Washington, DC

Magically, this kitchen seemed to triple in size. The kitchen, butler pantry, sun room and “other” room were the only spaces left to complete the renovation in this very elegant home. The client had a room which he referred to as the “other” room, because it was located next to the kitchen, without access to the kitchen. It is located off of the main living room and opens up to a long and narrow sun room on the back of the house. It had a built in bar in the same wall where the door to a very small powder room resides. The sun room was split by two different floor levels which made it difficult to furnish, and, a third level was the step up to the butler’s pantry. Since the kitchen really was too small in proportion with the rest of the home, we decided to open up the “other” room to the kitchen by taking down the 36” of wall that was shared by both rooms. This put the rooms on an angle to one another which at first, seemed awkward. Taking down the wall between the kitchen and the butler’s pantry/ powder room would have helped the space, but, this is the original brick wall and to take that out as well as to move the powder room would have been a big and expensive project. We decided instead to move the door to the powder room to the butler’s pantry side and to remove the built in bar. Now, this room would be considered part of the kitchen. The challenge was in how to make this room seem like part of the kitchen. Since the existing kitchen did not have space for a breakfast table, the client wanted a place for people to sit and eat a casual meal, or, to simply socialize. He didn’t want another table because there was already a dining room table in his formal dining room. With the kitchen also lacking counter space, we decided an island would do the trick. To make for a cleaner design in the kitchen, we angled the range wall. Then, by placing the island on an angle in the “other” room helped to make it feel like an extension of the kitchen. With the butler’s pantry in the same finish as the rest of the kitchen and island, this also feels like part of the kitchen. This is how we tripled the size of the kitchen only by taking out three feet of wall. The powder room also was enlarged since the doorway was now cut through a thick brick wall. This gave that space another foot of space, which it badly needed. The white cabinets and Carrera Marble were selected in order to expand the space. The dark gray tile floor is a perfect blend with the dark gray in the Carrera Marble. As for the sun room, that was easily straightened out by building it up to level and having the offset height only around the back door. The hand scraped dark walnut wood floor helped to warm up this space.

Designed by #JGKB. Photography by Bob Narod.

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