the soft pale oranges in the rug juxtapose with the green cabinets,” Norton says. “It brings a lot of dynamism to the space.”
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Another important element that ties the kitchen to the rest of the home is the hand-plastered finish on the walls. “We kept the materials in the kitchen simple and honest to let the architecture of the curved ceiling bring the drama,” Norton says. This includes the soft sage green on the cabinets, leathered Absolute Black granite counters and marble subway tiles.
The cabinet profiles are flush inset with simple lines and hardware. And they’re also modern, with lots of inserts and features like spice pullouts, a panel-front dishwasher and trash-recycling pullouts. They have full-extension door and drawer slides, meaning they extend out from the cabinet the full length of the slide when opened, not the typical 75%.
Norton chose Benjamin Moore’s Carolina Gull paint for the cabinets, bringing in a soft, nature-inspired color. The hardware is oil-rubbed bronze. “It will patina over time,” Norton says. This will lend a sense of age that matches other details in the home.
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The Douglas fir windows were a part of the 1970s addition, so Norton added Douglas fir shelves to tie in with them. She notes that being thoughtful about small details was important. “We didn’t float the shelves,” she says. “The little supports that hold up the shelves are an old-world technique. I think it’s these small details that make the kitchen feel authentic.”
The cabinets on either side of the vent hood have decorative metal mesh inserts that give them a lighter feel. Also, Norton had the marble backsplash tiles hand-cut into 4-by-8-inch rectangles. This gives them a stronger presence than if standard 3-by-6-inch tiles had been used.
This homeowner is a staunch kitchen table person, and the existing expanse of windows provided the perfect spot for one. The table is a Scandinavian piece from the 1800s. The built-in china cabinets to the left are original to the addition and worked well with the renovated kitchen’s architecture.
Norton wanted to create just the right spot for the homeowner’s Keith Haring subway art. “That wall where the art hangs was a wood grid of 12-by-12-inch cubbies that made no sense, so we took them out,” she says. She replaced them with a plastered wall that lightened the room and gave the owner a spot to hang the beloved artwork.
The large windows overlooking the back garden were a great feature of the 1970s addition. “There is a view of wisteria hanging from a trellis, and her chickens come up and look through the windows. I always leave this house loaded up with a dozen eggs,” Norton says with a laugh.
This article was originally published by a www.houzz.com . Read the Original article here. .
Kitchen at a Glance
Who lives here: A family of five
Location: Wakefield, Massachusetts
Size: 159 square feet (15 square meters), plus a mudroom and bar area of 231 square feet (21 square meters)
Designer: Amanda Colosi Johnson of McGuire + Co. Kitchen & Bath
Before: The U-shaped layout worked for the family, but the dated finishes needed an update. The dark brown and cottage green cabinetry, along with vinyl tile flooring and standard appliances, had run their course. “This couple is a lot of fun and not afraid of color, pattern and texture,” Colosi Johnson says. “That’s why the homeowners painted those cabinets themselves that cottage green.”
A large refrigerator on the right jutted out from the cabinetry. A peninsula with two backless stools and hard-to-reach drawers separated the kitchen from the bar and mudroom area. The door on the near left leads to a sun porch, while the back doorway opens to a hall with a powder room. “We pursued looking into options on how we could change up the layout, but it didn’t make sense to do that,” Colosi Johnson says. “We wanted to problem-solve.”