Kitchen & Bath Business - July/August 2016 - 28

Before and After

Other than repairing the water-damaged floors,
there were thankfully no other structural challenges to the space. The soffits did not have any
HVAC, electrical or plumbing hidden inside, so
removing those was fairly easy.
BLENDING WITH THE HOME

An easy decision was the
choice of cabinetry: a Shaker door style in
white to fit the homeowners' hopes for a clean
and airy space. However, the home had a darkstained trim throughout its entirety, and the
room needed to incorporate some of that color
to blend with the rest of the space.
"We toyed between white and stained crown
to match the room, but something was off,"said
Stephenson. She decided to add a matching
piece of stained valance molding to the bottom of the wall cabinets to bring it all together.
"When the homeowners and I saw this combination on my monitor, we all said,'Yes, this is it!'"
"Through Lighting. The pendants above the kitchen
island also help bring the spaces together. The
homeowner saw them in a magazine, and Stephenson agreed that they blended well with
the style of the home and the beach-inspired
family room off the far end of the kitchen. The
pendants' bronze finish also accentuates the
bronze hardware and faucet.
" Through Colors. The dark island cabinetry beneath the pendants is contrasted by the white
cabinetry around the perimeter, and Stephenson
hoped to find countertops that blended the two.
"For the countertops, we looked at about 20
different options but finally decided on granite
with a book's spine edge," she said. "It was a
good mix of white, gray and brown to combine
all the finish colors together in the kitchen."
" Through Cabinetry.

Space & Symmetry Lessons

A chopped-up kitchen transforms into a well-balanced room
that blends with the rest of the home

DESPITE BEING IN A NEARLY 7,000-SQ.-FT. HOME, one Yorktown, Va.,
kitchen looked like it belonged in a much smaller house. Everything in the
home had been recently renovated with the exception of the kitchen and dining areas, which were unused, dark and dated - all faux pas to its homeowners,
one of whom recently retired from NASA.
"This vast space was like a bowling alley, with a span of almost 55 feet from
end to end," said designer Ebony Stephenson of Newport News, Va.-based
Criner Remodeling, who completed the redesign.
The would-be open space was chopped through the middle by a peninsula
with tall wall cabinets. A soffit above these cabinets made even the nine-ft.tall ceilings seem short, while all the natural light from a large triple window
was blocked out by a valence and curtains.The dark cabinetry and old lighting
did not help the kitchen much either, but those were the easy-to-fix problems.

ABOVE LEFT To tie the kitchen
to the rest of the home - which
featured dark-stained trim
- the design team added a
matching piece of stained
valance molding to the bottom
of the 60-in. wall cabinets.
ABOVE RIGHT "The appliances,

with the exception of the new
refrigerator, were dated and
some did not work at all," said
designer Ebony Stephenson.
"The dark laminate countertops
had also seen better days."

DISCOVERING CHALLENGES

The homeowners wanted the new space to feel open and airy and have plenty
of storage, but most importantly, they didn't want to feel stressed during the
remodel since the wife is a busy nurse practitioner. Despite these modest
requirements, the team faced a number of challenges from day one.When the
appliances were removed, a leak around the dishwasher and sink was discovered, and the existing hardwood floor and even the subfloor were damaged.
"Replacing all of the flooring was not an option since this prefinished
flooring was previously installed on the entire first floor of the home," said
Stephenson. "The issue was made even worse by discovering that this floor
had been discontinued since its purchase several years prior."
Fortunately, the homeowners were able to track down just enough of the
flooring to finish the job.The team then had to repair the subfloor and tooth in
the new floors to make them blend seamlessly with the existing flooring.

ADDING SOME NECESSARY DRAMA

BY ERINN WALDO

The clean, white kitchen still needed that pop of
color to make it stand out, so Stephenson looked
to a popular spot: the backsplash.
"I wanted a bit of drama under the stainless
chimney hood, so I used polished glass tiles in a

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Kitchen & Bath Business - July/August 2016

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