Modern Kitchen Renovations

“I didn’t want marble or granite because they aren’t sustainable,” says Seo. “Laminate is one of the few surfaces recognized by the U.S. Green Building Council toward LEED certification. Plus it’s affordable and I liked the way it looked—a triple whammy.”

For their lakeside retreat in northwestern Michigan, Keith and Mary Campbell renovated a 1970s ranch house to include a spacious kitchen-dining room.

To update the kitchen for this apartment in the Leather District, Chris Greenawalt of Bunker Workshop and contractor Michel Beaudry created a clean-lined space. The space is designed to accommodate the client's busy schedule, which affords him little time for cooking.

"Shane enjoys both cooking and entertaining so we maximized the counter space to make meal prep and hosting easy," Priftaj says. "It was also very important that the kitchen include a gas grill so he could quickly and conveniently grill without having to climb up five flights of stairs to use the bbq on the patio." Priftaj selected high-gloss acrylic white cabinets from bulthaup's b3 line with an aluminum backsplash and b3 prism drawer system to keep things tidy. A Wolf hood and gas cooktop with chargrill give Carslake the flexibility he desired for indoor grilling. The counters are polished white quartz.

A 12-foot “display island” gives this kitchen programmatic function—food and drinks are prepared here; cooking and cleaning are consigned to the back—and helps make it a welcoming space, whether homeowners Pacek and Roynon are entertaining or simply enjoying time to themselves. The soft green hue adds an inviting touch.

While the house’s original pine is richly colored and textured, a number of structural posts rendered the kitchen difficult to furnish with modern fixtures. A newly-added black beam, which extends outward into the dining room, allowed for the posts’ removal.

Mark Fekete and Viviana de Loera, co-founders of interdisciplinary design firm MARK + VIVI, happily took on the challenge of building their dream home in a transitioning Montreal neighborhood. The couple's kitchen is an exercise in both sustainability and creativity. The island is wrapped with reclaimed scrap wood uncovered from the house during demolition. Chalkboard walls provide a whimsical canvas for graphic images and notes. Stainless steel was selected for the kitchen countertops, and the pair relied on a local industrial sheet metal fabricator to help them prepare the material for residential application. The mix of warm and cool adds depth and dimension to the space.

The careful coordination of color continues in the kitchen, where the gray and white marble backsplash, lit with faint orange lights, mediates between the ashen column and ochre cabinets.

The living and kitchen areas were reconfigured to seamlessly join a terrace surfaced with artificial turf and Nature Teka decking by Disegna. The beam was coated in a shade of turquoise paint that matches the Acapulco chairs.

The kitchen’s open concept allows for free-flow of movement through the space. Seating is dispersed between the kitchen and dining area. The stools are from Room & Board. The refrigerator is Sub Zero.

Garber and Robertson replaced walls and doors with translucent Panelite, which draws sunlight deep into the apartment.

A mirror measuring 8.5 by 3.3 feet makes the renovated kitchen feel more expansive. Photo by: Jonas Ingerstedt