EARTH TONES AND HANDMADE MATERIALS INSPIRE THIS CULTURALLY GROUNDED FAMILY KITCHEN

This project really put my design eye to the test, as the kitchen was wildly dated and presented a bunch of functionality problems we needed to solve. For decades, my client Andrea and her family made the best of it, with the hope of finally tackling a renovation once the kids were out of the house. Well, the time had come! My very first recommendation was to remove a window on the fridge wall. While I normally never recommend removing windows or doors, in this case it wasn’t adding any light to the space and faced the steps leading up to the house. I also didn’t think it looked nice to see right into the kitchen as you approached the front door. With that gone, we could plan for a full wall of upper and lower cabinets. We also widened the opening between the kitchen and dining room so it felt more connected to the rest of the living space.

Andrea is Colombian, so I really wanted the design to pay homage to her home country. She absolutely fell in love with this handmade star & cross floor tile in a Spanish-inspired terra cotta color, which we paired with a handmade ceramic backsplash tile in a sandy color that felt reminiscent of the beaches lining the Caribbean Ocean. Depending on the time of day, the tile can read more blush vs. off white, giving it a kind of mood ring effect. Choosing pricier tiles meant saving in other ways, so we went with IKEA cabinets with Semihandmade fronts. We both really fell in love with this gray-green color which doesn’t make this galley space feel too closed in and plays so beautifully against the terra cotta. I found someone on Etsy who could create custom walnut ledge shelves for us, my way of keeping that wall a bit more open and offer Andrea a nice surface to house a lot of her Colombian treasures. I also sourced these fluted glass light fixtures for some much-needed ambient lighting, and the Belgian linen roman shade on the window softens the space that much more. When my client told me that she actually enjoys cooking in her kitchen for the first time since moving into this house, I almost melted with joy. Projects like these remind me why I love my work so much. By transforming rooms, we transform the lives of those living in them.