Contemporary Kitchen in Chevy Chase, Maryland

This kitchen was in an incredibly awkward, angled and disjointed space. This made it virtually impossible to design a beautiful, let alone, functional new kitchen. We started off by creating the best solution possible within a kitchen that had a huge brick wall splitting it into two ineffective spaces. It had a back area where the refrigerator and clean up sink resided, and, the rest of the kitchen had an inefficient island with another sink and the cook top. The one thing the clients liked was the fact that they could put all of the dirty dishes in the back area when entertaining, in order to keep it from view. They do entertain a lot, promoting performing artists in their home. After struggling with the design, the AHA moment was when we realized how much better the kitchen would be without that brick wall encroaching on what could potentially be a great big space. We explored the design without that wall, and, came up with a more squared off, large space. We retained the back area, sizing it down, but, still made it large enough for the entertainment clean up area. In addition to this, the back area serves as large walk in pantry with open shelves for additional storage. The clients were amazed that their kitchen could be so glorious in both form and function. We crossed our fingers hoping that this large, original exterior brick wall could be removed. After meeting with the contractor and with the engineer, we got the thumbs up. We knew that this new kitchen would be 1000 percent better than the old one, so, we got professional before pictures in order to allow others to experience this amazing transformation. Their large Tudor house had been through many renovations and additions throughout the years, so, peeling away the layers took over a month of demolition and rebuilding. Although the Tudor style is very traditional, the client’s taste leans toward contemporary, with some traditional accents. We decided that a warm contemporary kitchen would meld well with the dark wood work on and in the house. We lightened it up with white cabinets and acid etched mirrored glass tilt up doors. We needed to have a large support post in the kitchen, and, with luck, it ended up in the perfect position, allowing us to ingeniously hide it. That tall narrow open shelf cabinet is actually a series of panels that are put together around the post. No one would ever know that there’s a support column in the middle of this space! To give the shelf column more of a purpose than housing books, we put walnut floating shelves that spring off of it and supported them with wire cables. Instead of an ugly post, we now have a sculptural, yet, useful, detail. The refrigerator/oven area is in white in order to minimize its bulky appearance, and, by surrounding it with walnut and adding the tilt up glass doors, this became a unit that blends all of these various materials into one area. We added a solid walnut countertop which serves as a seating area. Because of the lack of wall cabinets, we added in a large walnut shoji cabinet with frosted sliding doors. The client loved this idea since her mother is Japanese. At the end of the island, we put more glass centered on and facing the breakfast table and windows. This project was utterly satisfying. To see a jumbled, chopped up space transform into a lovely, large and organized space is enough to make 30 years in this business worth it!

Project Year: 2011
Country: United States