Mixing Bowl

Architect Ellen Bailey Dickson loves the traditional style of her 1940s Tudor in suburban Chicago. But she's equally partial to mid-century Modern design. Her remodeled kitchen blends both tastes, from the stained-glass window found at an antiques fair to the funky metal light fixtures that hang over the island.“I enjoy dispensing bits of Modern,” she says.“It's like having little surprises to catch people off guard.”

In order to give the kitchen more square footage for cabinets, Dickson switched its location with that of the old dining room. She also knocked down the wall between the two spaces so they flow easily into one another. To keep the cabinets from appearing monolithic she varied their finishes, hardware, and dimensions, designing one section to look like a freestanding hutch. The cheerful yellow wall tiles—some plain, some patterned with either dots or waves—are applied in a random order that fits the room's relaxed, playful tone.

Dickson and her husband wanted their three school-age children to be able to help with cooking, so they installed the oven and freezer down low, where the kids can reach them. Two additional advantages, in her book, are the room's extra-deep sink and unusual trash can location. “After making dinner, you can put all of the dirty pots and pans in the sink,” she notes. “It's so deep that you can't see them if you're sitting at the dining room table.” And placing the built-in trash can by the food prep area instead of under the sink saves time during cleanup. “You can get everything thrown away quickly,” she says.

Project Credits: Builder: Quality First, Chicago; Architect: Bailey Edward Design, Chicago; Project size: 405 square feet (includes dining room); Construction cost (kitchen only): $167 a square foot; Photographer: Anthony May Photography.

Resources: Cabinets: Wood-Mode; Countertops: Terrazzo Marble Supply; Dishwasher/range: Fisher & Paykel; Lighting: Artemide, and LBL Volo; Oven: GE Appliances; Plumbing fittings: Grohe; Plumbing fixtures: Franke; Refrigerator: Sub-Zero.

Arch Support

Remodeling or adding to a Mediterranean Revival house takes a judicious hand. It's not hard to get carried away with arches, tiles, and other ornamentation, turning the project into an overblown cacophony. But withhold period detailing, and you'll lose the very characteristics that make the style so enduring. Kajer Architects neatly handled this dilemma when renovating the kitchen in a 1920s Pasadena, Calif., residence originally designed by notable local architect Sylvanus Marston. “It's so easy to go overboard with that kind of motif,” says principal Georgie Kajer. “Our goal was to make the kitchen look like a really nice butler's pantry.”

The result is a room with just enough detail to keep the home's fine pedigree intact. Working on a fast-track schedule necessitated by its role as the 2003 Pasadena Showcase House of Design, Kajer enlarged the kitchen to three times the original servants' kitchen size. The owners frequently host catered parties, so the space holds two dishwashers, two farmhouse sinks plus a vegetable sink, and an 8½-foot-by-4-foot island. A butler's pantry designed in period style, with mahogany countertops and glass-front cabinets, holds extra china and glassware.

Kajer's choice of materials, from custom-made tiles based on antique patterns and colors to the handmade wrought-iron light fixtures and pot rack, demonstrates her sensitivity to the house's vintage. Yet modern-day touches, such as a built-in writing desk and 48-inch stainless steel cooktop, seem right at home.

Project Credits: Builder: Thomas Lake Builder, Pasadena, Calif.; Architect: Kajer Architects, Pasadena, Calif.; Project size: 600 square feet; Construction cost: Withheld; Photographer: Eric Staudenmaier

Resources: Dishwasher: Bosch; Oven: Gaggenau; Paint: Dunn-Edwards; Range: Thermador; Refrigerator: Sub-Zero.

Open For Business

When this waterfront vacation home on Maryland's Eastern Shore was built in the early 20th century, well-off homeowners didn't spend their time cooking. Kitchens were the servants' domain and tended, like the original one here, to be dark, small, and isolated from the rest of the house.

Architect Chip Bohl tweaked the floor plan to create a relationship between the kitchen and its adjoining rooms. He ripped out the upper half of the wall between the kitchen and a screened-in porch, installing a row of custom-made casement windows. After converting the porch into a light-filled mudroom, he added a bay window and built-in table to the kitchen's north wall.The slate table blasts right through the bay and keeps going as an outdoor picnic table, linking the room to the home's patio and yard. Though a doorway into the dining room already existed next to the range, Bohl added another one on the other side of the cooktop to ease traffic flow between the two spaces.

His design for a curvy plaster range hood eliminates fan noise from the kitchen, since the hood vents out cooking smells through a remote fan in the attic. Resilient cork flooring also works well acoustically, absorbing excess sound. The room's horizontal paneling harks back to traditional beadboard, but with a twist: It's made of luxurious mahogany rather than the standard pine. With its unusual mix of materials, newly fluid boundaries, and inviting mint-green color scheme, the kitchen's days as a closed-off afterthought are long gone.

Project Credits: Builder: Winchester Construction, Annapolis, Md.; Architect: Bohl Architects, Annapolis; Project size: 230 square feet; Construction cost: Withheld; Photographer: Celia Pearson.

Resources: Dishwasher: Miele; Lighting: Artemide; Plumbing fixtures: Franke; Range/warming drawer: Thermador.

Box Rebellion

Architect Chris Schmitt has long pondered the question of how to gracefully design a kitchen as part of a great room. “When I started designing houses, I found it hard to put the kitchen into a space the scale of the dining and living areas without it looking ‘stuck into' the room,” he says. Luckily he remembered a graduate school class that focused on the concept of buildings within a building, and used that as his takeoff point for this South Carolina Low Country home. By dropping the kitchen into the great room in a permeable box, he treated it as its own building within the rest of the house.

Walls of horizontal wood slats make up two sides of the kitchen's container. They provide separation from the great room while allowing light and fresh air to filter in. A third wall possesses glass-paned cabinets and an ample pass-through to further knit the kitchen and great room together. The fourth, structural wall holds the oven, refrigerator, and extra storage.

A recycled heart pine frame gives the box more definition without blocking the kitchen off from the great room. At 8 feet tall, the enclosure measures the same height as the overall space's doors, windows, trim, and wainscoting, and a yard lower than its 11-foot ceilings.

Project Credits: Builder: Cambridge Building Corp., Hilton Head Island, S.C.; Architect: Schmitt Sampson Walker, Charleston, S.C.; Project size: 224 square feet; Construction cost: Withheld; Photographer: © Rion Rizzo/Creative Sources Photography.

Resources: Cabinets: Kitchencraft; Dishwasher: Miele; Garbage disposer: Franke; Plumbing fittings: Moen; Plumbing fixtures: Kohler; Oven: Jenn-Air; Refrigerator: GE Appliances.