“Its ALL About the Wood!” Mountain-top Kitchen
Location: Crofton, BC
Scope of Work: Full design and project management of a renovation of a Kitchen and Family room
Develop the design package to include floor plan, electrical plan and elevations
Source and specify all finishing materials
Project manage the renovation
Challenges:
This custom home was built over 20 years ago with the kitchen landing on the second story of this three-story home. What once was a good-sized kitchen for its era, for today’s standards, is too small for the overall square footage of the home. The second challenge was its location, we had no viable options to expand the foot print without an extensive project investment so a creative solution was needed.
Solution:
To solve this, we needed to create the “feeling” of space without actually increasing the physical size. This home has gorgeous panoramic views from mountain side to water views to pastures. My goal was to visually create a panoramic, unobstructed view and allow the natural light to flood the space. Secondly, I worked to create clearly defined traffic zones between the kitchen, eating nook and family room. And lastly, sourcing finishing materials to showcase the clients love of wood and the beauty that surrounds them.
I created three distinct zones: washing, cooking and storage, to streamline the traffic through the small space. Secondly, an oversized 10’x 8’ slider was added to expand the visual sight lines beyond the physical wall.
The door into the kitchen was removed and closed in, increasing the size of the storage wall. Next, the cabinets were raised to ceiling height, maximizing the vertical sight lines and utilizing the additional space for much needed storage.
AFTER
The bay window lent itself perfectly to create a banquette for the eat-in nook. By pushing the table back into the window, this created clear traffic zones into the kitchen and family room and enlarged the feel of the space significantly.
With the door eliminated to the kitchen, the secondary door into the family room became the primary access for the whole space. The configuration of furniture was changed to allow for a center traffic zone. The sitting area was relocated against the back wall where the TV once was and a cabinet built to house a pop-up TV!
All the TV components are nicely stored away, out of sight!
The bar stool was serving as a charging station, so we created a central location that everyone could comfortably access without interfering with the work flow in the kitchen.