When a young family purchased a Little Silver home they loved with a kitchen that didn’t suit their tastes, they knew immediately an update was in order. Weighing the potential benefits of replacing cabinetry, the homeowners reached out to Kitchen Magic to find out whether that option was the right one to give them a space with the style they wanted.
“The kitchen had a fabulous footprint,” says Jill Moskowitz, design consultant at Kitchen Magic.
The finishes and the style, however, didn’t work. For example, the two-tone island with cherry corbels on an antique white base looked awkward and didn’t complement the perimeter cabinets. The dated Tuscan style was too ornate for the clients’ taste.
Nevertheless, there were some aspects that would be too costly to update—the flooring and wall tile—and the cabinets were in good condition. Rather than replace cabinets, requiring a total renovation, a refresh was the answer.
The main goals of the project were stylistic. The clients sought a modern kitchen with a rustic look—a far cry from the existing ornamental style. Many of the couple’s furnishings had come from Restoration Hardware, so Moskowitz geared the kitchen updates toward that feel.
By resurfacing the cabinets, the clients spared the budget and benefited the environment. Removing the raised-panel cherry cabinet doors and replacing them with classic Windham-style Shaker doors was an important first step in achieving the new look.
Several curvilinear elements in the kitchen also needed to go. Squaring the lines from the countertop to the hardware simplified the design and brought it forward a couple of decades.
Although the existing flooring matched the Tuscan style of the kitchen the clients wanted to be rid of, it led to other rooms in the house, so it was not possible to change only the tile in the kitchen, and cost-prohibitive to replace the flooring throughout the home.
Like the flooring, the backsplash covering the massive hearth would have been a major feature to replace. And in this case, its simplicity was somewhat in keeping with the clients’ taste, so that element stayed.
Working with the existing floor and backsplash influenced Moskowitz’s choice of stain. The Portobello stain on the island and Driftwood on the perimeter tie in with the existing tile, and the Driftwood even matches the grout. The creaminess of the backsplash led the designer to choose an off-white quartz countertop by Cambria with translucent gray veins.
Changing the countertops allowed Moskowitz to alter the style of the island without replacing it. The original version had decorative, curved legs and scroll-ing cherry corbels holding up an oversized, curved granite top. Moskowitz replaced these features with square pegs with a plain, fluted filler more like the new door style. The mostly rectangular new countertop only has a rounded square detail above the legs. Because she was working with existing flooring, Moskowitz had to maintain the dimensions of the island.
For the new kitchen sink, the designer reused nearly all cabinetry. Only the upper cabinets on the sink wall were replaced because the previous cabinets sat on the countertop, while the new ones are wall-hung.
In addition to matching the homeowners’ style, the kitchen is more cohesive with other parts of the home, including the rustic dining table in the breakfast area and the living space, which is visible beyond the sink.
“It was a fabulous project because the end result was exactly what the clients were hoping for,” says Moskowitz. During a refacing project, extra attention to detail is required to create a seamless look. In this case, it was even more important because major exist- ing elements such as the floor and the wall tile had to be incorporated into the plan.
“The installers were meticulous, and they did an unbelievable job,” she says. “You can sell the dream, but it’s no good if it’s not installed correctly.”
Text by Carrie Whitney
Design by Jill Moskowitz
Photography by Christian Giannelli