Personality-Packed Kitchens
photo by katrina wittkamp
The hub of the home reflects its whole
After morphing into a heart-of-the-house functional room that welcomes family and friends to cook, eat, and socialize, the kitchen transforms once again.
Yes, the room is still the utilitarian gathering spot, but its look is now as distinctive as any other space in the house. Instead of one style of cabinets and one countertop material, kitchens now boast several—just as a living room incorporates different tables, materials, and fabrics to create a cohesive look. Kitchen accessories and colors also reflect the owner’s taste and personality.
The inspiration for this departure comes from different sources. Some design professionals think the kitchen should blend more seamlessly with other rooms in the home. Others take a cue from European kitchen-design traditions, in which furnishings don’t match in part because they were collected slowly, rather than plucked from a showroom floor.
As with any style, a good layout, quality materials, and craftsmanship make the difference in keeping this look fresh yet timeless. Here, we feature three kitchens that reveal this approach: a glamorous cooperative apartment that is a hip update on a classic look; a suburban Arts and Crafts-inspired kitchen that borrows generously from the European mismatched style; and a Mexican cocina made for a couple fascinated with that country’s décor and food.
Be inspired, but fashion your own personal space to reflect your taste.
A 1920s Classic Roars
When Courtney and Roger McEniry bought a spacious apartment in one of Chicago’s premier vintage co-op buildings, they loved the large, light-filled rooms overlooking Lake Michigan. They were particularly enthralled with the airy kitchen that the former owners’ architect, Steve Rugo, principal at Rugo/Raff Architects in Chicago, had transformed into an updated version of a classic ’20s white, black, and stainless kitchen.
The McEnirys and interior designer Jessica Lagrange, of the eponymous Chicago firm, left the room’s infrastructure intact: its beautiful, white semi-gloss painted cabinets—some with glass fronts—and a pair of stainless-steel suspended cabinets with a commercial edge; black-honed granite countertops; and the snazzy black-and-white linoleum floor with different patterns for the work and breakfast areas and dividing border.
“When we moved in, I had stacks of magazines I had kept forever, but I didn’t find a kitchen in any of them that I liked better,” Courtney says. Lagrange agrees. “It doesn’t often happen that something is so wonderful. But we also wanted to ‘hip it up’ to make it better reflect the McEnirys’ taste,” she says.
In particular, Courtney didn’t like the wallpaper and wanted new color accents to reflect her choices throughout the rest of the apartment, as well as the nearby lake.
Lagrange made these tweaks, while transforming the kitchen from a workspace into more of a room. She selected a custom paint color—a “greyed-out Robin’s egg blue”—that she used on the breakfast area’s cove ceiling, along one stretch of wall in the work zone, and in the adjacent butler’s pantry and laundry.
The designer’s other selections also spiffed up the space. The organic pattern of window shades repeats the paint’s tone. She picked out brushed nickel hardware to freshen up the look, a highly lacquered black oval table for eating, and white and metal Donghia chairs that the McEnirys had admired in her office. She also chose white stools for the counter from a store that specializes in ’50s-era furniture, green mats for two large Ellsworth Kelly lithographs the couple owned, a black patent-style fabric for a window seat, colorful pillows, and a trio of oversized pendant lights that echo the stainless of the suspended cabinets.
The McEnirys now feel the room is totally theirs. “We kept a lot of what was there so the room has some history, but with our changes, it became a new original,” Courtney says.
photo by katrina wittkamp
An Artful Arts and Crafts Redo
Call it the “un-kitchen” look. Designer Jean Stoffer, whose eponymous firm is in River Forest, fashions personalized kitchens that don’t look like kitchens, yet perform perfectly.
She’s simply against everything matching. “Everything in your living or dining room doesn’t match. Why should things match in your kitchen?” she says.
Instead, her choices depend on an appealing mix that works best according to function—features such as smooth granite for rolling out pastry or heat-resistant stainless by a range. Other details Stoffer incorporates in her visually rich rooms: feet, brackets, molding, and corbels that make utilitarian pieces resemble furniture.
Stoffer, who designed her own kitchen this way, credits her approach to a British kitchen magazine she saw years ago in which the rooms looked as though they had been fashioned out of family collections. “It was revolutionary to me because it showed furniture-style pieces with a variety of finishes—all in the same kitchen!” she says.
The concept appealed to a young couple (with four children under the age of 10), who tore down a dilapidated home in LaGrange and hired architect Dennis Parsons, principal of Parsons Architects in Hinsdale, to build a modern Arts and Crafts-style home. They asked Stoffer to help design the kitchen.
Her first decision was to locate the room to take advantage of golf-course views and a southern exposure. She also made it spacious because the family wanted room to eat, do homework and art projects, and accommodate extended family. “We wanted to provide a space for all of us to be comfortable, since my husband has four siblings in the area and there are 12 grandchildren,” the wife says.
The personalized look of the room was inspired by the home’s design, as well as the owners’ Stickley furniture collection. The earthy palette and materials are evocative of the Craftsman style, with variations that differentiate zones and functions.
Cabinets are cherry, hickory, and painted maple, with those used for display sporting glass fronts and molding that mimics furniture. Countertops are black-honed or “Cashmere” yellow granite, and pulls are pewter or black wrought iron in varied shapes. Behind the range, a backsplash combines polished cream, brown, and green tiles. Windows were left bare to take in the views and to watch the children play outdoors.
While the room evokes an updated Craftsman feeling and melds seamlessly with the flavor of the home, it will stand up to hard use. The oak floor, for example, is period appropriate, while the “rug” beneath the table, designed with stone, slate, and ceramic tiles, adds greater durability. “There are no delicate finishes,” Stoffer says.
photo by Gary Chang
Photography
A Hinsdale Hacienda
When Patti and Steve Davis bought a French Provincial-style house 18 years ago in Hinsdale, they didn’t plan to make it their north-of-the-border Mexican hacienda.
But ever so gradually, Patti, who works as a communications director, found herself gravitating to all things Mexican. “I loved the warmth of the Mexican culture and its cuisine,” she says. After numerous meals at Rick Bayless’ Frontera Grill and subsequent cooking-school trips with Bayless to Oaxaca, Mexico, plus treks on her own to Santa Fe, New Mexico, Patti began adding Mexican furnishings to the home, and cooking more Mexican fare.
It’s not surprising that the primary design influence for the couple’s kitchen—and other rooms in the house—naturally progressed to a Mexican cocina look. “I wanted a kitchen that would be ultra-functional, have a great sense of unique style, and reflect my personality,” Patti says. Her husband, a lawyer, was “with me every step of the way,” she adds.
Designer Cheryl Daugvila, owner of Cheryl D. & Company in LaGrange, helped locate authentic furnishings and materials in Mexico and New Mexico. When the real McCoy wasn’t practical, the team found something similar. The traditional red clay (saltillo) floors seen in homes throughout the Southwest and Mexico are difficult to maintain up North and are also tough on feet. Instead, Daugvila used glazed porcelain tiles for the kitchen’s main area and interspersed them with smaller, hand-painted Mexican tiles.
For cabinetry, Daugvila’s cabinetmaker husband, Marius, designed boxes with maple interiors and butternut exteriors that were heavily distressed with spikes and chains to achieve a rustic look. Even the refrigerator got custom treatment: Marius applied thin wood strips known as latillas, or salt cedar branches, which Patti brought from Santa Fe.
The room’s island includes a custom wood base with a rustic, weathered look. The work surface is poured concrete inlaid with objects such as geodes and arrowheads Patti found during hiking trips in the Southwest. The cooktop sits in a niche, beneath a shelf with Mexican Talavera tiles. Above the cooktop, ceramics teacher Kathy Kucia hand painted a Spanish proverb, which translates to, “If you’re hungry, no bread is too hard.” Two antique corbels that once held up beams in a Mexican church became supporting structures for the hood. Above the main sink, an old oxen yoke found new life as a pot rack.
Walls are painted burnt ochre, Mexican-style chairs found at Pier One were painted different colors, and punched tin pendants dangle above the island.
The approach succeeds in its evocative ambition. “You really feel you’re walking into a different world—but with equipment, granite countertops, interior cabinet fittings, and under-cabinet lighting,” Daugvila says. “It’s clear this is a kitchen that’s highly functional.” MH
