Big Kitchen Energy
A small kitchen can often be the deal breaker in the house hunting process, but in the historic row homes of Richmond, a small kitchen is nearly inevitable.
When these homes were built, kitchens served purely functional purposes, and those functions didn’t look much like the way we cook and eat today. Now that the process of making a meal is an art form and social function, these little tucked away spaces have a hard time squeezing into modern lifestyles.
A lot of the renovation work we do in older homes involves opening up and updating kitchens, but due to the layout of row homes, there isn’t always a lot of extra space to play with or room to expand. But this is just the type of challenge that we enjoy, and that our lead designer, Bronwen, is exceptional at.
In the case of a recent kitchen renovation, Bronwen had other exceptional creative minds to work with. Our clients, Leigh Suggs and Daniel Rickey, are accomplished artists and makers in their own right, so when they came to us with tiny kitchen woes, we put our heads together and came up with an artful design solution.
Their existing kitchen was located at the rear of the house and provided access to their parking area and frequently used outdoor living spaces.. It was a tight, enclosed, galley- style kitchen with very limited counter space and awkward work areas. The back door and a window took up quite a bit of wall space and dictated some of the layout requirements. A former owner had opened up a pass-through between kitchen and dining rooms, which provided visibility between the spaces, but limited wall storage options in both rooms. In addition to the kitchen improvements, the couple also wanted to add a powder room to the one bathroom house and needed to keep their basement access in the kitchen.
The first step is always design. After a few rounds of concept development, detailed drawings, renderings and selections were made. Since Daniel is a skilled furniture maker, he was an integral part of the design process and fabricated all of the kitchen cabinetry and countertops. This helped with budget, but also with flexibility to create custom design solutions for the space that fit the couple’s exacting aesthetic.
After the design details were finalized, demolition began. The wall separating the kitchen and dining space was removed as was all cabinetry and flooring. The pantry closet was removed to make space for a refrigerator and powder room. Plumbing and venting were moved to create a more functional and open layout. The window by the back door was removed to make room for kitchen wall storage and the back door was replaced with a new full glass door to maximize natural light.
Then came the fun part: putting everything back together on an empty canvas. Rather than a wall separating the kitchen and eating space, we designed a large island with bonus seating that would also incorporate a large stainless steel sink and dishwasher. The countertop is a combination of solid wood and Durat, a sustainable solid surface material which contains recycled post industrial plastics and is itself 100% recyclable.
The kitchen floors, which were an outdated linoleum, were replaced with solid hardwood along with the rest of the first floor. A new back door added lots of natural light. The cramped pantry was removed to make space for a full sized refrigerator and Daniel crafted spacious floor-to-ceiling cabinetry to provide additional storage. Daniel also built the remainder of the kitchen cabinets, floating shelves (complete with undermount LED lighting), and even the kitchen barstools. We were also able to keep and work around the original radiators and basement access, packing all the components of this hardworking space into one open, streamlined and functional space. .
This formerly cramped, bottlenecked galley is now a bright, open and highly designed space for cooking and entertaining. This kitchen proves that you don’t need to have a huge space to have an elegant and functional kitchen, just some creative problem solving, thoughtful design and beautiful craftsmanship.
