Kitchens With Meredith Swinehart
The winner of the Remodelista Considered Design Awards Best Professionally Designed Kitchen is Brooklyn design firm General Assembly and founder Sarah Zames.
The firm's project was chosen as a finalist by guest judge John Derian, who called the project a "great usage of a small space—simple and chic. It makes sense with the rest of the apartment."
N.B.: This is the third of six posts spotlighting the winners of the 2015 Remodelista Considered Design Awards. Go to this year's Considered Design Awards page to see all the entries, finalists, and winners, and have a look at Gardenista's Considered Design Awards, too.
General Assembly's Design Statement: "For this major remodel of a tiny kitchen, we kept the existing footprint but incorporated custom millwork and built-in appliances to capture every bit of functional space. Using the lines of the beams and columns, we created built-ins in the nooks and crevices and used color to highlight varying depths of the space."
Q: What does your firm specialize in?
A: We primarily do residential gut-renovation work, where customizing the space to suit the owners' needs is a priority. In addition to reconfiguring the spaces into more efficient layouts, we do a lot of custom millwork and furniture pieces that are built to suit the space. We also work on ground-up projects and commercial work occasionally, and have recently started producing custom lighting and products. We are preparing to launch a lighting and product line called Assembly Line in early 2016.
Q: What were your practical goals for the project?
A: We were working within a very tight space and the budget was definitely not unlimited. Our goal was to maximize every inch possible without breaking the bank.
Q: What solutions did you find to your design problems?
A: Rather than actually opening up the kitchen to the living room, we used bright colors to draw people's eyes to the space. The kitchen becomes a little jewel box in the corner of the apartment.
Q: What are your favorite features of the project?
A: The use of color and pattern through simple materials. Contrasting the subway tile with dark grout created a graphic patterned backsplash, and bringing color into the ceiling and other key areas modernized the space and directs the eye.
Q: What was your biggest splurge?
A: Committing to custom-built cabinetry was a decision made early on, and it was worth it. We took advantage of every corner and odd spot in a way that an off-the-shelf solution could not have. The panel-ready dishwasher was a little bit extra, but having everything streamlined and hidden in the space makes such a difference.
Q: Where did you cut corners?
A: We used inexpensive subway tile.
Q: Where do you get your design inspiration?
A: Inspiration for this project comes from all of the tiny spaces I have seen in New York over the past couple of decades living here. New Yorkers are always being presented with odd or small corners that we must maximize. Over time, any true New Yorker develops a sixth sense for coming up with creative solutions to what some may consider "spatially challenged" apartments.
Q: What is your best secret design source?
A: It's a bit sentimental, but we have the best staff of designers and managers—we are our own best source.
Q: What is your favorite local shop?
A: The Future Perfect is a great local shop—always ahead of the curve. We also love our local designers and fabricators like Souda and our neighbors RBW (Rich Brilliant Willing).
Q: What is your next project?
A: We just wrapped up a house and barn renovation project upstate in the Catskills that we are very proud of. We converted an old horse barn into a guesthouse. We retained the character of the barn by repurposing stall doors, and we used a lot of great textures like concrete tile and reclaimed timber. We also have a few good projects in Manhattan and Brooklyn under construction. One of the spaces we are working on in Brooklyn Heights feels a bit like a treehouse—a smaller space built into the top floor of a beautiful old building.
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Home Inspiration With Dalilah Arja
We've been following Granada Tiles since 2012, when we first took note of their Feliz Tile at Intelligentsia Coffee in LA. Now we're obsessing over their latest collection, a collaboration with Texas-born ceramicist Erin Adams.
Granada founders Marcos and Melanie Stephens met Adams at a trade show where Adams was exhibiting her own line of ceramics. The team at Granada found Adams' work to be "interesting, her motifs were clever, and something about them stayed with us long after the show had shut down," they say. Soon after, ideas for a partnership began percolating over email.
As a part of Granada's flagship Echo collection, Adams has created 20 new designs that are now available through Granada's Web shop. Each design comes in four distinct colorways, although the company offers color customization on any tiles.
Above: "I am very into mathematical formulas and geometry and this collection reflects my obsession with the circle, the oval, and the square and how they work together," Adams says.
Above: The Malmo design in aqua, white, and midnight.
Above: Resembling a die or domino, this design is called Viborg, shown here in white on black.
Above: Viborg also comes in black on white.
Above: The most minimal of Adams' designs is titled Solna, pictured above in silver on gray.
For all things tile-related, see our archive including Tiles from Sweden by Way of Marrakech and Wabi-Sabi Tiles from a Dutch Fashion Designer.
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DIY & Remodeling With Margot Guralnick
What do you do when you're not at work? Brooklyn ceramic artist Suzie Ryu and painter/furniture designer Kana Philip both have demanding jobs by day—she does marketing for architecture site Architizer and he's the cofounder of just-launched content-sharing platform 8. At night, they create things for their online design shop, Trollhagen & Co. As for weekends, they can be found in Chatham, New York, making a dent on their DIY house remodel. Take a look at what they were able to accomplish in two weekends for just under $350.
Photography by Suzie Ryu.
Above: Suzie and Kana arrive every Friday night to their 1930s house, known as The Schoolhouse because it has an 1812 school attached to it. ("The school was rolled down the road after the house was built," says Suzie.) They only have 48 hours there every week, but they manage to get a lot done. After setting up their bedroom, they opened up the 1980s kitchen in the main house by removing the dark upper cabinets and replacing them with open shelving and Ikea pot racks. They painted the lower cabinets white and left the speckled laminate counter and fixtures as is.
Here's Suzie's description of the open-shelf prep: "First we measured the length and depth we wanted. We decided to run two six-inch-deep boards across our brackets to have an approximate shelf depth of twelve inches. We knew we wanted to run one shelf along the whole length of the wall and have a shorter one running over the sink but not over the stove, so we took our measurements accordingly."
Above: The shelves are Home Depot pine boards that the couple painted with a roller for speed and then brush-finished because they prefer a handmade look. They used Home Depot's Behr Ultra Pure White paint in matte on the walls and shelves. (Suzie notes that in hindsight it would have been smart to paint the under shelves matte and the top gloss for easy cleaning.) The brackets are Ikea's Ekby Valter design in birch—a mere $4 each—and the hanging bars are Ikea's Bygel Rail (over the sink) and Grundtal Rail (over the stove) with companion Bygel and Gundtal S hooks.
Like the look? See our post Ultimate Budget Storage: 10 Kitchens with Ikea's Grundtal Rail System.
Above: The shelves are stocked with Suzie's own ceramics that she sells at Trollhagen & Co., including, on the top shelf, the Harvest Bowl, two-toned Saturday Carafe, and, on the lower shelf, Harvest Dishes and Porcelain Berry Bowl—all, alas, currently sold out. Stay tuned: The couple are at work on furniture and textiles for the shop and also plan to showcase some of their friends' designs.
Above: Vintage blue enamelware collected locally and white enamelware from Valley Variety in Hudson, New York.
Above: Suzie replaced the existing leaky faucet with a Glacier Bay Single Handle Pull-Down Sprayer Faucet that she picked out at Home Depot—"it was $170, our biggest expense." She did the installation herself by watching YouTube videos on how to remove an old faucet and put in a new one (here's one she recommends).
In Progress
Above: The cabinets awaiting paint. They would receive two coats of brushed-on Behr Ultra Pure White in matte from Home Depot. Suzy and Kana like the look of the hardware-free paneled drawers and doors now that they're white and say they're holding up well.
Before
Above: The compact kitchen overlooks the sun porch, which Suzy and Kana turned into their bedroom.
Above: The cupboard and vent removal took place over a winter weekend (during which three pipes burst), and the wall spackling, sanding, and painting the following weekend.
See more DIY kitchen overhauls.
And on Gardenista, read Michelle's kitchen wisdom in 10 Mistakes to Avoid When You Remodel.
This post is an update; it originally ran on March 19, 2015, as part of our Weekend Projects issue.
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