Unwilling to obliterate their home's Mid-century contemporary design in search of their 21st Century dream kitchen, these home owners started feeling blue.
When homeowners in North Stamford, Conn. decided to update their mid-century contemporary home they faced a grand obstacle - how to preserve their home's heritage. That's when they called on Stephen and Kristen King, owners of Studio Snaidero Greenwich.
The husband and wife design team were accustomed to clients wanting Snaidero products lining their kitchen. What was refreshing was that these clients also desired to keep the integrity of their home, fashoned after the designs of the "Harvard Five," intact while updating the kitchen to meet 21st century modern needs.
During the late 1940s and 50s, a group of students and teachers from the Harvard Graduate School of Design migrated to New Canaan, just miles from North Stamford, and rocked the world of architectural design. Philip Johnson, Marcel Breuer, Landis Gores, John Johansen and Eliot Noyes -- known as the Harvard Five -- began creating homes in a style that emerged as the complete antithesis of the traditional build. Using new materials and open floor plans, best captured by Johnson's Glass House, these treasures are being squandered as buyers are knocking down these architectural icons and replacing them with cookie-cutter new builds. The Kings were thrilled this wasn't the case here.
Like most designers, the King's began by analyzing the space and providing the homeowners with ideas to bring their ideal kitchen to life. Next came compiling the homeowners' wish list of products and deciding which elements must be eliminated.
The home's west facing layout, absorbing the early morning sun and evening sunset, casts a warm reflective glow over the space. To open the kitchen, a partition wall was demolished, leaving the cook top and hood opposite a main window as the centerpiece. Dream Blue was selected to retain the effervescent feel of the home and tie in the pastel color palette that continued from room to room.
Because of the home's original layout, the dryer was in the kitchen with the washing machine in a separate space. To centralize the kitchen and laundry room, and avoid moving the gas connection, the King's moved both appliances to the backside of the wall that housed the refrigerator. A separate yet functional space was created, providing wine storage and additional shelving.
The King's philosophy follows one simple rule -- Do what you want! Create a space in which your lifestyle can operate. Ask yourself what kitchen will best suit you. Do you enjoy hosting dinner parties in the style of Martha? Is your caterer on speed dial? Is this where your children will come to do their homework?
"The kitchen is no longer a serious space," says Kristen King. "It is a place to gather and have fun. Create what you love."
In making this space functional and fun, the King's left these homeowners with a kitchen that makes every day a blue-sky day -- without compromising the home's legacy.