Introducing #sayWHATwednesdays where I’m going to take you behind the scenes to show you the transformations behind my projects. This week I’m going to show you the Argonne Kitchen Project that won the IIDA Residential Design Award last week. Woot Woot! This project was completed as Senior Designer at Michael P. Design.

This kitchen was about a year in the making. Along with the kitchen, the entire first floor was being renovated, so there was a lot of planning and detail work to go through. I had saw an inspiration picture and knew this was the family that would go along with my diamond plated panels and deep green color suggestion.

We took the house from a bad renovation in the 80s or 90s(?) and restored it to the original floor plan (or close to) The previous owners had put a bathroom under the stairs that blocked the vision line from the front of the house to the back. We opened it back up and it’s unbelievable what a difference it made!

Without Further delay… here are the BEFORES!

The couple days before renovation started, packing up all the things!

Check out those track pendant lights LOL

Old Buffalo Homes - gotta love lathe and plaster!

Multiple flooring combinations from previous homeowner who tried to quick-fix!

A quick list of homeowners goals

make the space brighter
NOT have an open kitchen layout
Keep the formal dining room
Storage for everything

I accomplished this by

adding a transom window above their sink wall. The house looks out onto their neighbors, so there isn’t a really to have a full sized window. We just wanted the light!
Keeping the wall between the kitchen and dining room more enclosed to hide the everyday messes of the kitchen. Plus, in a home like this it’s not traditional to have the kitchen wide open.
We made the dining room about 3’ smaller and there was still plenty of room for her dining set
Big wall of pantries! Two of the doors are faux and open on the other side of the wall as a coat storage.

Some of my favorite details are the tile "area rug" around the island. It is just enough detail that it makes a statement. Also, because we were tight on space - we chose to do an open table island to make the space feel lighter. We have this locally made!

Here is a peak at the demo plan and construction plan for the left side of the home. You can see how we moved the bathroom and reconfigured the layout.