Curated Kitchen

Sometimes clients have a hard time verbalizing what they want. There are times when the scale of their ideas don’t match the scale of the room and it’s my job to educate and guide them to creative solutions. I often have them pull out pictures of designs they like and begin looking for the common thread that would make sense to incorporate for them. A builder had called me to meet at a potential project, a house for new Tucson residents wishing to remodel an entire house. When I arrived, there were pictures taped to the walls everywhere and there was a footprint sketched on the bare concrete that was overpowering the kitchen. I always start with getting the design laid out first. I liked the direction they were going, but some kinks needed to be worked out. The space was designated by an intricate ceiling detail that defined where the kitchen stopped and the living room started. I noticed that the kitchen was missing an important appliance, the microwave. After scaling down the island that seemed to be popping out of the kitchen, we placed the microwave on the backside and added some storage underneath the bar to maintain abundant storage.

Project Images

Click on thumbnail images below to see complete gallery of this project.

Next, it was on to the look. The common thread of the photos were three distinct looks for cabinetry, white painted, dark espresso and natural wood. After some interviews about what items they were brining into the space, I discovered they were collectors and there would be an eclectic mix of furniture and art and that led us to finalizing a nice neutral cherry wood cabinet with limited detail to be a backdrop to their curations. The first round of granite was selected as art, it was simply amazing and truly unique. But after some consideration, it was decided that it would be a competing element and went against our original concept of using beautifully plain materials. And so the second granite was selected. All following decisions in flooring, paint and backsplash kept this theme; in fact we designed in a space for display in between the refrigerator and double ovens.