Bethesda, Maryland

We gutted a brand new kitchen. That sentence tends to stop people, so it is worth explaining. The house was newly built and the kitchen had never been cooked in, but it had been specified the way builder kitchens usually are, which is to say competently and for nobody in particular. The clients were serious cooks. The room was not built for them, and no amount of styling was going to change that.

So it came out, and a chef's kitchen went in.

The custom cabinetry was designed from the inside out. The inserts came first, planned around what this family actually owns and reaches for, so that knives, boards, spices and small appliances each have a considered home rather than a drawer to be rummaged through. Cabinetry designed this way costs more thought at the drawing stage and repays it every single morning. The exterior proportions were then set to the room, and new lighting and stools were specified to suit the way the family gathers at the island.

At the windows we hid automated shades behind valances. The valances read as soft architecture, finished and intentional, and the shades disappear entirely when they are up. Nothing announces itself as a mechanism, and the room keeps its formality while the technology does its work quietly. This is the detail I am proudest of in this kitchen, because the best window treatments are the ones you never think about.

I mention this project often to clients who have bought a newly built home and cannot work out why the kitchen frustrates them. Usually there is nothing wrong with it. It was simply designed for an imaginary family rather than for theirs, and that is a solvable problem.