Functional Kitchen for a Large Great Falls Family

This blended family, with eight children ranging from 22 to newborn, needed a kitchen more conducive to this large family.

• Updated kitchen appearance and functionality – The kitchen was completed renovated using updated colors, styles, appliances and finishes.
• Better circulation to family room – Removed the wall between the family room and kitchen to make the kitchen overflow space bigger.
• Create a “kid safe” zone – We created an L shaped beverage center for adult beverages, but also kid friendly drawers for the kids’ drinks and easy to reach cabinets for mom approved snacks.
• More organization in the kitchen/mud-room – Took out the bulk head and rearranged the work triangle (with new prep sink) to allow for more cabinet and drawer space. In addition, reorganized the adjacent mudroom/laundry room for it to function better too.
• Larger pantry/storage – More storage space was added to the kitchen area with floor to ceiling cabinetry. The addition allowed for us to add that space without taking away from the needed space in the kitchen and eating area.
• Casual breakfast bar dining – Created an eating island with space to accommodate five people.

The new space is truly beautiful, modern and aesthetically pleasing. The house is a large center hall colonial with a two story formal entry way. The kitchen is behind the formal foyer and therefore, we needed to make sure that the formal feeling of the rest of the home was not lost in the kitchen. Yet, the kitchen needed to be family friendly. A more polished look was achieved with painted raised panel maple cabinets in an off-white. The granite, back splash and fleur accent tiles are in neutral shades that maintain a polished, sophisticated appearance.

Since this new kitchen was designed to be multi-zoned, one example of innovative use of materials is that we used darker granite in the beverage area to denote the different space and distinguish it from the rest of the kitchen. And, rather than use a tile back splash in that area, we wrapped the granite up the wall to give it a unique look.

The clients are very pleased with the new space. The kitchen’s new circulation flows well and the new spaces provide the functionality the client wanted. The new updated and polished look is exactly what the client wanted to achieve. The project has helped organize their personal lives during meal time; and in addition, the kitchen looks beautiful.