Kitchen design is a very personal thing, especially when it comes to old houses. Some people want the kitchen to match the period look of their house while others don't mind having a more modern looking space.
Personally, I lean towards the first group. I've seen many nice old house renovations spoiled (IMHO) by undistinguished kitchens that will look dated in a few years. It can be jarring to walk through a beautiful period renovation and then walk into a kitchen that looks the same as every other kitchen. Much better to design a more timeless kitchen that complements the architecture of the house and gives a nod to the fact that 18th and 19th century kitchens looked nothing like 20th/early 21st century kitchens.
Of course, when I talk about period feeling I'm not talking about authenticity. None of us wants to hand pump water to the sink or store our food in an icebox (never mind do our cooking in a fireplace). So we're going after a look that somehow evokes the flavor of the period while still providing a kitchen that's useful and fun to work in.
We're going to use my own kitchen as the case study. My house (shown in more detail here) was built around 1830. We carried out an extensive renovation and expansion eight years ago. The kitchen is located in a part of the house that was rebuilt from the ground up but that we wanted to blend with the rest of the house.
1. No long runs of cabinets. Long, uninterrupted runs of matching cabinets and counters are probably the primary distinguishing feature of the modern kitchen. Back in day, of course, kitchen "cabinets" were typically free-standing pieces of furniture. Sideboards, cupboards, hutches and the like were brought together regardless of style, color, or materials. That was the look that I was going after in my kitchen, as you see here.
Here we have three different pieces (four if you include the corner cabinet). One is painted, the other two are natural (in fact, these were made from wood we salvaged during demolition of one part of the house). These were designed to resemble free-standing pieces although they are built in.
Instead of a long, uninterrupted length of counter, there are three separate sections here: two soapstone and one wood. Together there is plenty of prep space.
2. No inside corners. Almost all kitchens have banks of cabinets that have 90 degree inside corners. These are so common that most people don't even think about this detail. Of course, when kitchens were comprised of separate pieces, there were no inside corners. Take a look at how this subtle omission yields a different feeling than found in most kitchens today.
3. Mix and match. We've already touched on the fact that the cabinets in our kitchen are not all the same. Some are painted dark green, some are natural. The cabinets surrounding the fireplace are painted a different color; the gray/green of the rest of the woodwork in the room. Also, these have raised panel doors while the other cabinets have flat panels. It can be risky to do this. Done poorly, the room will lack cohesion and will look too busy. But done well and it can help achieve a really special place.
4. Appliances. We decided that to pull off a 19th century feeling in our kitchen, we wanted to minimize the visual impact of the appliances. The obvious answer for the fridge would be to get a built-in unit meant to accept cabinet panels. Two issues there: first those units (Sub Zeros and the like) are very expensive. Second, even with the cabinet panels they typically have a large stainless grille on display.
So instead we took a standard white bottom freezer fridge and mounted cabinet panels to it for a more built in look. We first mounted the panel to the fridge door with drawer slides so that the cabinet door and fridge door could slide open together. Later, we found some plastic slides from Hafele hardware designed specifically for this application.
To hide the double oven (to the left of the fireplace) we over-sized the cabinet and then installed retractable doors. These doors stay open when the oven is being used and until it cools off.
The dishwasher is an integrated Fisher Paykel, so we simply built cabinet panels to help blend that in.
We tucked the toaster oven and microwave into the pantry (the door to the right of the dishwasher above) to keep those out of sight. Finally, we opted for a fairly discreet gas cooktop and hid the hood into the cabinet above.
I recognize that most people won't go to these extremes to make a new kitchen look old. In fact, if you look at some of the other kitchens we've renovated you'll see a wide range in style and appearance. But hopefully this will provide some ideas to those of you about to embark on a kitchen renovation in an old house.
Comments? Questions? Snide remarks? All are welcome! We'd love to hear from you so please comment on our posts.
Mark Landry is the President of Landmark Services, Inc, one of the premier old house renovation contracting firms in Massachusetts. He loves old houses and would welcome the opportunity to discuss your renovation, restoration, or addition.
As a renovation and restoration contractor here in Massachusetts, I have built a lot of additions on to historic houses. Contrary to the philosophy of some preservationists, who feel that new additions should read as new additions and not pretend to be old, my philosophy is that additions are much more pleasing when they complement the architectural style of the original house.
In previous posts we discussed some of the concepts involved with designing appropriate looking additions for historic houses. Additions should not overwhelm or compete with the original structure, not should they looked tacked on. So in those posts we talked about ensuring that the roof placement of additions is correct and that the trim on the addition is sympathetic to that on the original structure.
In this post we'll look at the issue of massing. How large is the addition compared to the existing house? If it's as large or larger, it will best when broken down into smaller components, rather than one large mass. In the photo below, you see almost 5000 square feet of new space added to an 18th century house of about 2200 square feet. But because the addition was designed as a series of smaller shapes, it is less overwhelming to the original. Everything to the left of the chimney is new.
In the photo below, everything between the main house to the left and the attached barn to the right is new space. Originally there was a one story ell connecting the two. Notice how the roof line of the addition is broken and brought down much lower in the right-hand part of the addition, as if these two sections were built at different points in time. This decreases the visual mass of the addition and helps to blend the new space bettwe with the old. Imagine if the second floor roofline were carried all the way across to the barn- the addition would have overwhelmed the original house. (To see the completed house, check it out in our portfolio).
Conversely, tiny little additions look odd when tacked on to larger houses, as illustrated in the photo below. Of course, it doesn't help that the addition has almost no architectural detail!
There must be a more gradual transition in size. This is why the traditional Big House-Little House-Back House-Barn structure of old New England farmhouses is so appealing to the eye. These houses look organic and natural. There is a clear visual hierarchy of importance among the sections of the house.
Our advice? Work with an architect. Most builders, even those that bill themselves as design-build firms, have not mastered the subtleties of designing additions. And I say this as a contractor. Are there exceptions? Of course, but I believe that your odds of getting the results you want are higher when you work with an architect who has a track record of designing additions.
Also, it's really helpful to use models to help you visualize your proposed addition. Either physical models or virtual models, like the one below, obtained in most CAD programs can help you understand how the new addition relates to the existing house. If you're working with an architect, ask them to generate some 3D perspective drawings of the project or- even better- see if their software allows for 3D "flyovers". If you're not working with an architect yet, and you're in the Greater Boston area, let us know. We would be happy to recommend some architects that we think do a nice job designing additions on old houses.
(model courtesy of Latady Design, Bedford, MA)
Comments? Questions? Snide remarks? All are welcome! We'd love to hear from you so please comment on our posts.
Mark Landry is the President of Landmark Services, Inc, one of the premier old house renovation contracting firms in Massachusetts. He loves old houses and would welcome the opportunity to discuss your renovation, restoration, or addition.
In the course of a recent renovation of a ca. 1795 home in Milton, we
needed to replicate an original rooftop balustrade.The one surviving
section displayed a "spider web" pattern composed of many small pieces
of wood nailed together.
Concerned that wood would not
hold up to the elements well in this situation and would require a lot
of maintenance, we explored other options. After much research (and
some soul-searching) we decided to reproduce the balustrade by having
the panels milled from sheets of PVC imitation wood. We're very
pleased with the result. Visually, the new panels are indistinguishable
from wood. But in terms of strength and maintenance, the PVC product is
superior.
We brought the surviving panel to a friend who has a CNC machine in his shop and asked him to cut the new sections from sheets of PVC material (one popular brand is Azek). A CNC machine is a cutting and shaping machine controlled by a computer. Our friend Nick programmed the pattern into his computer by tracing the original with the cutting head and entering the key positions into the software.
The rest was simple. He laid 4' x 10' sheets of 1 1/4" thick material on the table and pressed a button activating the cutter head. The result was 30 panels matching the original in appearance but stronger and better able to hold paint.
While some may argue against the use of synthetic materials in historic renovation projects, we feel that they are appropriate in some situations. In this case, the use of this material does not affect the aesthetics of the project, but provides the homeowners with a longer lasting product that will require far less maintenance than would have been the case if we had used wood.
PVC trim is certainly not the right choice for most of our projects. Wood has a subtlety in appearance and touch that cannot be matched by synthetic materials and-except in rare cases such as this balustrade- we stick with traditional materials when we can. One other great use of PVC wood, though, is any trim that comes in contact with the ground such as the lower trim boards on a porch.
Landmark Services has been renovating historic Massachusetts houses, barns, and churches for almost 20 years. Have a look at our project portfolio to see some of our past projects.
We'd love to help you plan and build your project so give us a call!
Comments? Questions? Snide remarks? All are welcome! We'd love to hear from you so please comment on our posts.
Mark Landry is the President of Landmark Services, Inc, one of the premier old house renovation contracting firms in Massachusetts. He loves old houses and would welcome the opportunity to discuss your renovation, restoration, or addition.