Livingston homeowner Michael Witriol praises his new kitchen—“how aesthetic it is to look at and how pleasant it is to cook in.” Custom white-oak cabinets, natural quartzite stone countertops and vertically installed, dark-green, handmade tiles for the backsplash work together to give it a dramatic look, and it’s as practical as it is striking. “I love the unlimited counter space and the fact that every utensil and cutting board has a specific place,” says Witriol. “Previously, we had stuff piled upon pile, and you had to take out six things to find the thing you wanted.”
DESIGN by SHARON SHERMAN, THYME & PLACE DESIGN
PHOTOGRAPHY by MIKE VAN TASSELL
TEXT by MARISA SANDORA CARR
When a busy professional couple with two young boys and a dog needed more space both inside and out, they searched high and low for the perfect house. They settled on a 1968 colonial in Livingston as perfect enough—even though the kitchen and bathrooms needed a redo. “We said maybe in a few years we would update the kitchen and baths, but it turned out that only six months in, we wanted to do it,” says the husband, Michael Witriol.
The Witriols contacted Sharon Sherman of Thyme & Place Design in Wyckoff, and “we really kind of clicked,” Michael recalls. “I felt like she was someone I would be comfortable being in open conversations with.”
He and his wife Rachel envisioned a midcentury modern look and really liked the idea of a two-tone kitchen, with the island being a contrasting color and featuring a different type of countertop than the perimeter. “I wanted the island to look like a middle-school science-lab table,” says Michael. “Sharon totally got it and understood just what I wanted—Alton Brown meets Mr. Wizard and Bill Nye—and now I love to teach my son how to cook there.” Sherman selected a dark quartz countertop for the large island, which was near the top of the Witriols’ wish list, as the existing kitchen featured an eat-in area with a table instead. Michael, the chef of the family, also desired high-performance appliances, including a 48-inch, professional-style range. Sherman had to reimagine the kitchen completely in order to gain the space needed while complying with the couple’s goal of staying within the original footprint of the house.
She began by removing a closet that previously housed the washer/dryer, which she relocated to the second floor. She also shrank an oversized powder room to maximize space, shifted the doorway to the dining room, and moved the back door, adding new French doors, which provided better access to the patio while bringing in natural light. “Sharon’s work to redefine the spaces within the four walls was great,” says Michael. And they all rolled with the punches when the contractor, Veenstra & Sons, opened up the walls and found a pipe that would have been costly to move. “Our powder room is now a different shape that we had imagined, but everything worked out in the end,” Michael says.
Even with that small hiccup, the remodel only took three months, and they redid their master bathroom on the second floor at the same time, wanting to update a very ’90s-looking space and take advantage of having the plumber and electrician already on site. “We didn’t have a vision for the master bathroom, but Sharon showed us this hydrangea wallpaper, and we fell in love with it,” Rachel recalls.
“The primary bath was inspired by the wallcovering, and the rest of the design fell into place using that as a starting point,” Sherman explains. Bold choices for tile on both walls and floor made the space even more striking.
At first, the floor’s starburst pattern wasn’t an obvious hit. “There was a moment when the title guy was laying out the floor tile, and we were having second thoughts, and Sharon was like, ‘Trust me, it’s going to work,’” says Michael. “And it did. It looks beautiful.”
“When your client trusts you, you are given design freedom like no other,” says Sherman. “In this case, we trusted each other, which led to a perfect client-designer relationship.”