When Hal and Jackie bought their first home in Beverly, MA, everything about the location was perfect. A quiet tree-lined street just minutes away from the train, downtown, and the beach. Plus, Hal’s commute to work would be practically non-existent. The trade-off, as many first time homebuyers know, was that the house was going to require a bit of work.
The newlyweds were up for the challenge and got busy quickly—painting walls, lightening up a 1970’s sun room, and removing the tired carpet and refinishing the wood floor below. The outdated kitchen, however, posed a larger challenge.
The design issue presented to Hal and Jackie was that simply replacing the cabinets and finishes would not yield a space that was much better for the cost. The kitchen was too small, with a mixture of handy-man built shelving and appliances jammed into awkward locations. The path between the dining room and exterior doors forced all the cabinets to one wall that could not fit everything, and there was no room for seating, save for a small table pushed against the wall. The adjacent dining room also suffered from a claustrophobic lack of space, making it impossible to access the sunroom without pushing chairs out of the way.
The immediate solution was obvious: combine the kitchen and dining room into a single space and improve the kitchen layout. Much less obvious was “how?”
For Patternbook Architecture & Design, we knew the design needed to accomplish these three goals:
Improve the kitchen layout
Improve circulation between the exterior door, dining room, and sun room
Allow the kitchen and dining room to work as separate spaces, while feeling less cramped
Improved Kitchen Layout
In the case of this project, a U-shaped kitchen would not work. Eliminating at least one corner would allow us to place cabinets and appliances all the way up to the dining room wall. Ranges have code-required countertop minimums, so we gave it plenty of space on its own wall. The counter depth refrigerator, on the other hand, could be tucked up against the wall at the far end, allowing the sink to remain at the window, with space for a dish washer in between.
Improved Circulation
To improve the circulation between rooms, an island was added in the middle of the kitchen. While this provided much needed cabinet and countertop space, it also served a second purpose: to separate the thru-traffic from the kitchen workspace. It would now be possible to travel from the exterior door (the owner’s primary entrance from the driveway) to the dining room without anything or anyone being in the way. The removal of the wall also gave the dining room chairs some breathing room, allowing much easier access to the sun room beyond.
Separate spaces, but lots of room
Far too often, the allure of taking out a wall to make a space feel more open is too good to resist, especially when you’ve been living in a space that is too small. An unanticipated side effect is that it can contribute to the loss of separate places to be inside a home.
For this kitchen we opened up the space only as much as was needed. Instead of removing the wall entirely, we created a very large “opening” framed with trim. This allowed the kitchen and dining room to feel like two separate spaces, but kept them feeling open and connected. Retaining the wall also helped hide where the refrigerator and cabinets terminated and provided a logical stopping point for finishes and paint colors.
We also felt that in order to make the kitchen feel like an occupiable space (instead of just a place to stand) some kind of seating was a must. Since space was limited, 24” base cabinets were coupled with 12” base cabinets to provide a small seating area at the island, perfect for sitting on your own with a cup of coffee in the morning or chatting with a friend or two while you cook.
Small touches make a difference
Once the layout was solved, we used a number of other design strategies to reinforce our design goals:
Ending the backsplash under the cabinets would leave a small kitchen like this feeling chopped up. Instead of stopping it, we let the tiles continue along the wall and around the door. At the window we let the tiles go up to the ceiling, giving the kitchen some height and a nice focal point.
The walls, door, and trim were painted the same tone as the backsplash. This allowed minor elements such as the door to recede into the background, making the room feel bigger and taller with white cabinets that pop in contrast to everything else. For small spaces especially, this is a great way of downplaying elements that don't align with anything and clutter the wall, like a door frame.
A chair rail was added to the wall opposite the cabinets, bringing down the scale of the wall, which would feel very tall and shear otherwise. This is another great strategy for small spaces like bathrooms, where the walls are taller than the floor is wide.
Lighting makes a huge difference on every project. We replaced the single overhead light with multiple indirect (general) can lights, and direct lighting lighting above countertops and over the island. The space can be bright and vibrant, or quiet and cozy depending on the owner's mood. Remember: you can't light space, only surfaces that define space. If you want materials to to stand out, they need to be lit properly.
Patternbook Architecture & Design is an architecture firm located in Beverly Massachusetts. We specialize in residential design, and draw our inspiration from historical New England homes.
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