From reluctant remodel to winning renovation

Sally Daer didn’t want a new kitchen. But after watching his wife work for years in a dark, close space, Tom Daer decided his wife deserved one. “Sally is a study in efficiency,” said Interior Designer Page Goode. Goode, who owns Makeroom Design/Interiors, explained that Daer had her tight space so well organized, she didn’t think she needed anything else. Daer is, after all, a make-do kind of person, working with what she has. But, Goode said, “Her husband called me up and said ‘I want to give my wife a kitchen remodel.’” And so it began. The tiny kitchen is in a 1940’s era University neighborhood home. Daer likes that her home still reflects the era it was built, and when she came around to accepting a new kitchen, she wanted that to fit in, too. The remodeled kitchen, in fact, looks like it has always been there. From arched doorways to a dinner-plate pass through beneath glass-fronted cupboards, the structure of the home seems authentic. That talent comes from Goode. With 31 years of interior design and architectural experience behind her, Goode knows structure and style. Moreover, she spent eight of those years doing historic preservation. The kitchen Goode designed for Daer fits the house so well, it makes you question Daer’s proclamation, “There’s nothing in here that’s original.” But even more importantly, Daer adds, “There’s not a thing I don’t like.” Her friends like it, too, she said. The Daers entertain almost constantly, and functionality of the small space was a paramount concern. The bright new space, while having no more square footage on the floor than it ever did, nonetheless “feels like a bigger space,” Goode said, a trick she accomplished by “simplifying all the surfaces and planes.” Instead of a corridor interjected with appliances, the kitchen is now a single palette of color and line. The end result is a room that feels spacious, yet has a grace befitting the era of the home. Still, the new look required some effort, and some cash. Daer estimates she and her husband spent about $68,000 on the kitchen. But with as much time as she spends there, the money was certainly well-spent. And then there was the physical layout. The space was a challenge to work with, both women remarked. “It’s tiny,” Goode said. And narrow. With arms stretched wide, you can almost touch the opposing walls of the room. It’s more a galley than the broad, wide rooms many know as the heart of the home. And, Daer was a stickler about wanting the new kitchen to look as though it had always been a part of the house. And she wanted a skylight. It is “the only thing that was really my idea,” Daer said with a smile. “Everything else was Page.” Leaving it to Goode to manifest her vision, Daer got the kitchen of her dreams. The new configuration made the small space far more functional. The narrow kitchen used to have a free-standing, portable dish washer along the wall, far from the sink, midway down the corridor-like room, Goode said. That’s been replaced with a cabinet-fronted unit under the counter, beside the sink, a far more logical location. Custom cabinets were built to fit the home’s architectural style, and sided with cork boards to hold the couple’s many snapshots. A coffee nook was built into the wall, and boasts its own cabinet, which stands where the old dishwasher stood. A corner cabinet has swing-out shelves, to enhance usability. One cupboard opens to the side, rather than the front, to allow more usable space within. For the fridge, Goode specially-ordered a magnetic front, again so the Daers can post their family photos. The freezer again is cabinet-fronted, to continue color and line and make the room look larger. And Daer thanks Goode for that. “I looked at a lot of backgrounds in ads to see what was in,” she said. “I wanted wallpaper, but Page decided against that.” Instead, Daer has tone-on-tone sand and white walls and cupboards. The color brightens up the narrow room, and a polished granite countertop reflects that light. The smooth-topped stove blends into the black granite, with the colors matching both the era and the rest of the house, as well. The effect is streamlined and classic, elongating the surfaces to provide an illusion of space. Even the flooring mimics 1940’s lino, although it’s a modern, green flooring made of recycled plastic bottles, Goode said. Originally designed for hospitals, the flooring offers resiliency to reduce foot fatigue, and, “It hides the dirt so well,” said Daer. The flooring has an imprinted pattern under the surface, making it look textured while providing the ease of maintenance that comes with a smooth-surface flooring. Its color, too, was picked by Goode, and lures the eye form the far hall into the cooking area, again, enlarging the space visually without changing the square footage of the room. With all the changes, the kitchen is now “better than anything I could imagine in my wildest dreams,” said Daer, eyeing her new space. Guests now drop in to get ideas for their own remodeling projects, she said. That pleases Goode. After all, Goode said, “she was against it.” Daer concurs. “I was against it completely, and now I love it.”