Kitchen

Smitten from the start with a 1970s concrete villa in rural Belgium, a resident and her designer embark on a sensitive renovation that excises the bad (carpeted walls, dark rooms) and highlights the good (idyllic setting, statement architecture). Owner Nathalie Vandemoortele worked with designer Renaud de Poorter on the interior renovations, which included opening up the heavy structure with the help of new windows and doors to the outside. A concrete bi-level island keeps the Brutalist vibe on the interior, but is open and light enough to feel balanced.

The open plan living room and kitchen areas utilize natural materials, from reclaimed oak flooring to custom-made cabinetry. The Oscar sofa by Matthew Hilton from Future Perfect marks off the living room area.

A central challenge of the renovation was to integrate lighting into the architecture in such a way that “even if the space had no furniture, you could turn on the lights and instantly get a cozy atmosphere,” says Bjerre-Poulsen. After Europe banned incandescents in 2009 Bjerre-Poulsen turned to halogen fixtures, which are more energy-efficient and give off a similar quality of light. (He won’t use LEDs until their ability to render color is further developed, he says.) In Østergaard and Olofsson’s kitchen, he embedded a halogen strip in the underside of the wooden shelf over the countertop to direct light onto the work surface.

Shane Michael Pavonetti, an Austin-based architect and contractor, and his wife, Holly, built their eco-friendly home on a lean budget of $175,000. The cedar siding used on the exterior reappears throughout the house. Keen on recycling the wood, the couple added shelving to their kitchen as well.

“The client wanted an interior space where you could read the materiality of the building elements like understanding the ingredients in a recipe,” principal architect Elizabeth Webster explains. The extension features distinctly textured materials: an exposed timber ceiling, painted brick walls, and polished concrete floors. Warm lighting by Brinklicht unifies the space.

The kitchen island is a mahogany museum display case containing the clients’ inherited snuff-box collection. Now topped with salvaged iroko hardwood from a school science laboratory, it has also been adapted to hold a sink and washer.

Pros: Concrete countertops are durable, resistant to heat, and can be less expensive than natural stone, especially when completed as a DIY project. Cons: Concrete must be sealed before being used; otherwise, its porous nature means that it will stain very easily.

With a custom design by Scalo, the kitchen is “white and simple; we didn’t want handles,” notes De Graaf. The hotplate, oven, and teppan-yaki grill are from Falliss.

Custom kitchen cabinets designed by Pulltab and fabricated by Maciek Winiarczyk hold mostly vintage ironstone that Geiger has found at flea markets and estate sales over the past 20 years. "I love white," she says, "because I think food always looks better on it." She also collects vintage wooden cutting boards, shown resting against the marble tile backsplash from Stone Source.

A view of the stretching Carrara marble countertop.

The renovation of a 2,000-square-foot property updates a century-old design for a family of four. "We placed the kitchen at the center of the house to link with the dining room and the outdoor space," Moreau says. In the kitchen, a Wolf oven brings out the silver details in Coit’s Bianco Cararra backsplash and island. Hee bar stools by Hay are lined under the island.

The cabinetry in the kitchen and elsewhere is crafted from discarded, chopped-up billboards. White paint camouflages their fronts, but when pulled open, their colorful sides offer a glimpse of their previous life as streetside advertising.

A single bowl sink is self-explanatory: it consists of a sink that is not divided up into separate areas.

A new kitchen at the front of the house completes the trifecta of reworked rooms on the main level. It fits nicely into the notion of balancing new and old elements throughout the house, with oak detailing married to exposed brick, offset by strip lamps. The Hee bar stools are by HAY, the Caravaggio P3 pendants are by Light Years, and the range oven is from Britannia.