Kitchen Makeovers
Kitchen Makeovers
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Kitchen Design
Kitchen of the Week
Kitchen of the Week
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A designer creates a cottage feel by adding classic architectural elements and mixing white with warm woods
Becky Harris4 days ago
Houzz Contributor. Hi there! I live in a 1940s cottage in Atlanta that I'll describe as "collected."I got into design via Landscape Architecture, which I studied at the University of Virginia.
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This Canadian family’s main residence in Victoria on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, is very modern. In order to make it that way, they had looked to Houzz for an interior designer, found Andrea Rodman and hired her to give it that style. But for their vacation home on nearby Shawnigan Lake, they wanted to go for something markedly different. They called on Rodman again. “They wanted this house to have more of a traditional, beachy cottage feel,” she says.
The homeowners wanted the kitchen to serve as a hub where family and friends could congregate. “They wanted a lot of space for people to be able to sit and feel comfortable in here,” Rodman says. This was a full renovation that included ripping out the dated design elements, reconfiguring the awkward layout, widening openings to other rooms and replacing the windows and doors in the dining bay. Rodman mixed light wood and white for a light and airy feel and tailored the traditional cabinets to feel like freestanding furniture. And she reworked the contemporary dining bay to match the rest of the home’s new, more traditional style.
Before Photo
Photos by Ema Peter
Kitchen at a Glance
Who lives here: This is a family’s vacation home
Location: Shawnigan Lake, Vancouver Island, British Columbia
Size: 500 square feet (46 square meters)
Designer: Andrea Rodman
Contractor: Interactive Construction
Before: Shawnigan Lake is a small community with a mix of full-time residences and vacation homes. It’s about a 45-minute drive from the homeowners’ main residence, and they wanted it to serve as a family gathering spot that was welcoming and comfortable.
The original kitchen had a hodgepodge layout, with the range and hood dominating the center of the room in an awkward way. Wall ovens were located to the right, and the microwave was in an oddly angled cabinet bank toward the back. Also, the finishes all had a yellowish cast that didn’t feel very inviting.
Andrea Rodman Interiors
After: Rodman got rid of the quintessentially 1990s angles, straightening out the floor plan. She centered the kitchen off a focal range wall and an island that faces it. She also straightened out the openings on either side of the range wall for a more calming symmetrical look.
“My signature style is usually light and airy, and that’s what my clients wanted here,” Rodman says. The airiness comes in through white finishes and the architectural changes. The new openings between rooms, for example, have transoms above them to help share light. Their style is simple and traditional.
Rodman kept her clients’ existing large Sub-Zero fridge where it was, tucked outside the heart of the kitchen but close to the range and island prep area. The island has a large farmhouse sink and lots of storage. The main sink is located past the panel-front dishwasher, just out of this photo’s frame to the left.
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Andrea Rodman Interiors
“I like to use a vent hood as one of the focal points in the kitchen,” Rodman says. Here she created a range alcove and extended the hood across both the range and the countertops flanking it.
Cottage style comes in through the millwork on the custom painted MDF hood, the oak island countertop and the beadboard on the island’s base. “The island countertop added to the cottage feel and adds warmth and wood tones,” Rodman says. She used marble on the perimeter countertops.
The kitchen island and three simple pendant lights are centered off the vent hood, emphasizing the hood as a focal point. Rodman counts on South Shore Cabinetry for the cabinetry and millwork on all her projects. “I always know they’ll be able to do exactly what I’ve designed,” she says.
Before Photo
Before: The wall on the right had a staggered mix of appliances, cabinets and countertop space, contributing to the haphazard feel of the room.
Andrea Rodman Interiors
After: Now a long row of storage cabinets on the kitchen’s side wall has a pleasingly uniform look. And the wood Rodman chose adds warmth. “We whitewashed this oak to emphasize its graining. This gave it a more rustic cottage feel,” she says. “We also eliminated toekicks to give this cabinetry more of a freestanding furniture feel.”
The wall of cabinets has glass doors in the center. This makes the large piece feel lighter while providing a place for display. The shelves have uplighting that reflects off the glassware inside. There’s also built-in lighting in the open display boxes that run across the top. The glass cabinet is flanked by pantry storage on one side and an appliance garage on the other. “We wanted to keep the small appliances hidden,” Rodman says.
Also shown here is the stunning La Cornue induction range, surrounded by marble countertops. Rodman extended the marble behind the range to serve as the backsplash. “I used AntiEtch finish by More on this marble, which makes it stain-resistant and nonporous,” she says. This finish is crystal-clear, lending a polished look, and it will last 10 years before it needs to be reapplied.
Andrea Rodman Interiors
Rodman widened the opening between the kitchen and family room. “We made it as wide as we could without having to change anything structurally,” she says. The transom here helps enlarge the opening while lending a comfortable sense of scale.
The opening offers a view of the family room’s rustic stone fireplace. Rodman had the stone whitewashed to give it more of a beachy cottage feel. The flooring throughout the house is stained white oak. It grounds the light and airy, white-walled spaces with a warm, refined rustic material.
Andrea Rodman Interiors
Past the family room opening is the dining bay. Rodman added a rustic wood console table and artwork to the one wall not covered in glass in this space. A brass art light washes light down the wall.
When it comes to assembling a gallery wall like this, the designer advises keeping the gaps between the art consistent. “I also mixed gold and silver frames here, which makes it more interesting,” she says.
Before Photo
Before: The dining area has the best views of beautiful Shawnigan Lake. It had a contemporary feel emphasized by the large series of angled skylights.
Andrea Rodman Interiors
After: Major changes here included getting rid of the skylights and replacing the windows and doors. Large new transom windows above all of them help bathe the room in light and expand the views. A new tongue-and-groove ceiling lends a cottage feel overhead.
The round chandelier plays off the round dining table. “I went for light fixtures that had an antique feel,” Rodman says.
Room to seat eight was one of the homeowners’ must-haves. This rustic wood table accommodates that many chairs.
The inviting new kitchen has checked off all the homeowners’ boxes — it serves as an inviting hub in the house, with lots of room for gathering comfortably with friends and family.
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