This beautiful mid-century home was like so many others in this area—single story, and too many partitions!  We removed a wall in this space and made it into an open great room.  We did not have a completely squared-off area to work with, but removing the wall opened up so many possibilities.  We were now able to make the kitchen more functional with two zones—cooking and clean up is primarily in the back, away from guests, and the refrigeration/bar is more central for entertaining. The long peninsula provides ample seating as well as a nice long built-in setup for casual buffet-style entertaining. The two-island layout has one dedicated for baking on the cooking side, and the other for storage and an extra counter space, which is always needed for large parties.  This project previously won third place in the Silestone Design Contest.

​

The main kitchen is next to the backyard, which leads out to this outdoor kitchen and Japanese tea house.  The tea house is the first non-interior structure I’ve ever designed.  I did a lot of research on traditional Japanese joinery and visited The Huntington Library for design inspiration.