Three Fabulous Kitchens
(Page 3 of 4)
September/October 2004
By Carol Venolia
CABINET PULLS: Recycled-glass handles from Aurora Glass, a nonprofit job training and placement organization in Eugene, Oregon, for disabled and at-risk people.
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COUNTERTOP: SlateScape, a durable solid-surface composite of cement and recycled wood fibers, made by American Fiber Cement.
BACKSPLASH: Slate tile sealed with OS Hardwax Oil and set with AFM 3-in-1 Adhesive and AFM Grout Sealer.
FLOORING: Marmoleum natural linoleum. “I love the fact that my floor looks great no matter what,” says Michelle.
PAINT: Aglaia plant- and mineral-based paint. Michelle appreciates that the no-sheen paint can be wiped down.
FRAMING LUMBER: Salvaged wood from deconstruction, supplemented with Forest Stewardship Council-certified framing lumber and plywood from Collins Companies.
INSULATION: Salvaged fiberglass batts.
BREATHING ROOM
Artist Marsea Ilio, whose 1942 home is perched on a wooded hillside in California’s Marin County, had already worked her interior design magic on numerous Whole Foods stores when she decided to remodel her own kitchen. The scale was different, but her guiding principles were the same: sustainable natural materials, sensuous surprises, expansiveness, beauty, and flow. The kitchen she’d inherited presented plenty of challenges. It was plain, cramped, and dark, and gave little hint of the beautiful garden outside.
Marsea’s project began when a leak in the adjacent laundry room stained the kitchen’s “nasty” brown indoor/outdoor carpet. One thing led to another, and soon Marsea had her “carpenter extraordinaire,” Paul Nice, tearing out the cabinets and the flat acoustic-tile ceiling. Removing an L-shaped cabinet peninsula improved circulation and brought a new sense of openness to the existing bay-windowed breakfast nook.
Now the small (single-pane) window over the sink felt intolerable, so they replaced it with a twelve-foot-long, double-pane, wood-frame window that brings in more daylight and expands the view of the garden. On a roll, they also added extensive pantries in the wide hallway between the kitchen and the laundry room, allowing Marsea to keep new cabinetry to a minimum in the main part of the kitchen, retaining the open feeling. She kept the classic wood- and gas-fired stove, and exposed its brick chimney as a design feature.
“I’m absolutely delighted with the kitchen,” says Marsea. “I love the sensuousness. The marble countertop is the first place my hand rests in the morning. The patterns in the marble never cease to delight and draw me in. When I come home after a day out in the world wearing shoes, I go barefoot in the kitchen. I love the contrast of my bare feet on the bamboo floor with its straight grain, then walking into the pantry and feeling the organic earthiness of the Arizona flagstone. The bamboo is warm in winter, and the stone stays refreshingly cool in summer. And with the new window, the kitchen breathes with the seasons of the garden. I wouldn’t do anything different!”