Cool Modern Kitchen Remodel in Holliston

We are often asked to remove walls to help with the open concept many people are after today. This is a project that benefitted in so many ways by doing this; I am really very excited to share it with you. When I met the Owners, they were more than tired of being greeted by the refrigerator that was imposing a space constraint on the kitchen; as well as standing guard to ensure no one could see past it to the family room. The couple was hopeful there would be a solution to keep a fair amount of storage space and improve the work space, they just couldn’t see beyond the paradigm of the bearing wall. 

The requests by the Owners were that they wanted a clean modern kitchen that would still feel warm and relaxing because they wanted to open it up to the family room. The Mr. also loves to cook from scratch, and wanted a kitchen that worked hard without a big mess being part of the family room.

The Challenges were:  

1. How open could the space be with the structural challenges?
   
   
2. Where would everything go and still have a good working environment when the wall was gone?
   
   
3. How could we make the space feel part of the living environment and satisfy the Owners professional level cooking style?

We started with the wall, and because of the load we needed a piece of steel that was wider than the wall itself, and we wanted the opening to be as tall as possible. This posed a bit of a dilemma because it is a pet peeve of mine not to have an obvious statement in a design that says “a wall was removed here”.  Alexandra came up with a great idea to build out the trim as wide as the beam on the walls, and this created a fantastic frame for the kitchen from the family room; a beautiful modern definition statement without any blockage of the space.

Early in the planning stage we showed the owner a few locations in concept form for placing the refrigerator. We decided to tuck it in to the corner where ingredients could be accessed easily from the work space and not be a bulky part of the view in. Refrigerators are usually best off to the side because they act as architectural anchor (good and bad). Additionally, we moved all of the storage for dry goods to the wall opposite the sink.

As for the solution to bridge the cooking and relaxing spaces, we started with a few iterations of typical ways to mask the mess on the prep counter, and when a waterfall edge came up in the discussion- we pushed the idea of this stunning high top counter that encompasses the cook and draws the eye to a spectacular furniture like piece of contemporary art and craftsmanship.