True-to-Style Functionality

Bringing a kitchen up to today’s level of functionality doesn’t have to leave the rest of the house looking like a relic. Thoughtful integration of the home’s existing design concepts provides any homeowner with a cooking and prep space that’s more intuitve and enjoyable to experience.

For this home’s 1970s mid-century aesthetic, bringing everything up to speed also meant upgrading some existing aesthetic choices. For example, the original ceiling was a drop ceiling with acoustic tile, but by raising the ceiling and implementing can lighting, mid-century design concepts become attractive focal points to rest the eyes.

“They did not have an island before,” says Rachael Parker, designer at DreamHouse DreamKitchens. “They had a U-shaped peninsula that came off one of the walls and made this long hallway; we removed this to open the space.” Post transformation, what’s configured is a model example of working triangle theory, where functionality is defined by how the sink, stove, and refrigerator interact with one another via proximity and flow.

Having a workstation sink also expands the functionality of the kitchen. When the sink is a place to prepare food as well as store and wash dishes throughout the cooking process, the needed counterspace for food prep is greatly reduced. This sink can be used for washing and cutting ingredients as well as straining without having to take over the entire basin.

Keeping the palette simple was also important to Rachael, which is why the stainless steel is kept to a minimum. “The Sub-Zero refrigerator is hidden. We decided to panel the appliances because we wanted it to be a hidden feature. Then to have some symmetry with the tall pantry off to the right.

“The whole house has original trim that’s true to the house, so we didn’t want to impede that. The thought process was to go with lighter wood that matches as close as possible and then do a complementary wood. We didn’t feel like painted cabinetry was very true to, one, the house and, two, the style. We really wanted to bring more wood in. Though it might seem heavy, that’s where the black wood came in—to kind of break that up and make it look like it was more thought out. … Being in it, it is a warmer and inviting space.”

White Cambria countertops also help bring out the lightness of the wood, and the black breakfast bar adds a little bit of dimension to the space. Highlighting the beauty of those details and features that are not normal in every kitchen is key to visually pulling people into a room. Even the vent hood works to add a touch of asymmetry, providing just enough flair to the focus of the kitchen.

The one choice that truly stands out is the green backsplash, which almost incidentally gives the room a sense of time as well as place. “The whole conversation started with the client wanting an emerald color of some sort,” says Rachael. “She loved emerald. She wanted to incorporate that into the house. Her first thought was maybe doing the island that color. Mercury Mosaics is a really cool brand of handmade tile, and we found these pieces. It just screamed to the green—a perfect match to what she wanted. Then we kept the cabinetry very neutral, which helped the feature of the two woods without having to add a third color in cabinetry.”

As for the side of the cabinetry where the brick meets the wood, it was important to create a transition that incorporated the brick of the fireplace in the adjacent room. The challenge that came with marrying the two was overcome by rethinking how to extend the cabinetry while utilizing the black wood as a sort of trim. The black wood also helps to pull out that warmth in other wood elements throughout the design.

A few key things were done to complete the mid-century feel of the kitchen. Most prominent is the angled wall serving as the end to some open shelving on the beverage station: a sort of exclamation point to the design. There is also a reeded glass cabinet tying in with the home’s reeded glass exterior door.

The results of Rachael’s approach prove that no matter the size or layout of a room, sacrifices in aesthetic don’t have to be made to unveil the hidden potential of existing spaces. “Not everyone has this ginormous space that they can work with,” says Rachael. “But that doesn’t mean that you can’t have a very functional kitchen.”