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Kitchen at a Glance

Written By: Erin Carlyle, Houzz Editorial Staff


Who lives here: A couple — he’s retired; she works part-time.
Location: Chatham, Massachusetts
Size: 325 square feet (30 square meters)
Designer: Katelyn Manfredo, architect and project manager of SV Design, which did both the architecture and the interior design

Before renovating, the owners of this home in a seaside town on Cape Cod had a 200-square-foot kitchen and no dining space. They’d retired here from western Massachusetts and wanted to have storage for their many kitchen items. They wanted a larger kitchen and a dining space that would seat six to eight people.

This photo of the renovated space shows the dining area and a portion of the new kitchen. To gain space, SV Design, the architecture and interior design firm for the project, created a 10-by-10-foot addition on the back of the house. The addition is the U-shaped portion of the kitchen seen here. It brought a flood of natural light in through the many windows.

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The addition bumps out to the left of the appliance wall in this photo. The kitchen wall continues with the refrigerator and a tall pantry cabinet, which face the dining area. A mirrored cabinet runs along the left wall of the dining area for more storage.Before Photo

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Before: This photo shows the same space before renovation. The area where the two dining chairs are placed is where the dining area is now. The refrigerator is in nearly the same spot as in the “after” photo.

As this photo shows, the back of the house where the kitchen was located didn’t have much natural light prior to the renovation.

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After: Here’s a closer look at the kitchen addition. The wall with upper cabinets is attached to the garage, so from a design standpoint it made sense to place upper cabinetry on this wall, since windows weren’t a possibility.

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The homeowners chose flat-front cabinets painted a glossy white. The wife liked this cabinet door style because it’s easy to keep clean, with no edges or ridges where dust or debris can accumulate. The backsplash is matte wood-look porcelain tile typically used on a floor; it continues from behind the stove to above the pine window casings.

The homeowners wanted their pots and pans to go beneath the cooktop, so designer Katelyn Manfredo added drawers there. The double wall ovens are mounted side by side so that they’re at appropriate heights for the couple, who are both on the shorter side.

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In their European travels, the homeowners had seen sinks with built-in drainboards, and the wife requested that feature. “We worked with the cabinet designer to make sure it could fit and still have a drawer underneath it,” Manfredo says.

The stainless steel pullout to the right of the sink is a trash compactor, something the homeowners had in their former home and definitely wanted in this one.

The countertops are engineered quartz with brown and orange specks and veining. The cabinet hardware is polished stainless steel.

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Since the kitchen windows stretch to the counters, leaving no space for electrical outlets on the walls, Manfredo placed pop-up outlets around the window perimeter.

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The wife fell in love with a mirrored finish she saw in a showroom and wanted it on the dining area cabinets, beneath the continuation of the kitchen counter. The mirrors help the cabinets feel more like a furniture piece, Manfredo notes.

The dining cabinets contain pullouts for liquor bottles, as well as racks for wine bottles and glasses.

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In the space where the kitchen turns a corner and becomes the dining area, Manfredo created a little seating area — two counter-height bar stools. The couple sit here when they don’t want to eat at the dining table or while monitoring what’s cooking in the kitchen.

The flooring is oak. The rug beneath the dining table is a piece the couple brought back from Morocco. They also selected the modern-style table and chairs.

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To the right of the refrigerator, Manfredo designed cabinetry that the couple use as their drop station. The top drawer is the junk drawer for pens, papers and takeout menus and the lower drawers contain table linens. The wall above the counter is a magnet board, where the couple like to display family photos. To the right is the door to the garage.

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The U-shaped part of the new kitchen is straight off the entry of the house.

General contractor: Philbrook Engineering & Construction
Additional kitchen design: Becky Brown of Classic Kitchens & Interiors

To see more of this project, click here: Smoke & Mirrors.