Wood-and-White Kitchen Blends Historical and Contemporary Design
A banquette inspired by a church pew and a dramatic arch based on a Tudor design stand out in this new Minnesota kitchen
Functionally, there were a few kitchen must-haves on the family’s wish list, such as an eat-in dining area, but aesthetics were key for these highly visual homeowners. Simmons likens the kitchen design to the hub of a wheel that radiates into multiple “spokes,” including a butler’s pantry that leads into the dining room, a secret door on the right side of the range wall that leads to the pantry and the large archway that leads to the living room.
One of the project’s foremost goals was “to take old, traditional concepts from nearly 500 years ago, clean them up, streamline them and put a modern spin on them to help bridge centuries worth of the technology,” Simmons says. The inclusion of a Jacobethan-style arch is one of the ways Simmons sought to infuse the space with historical references. Its design was “a conglomeration of different shapes and ideas that you would have found in a 17th-century Tudor manor house.” Look deeper into the kitchen and you’ll find angled columns with decorative tops and coordinating beams outlining the range wall.
Simmons had designed a built-in seating unit for the breakfast area when the co-owner brought him a “really cool old church pew” she found in an architectural salvage warehouse. Though the dimensions weren’t quite right and it wasn’t in the best shape, Simmons was able to incorporate some of the pew’s details into the built-in design. For example, he created a stylized interpretation of the pew’s solid bookend that would have been next to the aisle in a church.
The kitchen’s color palette draws from natural wood tones and white with some black worked in for contrast. The wood you see everywhere is rift and quartered white oak. Simmons had the wood washed in a white pigment oil that settles into the pores and gives it a subtle whitewash without looking “pickled.” The rest of the house is ensconced in white plaster walls, but the kitchen demanded something more durable, so the designer chose a white enameled shiplap.
There’s “lots of geometry happening,” says Simmons, so he wanted to counterbalance that with something organic that also fit the light and bright color palette. The homeowners found two white marble slabs they book-matched to create an elegant axis of symmetry down the center of the range wall. He used the same material for the countertops.
There’s “lots of geometry happening,” says Simmons, so he wanted to counterbalance that with something organic that also fit the light and bright color palette. The homeowners found two white marble slabs they book-matched to create an elegant axis of symmetry down the center of the range wall. He used the same material for the countertops.
Many of the shapes found in the the room exaggerate old aesthetic forms from the 16th and 17th centuries. The built-in pew seating was one example, and the island’s curved legs are another. Simmons had his cabinet manufacturer create the legs’ outline and then veneered the wood to that shape. “Actually, it was pretty low-tech,” he says. The legs’ curves mirror the curves on the two columns that flank the cooktop and serve to counterbalance all the room’s hard angles.
More
12 Sunny White-and-Wood Walk-Out Kitchens to Inspire
6 American Takes on Tudor Style
More
12 Sunny White-and-Wood Walk-Out Kitchens to Inspire
6 American Takes on Tudor Style
Kitchen at a Glance
Who lives here: Real estate agent Ben Ganje, his wife and three children
Location: Edina, Minnesota
Size: About 300 square feet (about 28 square meters)
Designer: Charlie Simmons and Marcy Townsend of Charlie & Co. Design
When this family of five decided to trade their Minneapolis home for a quiet lot in the suburbs, they knew whom to call. Designer Charlie Simmons had worked with the husband, a real estate developer, on some of his previous projects, including a modern Tudor home in neighboring St. Paul that planted the seed of inspiration for this Scottish cottage-style custom build, affectionately dubbed the “Scottage.”
Find brass pendants lights