Behind the Design - Bethesda Kitchen Remodel

Sunday, October 02, 2011

One of our recently completed projects was a full kitchen design and remodel in a beautiful old house in Bethesda, Maryland. The existing kitchen was small and cramped with room only for two runs of cabinetry. It was connected with a doorway to a small pantry, and on the other side of the pantry was the dining room. The wall between the pantry and the kitchen was a structural wall that supported the weight of the guest bathroom and office above. Perpendicular to this, and separated from the kitchen by another wall, was a day room with a powder bath and closet. Our clients needed a new and larger kitchen, and had several goals for the design and renovation.

The first design objective was to gain the space for a larger kitchen, and the only way to achieve this was to remove the walls that separated the kitchen from the pantry and the day room. Since we had determined that these were load-bearing walls, we knew we couldn't just knock them down, but had to provide a way to support the weight above. Whenever we encounter challenges like this during the design process, we like to consult with a licensed structural engineer in order to come up with a solution. Working with our engineer, we decided to install a post and beam system in the ceiling to carry the load of the wall. This allowed us to remove the walls and open up the three separate rooms, leaving plenty of room for the new kitchen.

Another design requirement of our clients was to increase the natural light in the new space. The existing kitchen had two windows and a door in the corner, that provided access to the back yard. In our new design, we wanted to make better use of the corner space, so we decided to relocate the door to where the existing pantry window was. We in-filled the old door opening with brick, and added another window in the corner. The re-worked openings allowed us to design a much better layout for the kitchen, while maintaining an airy, open feel. Keeping this many windows, however, left little room for upper cabinets for storage. We solved this problem by adding a row of cabinets to the back side of the kitchen peninsula, and by designing a large custom pantry cabinet with roomy roll-out drawers at the bottom, and shelves at the top.

Our clients wanted to replace their old oak cabinetry with something lighter, so we suggested cabinets with a painted white finish and Shaker style doors and drawers. The rest of the house had beautiful oak hardwood floors, so we decided to match this in the kitchen design, to maintain continuity throughout the home. Often, it is difficult to achieve a perfect transition between old and new hardwood flooring. Older wood tends to have a tighter grain pattern than what is available today, and the finish changes color with exposure to sunlight and age. Luckily, our flooring crews are real craftsmen, and so they were able to tooth the new hardwood in seamlessly. For countertops, we chose a marbled white and gray granite that adds some contrasting texture and color to the white cabinetry and the white subway tile backsplash.

The pictures below will give you an idea of how this design and remodel turned out!