Project Overview:
This project did not start out as a kitchen at all, but rather to address an acute need for a garage. But as the design phase commenced, the homeowners decided to also expand and remodel the kitchen, connecting the garage to the kitchen via a mudroom The desire to create the proper roofline to go with the house — a gambrel — led to a 2.5 story garage, which yielded a 20’ x 23’ home office on the second floor.

The new kitchen features a large eating area overlooking the backyard. A long piece of custom millwork, which separates the kitchen and mud room, provides kitchen storage on one side. The other side has family cubbies, giving each person in the family (including the dogs!) different storage options. The cubbies flank a family message center, large bulletin board and blackboard. A flight of stairs leads from the mudroom to the office upstairs.

One important goal was to make this a seamless addition. So we took special care to replicate the door and window trims found elsewhere in the house. During kitchen demolition, we uncovered the original bead board wainscot. This, too, was replicated and extended from the kitchen up to the office, and used for the ceilings.

Our work on this house received an Historic Salem (Mass.) award for design excellence in recognition of how well the addition fits in with the rest of the exterior. It was one of the first such awards given to a home outside an historic district in Salem.

See our other kitchen projects:
Antique Colonial Kitchen
European-Style Villa Kitchen