Is anyone else in the Denver area fantasizing about moving to Kaua’i or Florida’s Gulf Coast this week? Just me? Winter weather before Halloween is ridiculous; it’s unfair and it’s making me have general regrets. Our town sent out an email reminding everyone to shovel their walks for the trick-or-treaters. Severe cold in October causes me to self-doubt, feel sleepy, want to eat all of the Halloween treats in the home to make myself feel better and binge watch Flip Wars on Amazon.
Now that that’s out of the way let’s talk about a kitchen I finished recently! This kitchen is in an older, classic home in Denver’s Hilltop neighborhood. It’s the kind of home where an open kitchen would require restructuring the entire first floor (stairs are involved) and the client enjoys and is used to a contained kitchen. As a designer, it seems like all I’ve been asked to do the last 10 plus years is open up kitchens to the living space so this project was a departure! It reminds me that in certain, traditional homes, a contained kitchen is a natural and desired thing.
This before photo will be pleasing to a few people out there. The vintage metal cabinets are in great shape and they were sold, not thrown out. The tile, while appealing to some because it’s different, just doesn’t work well as a countertop material and the soffit was not necessary. I feel the need to say this because every time I put a before photo out that’s “vintage” in nature, I get negative feedback from people about change. The cool vintage piece here was the cabinetry and that was salvaged.
The physical shape of the kitchen was a huge challenge. The client was used to working in the galley space but needed more room for the refrigerator and other storage. Because of the age and layout of the home, opening up walls was not an option.
I’m not a big fan of corner sinks in general, but I’m less of a fan of the double sink that was here before. We angled this corner to make it more comfortable for the dish washer. The husband demo’ed the soffit himself and it wasn’t hiding anything at all! Sometimes you get in there and there’s a mess of stuff. Most of the time there’s just a few pipes and it’s always nice when there’s nothing there at all. The new light fixture is the Goodman Fixture from Visual Comfort; the area rugs are from Shaver-Ramsey.
This is the end of the galley part of the kitchen. To the right of the little cabinet is a pantry. We clad the pantry in cabinet panels to unite it with the other part of the kitchen that’s in the next room with the brick wall that you can see below. On the far right is the refrigerator. The brass hardware is from Schoolhouse Electric. The cabinets are completely custom from Oak Tree Classic Woodworks.
I love the brick wall and really like the original color. We had to change it because it clashed with the new cabinet color.
I love a hidden door and this one was hard to show off in a photo because of how tightly laid out this kitchen is! The cabinet on the left hides a toaster oven and other breakfast items. The paint on the cabinets is Collingwood by Benjamin Moore. It looks different in all kinds of light which is a quality I love in a paint color. Here’s a little Gif of the project!
“School is practice for the future, and practice makes perfect. But nobody’s perfect, so why practice?” Billie Joe Armstrong
The Colorado Nest 