See how mixing a variety of styles can create a design that’s colorful, charming and full of character
1. Scaled Up
Designer: Gina Sims
Location: Inman Park, Atlanta
Size: About 225 square feet (21 square meters)
Homeowners’ request. “Overall, the style simply needed to better reflect the personality of its owner,” designer Gina Sims says. “A beautiful succulent with shades of green and a touch of purple in a concrete pot was our inspiration. We went from there.”
Style. “I would describe this space as urban organic,” Sims says.
Special features. “The tile is clearly the main event,” Sims says of the backsplash’s 8-inch fan-design glazed quarry tile in Waterlily from Seneca Tiles. Also featured: gray cabinets with copper hardware, a soft green island with a poured-concrete top, a vintage light fixture and rug, and wood accent walls.
Designer secret. “Because the main wall was so large, everything else needed to take a back seat while not being boring,” Sims says. “If we did too much other color, it could look elementary, and if [it was] too busy, your eye would not know where to go. We used our punch in the tile and let everything else be softer but intentional.”
“Uh-oh” moment. “Everything was riding on the right tile,” Sims says. “My client has a great eye, and I knew I had to find her the perfect tile in the perfect shade of green and in an interesting shape. I scoured tile stores from Nashville to Chattanooga to Atlanta—road trip!—and online sources trying to find something green and awesome. You should see the boxes of tile samples I still have lying around my office. They are too pretty to get rid of.”
Perimeter countertops: Caesarstone in Frosty Carrina, via Miami Circle Marble & Fabrication; art: Cati Teague Photography; stool: Alden in natural mango, West Elm; browse bar stools
2. Lavish Lodge
Designer: Francesca Owings
Location: Near Grand Rapids, Michigan
Size: 280 square feet (26 square meters); 20 by 14 feet
Homeowners’ request. An Adirondack-style kitchen with professional appliances.
Style. “Rustic elegance,” designer Francesca Owings says. “We patterned the home after the Lake Placid Lodge after spending some time with the clients really studying the Adirondack style.” The kitchen is designed for family members who love to cook together.
Special features. Green cabinets. Soapstone countertops. Copper apron-front sink. Brass rack displaying copper pots.
Designer secret. “The kitchen is open to the great room, which has a dramatic stone fireplace and 17-foot ceilings,” Owings says. “I wanted the kitchen to feel connected but also have some colorful impact so that it could hold its own against the all-wood walls.”
Light fixtures: Visual Comfort; stools: Jonathan Charles; sink: Native Trails;
3. Modern Might
Designers: Peggy Hsu and Chris McCullough of Hsu McCullough
Location: Santa Monica, California
Size: 348 square feet (32 square meters); 24 by 14½ feet
Homeowners’ request. A larger kitchen for a family of six, with an open feel and more access to outdoor spaces.
Style. “Westside-Scandinavian,” designer Chris McCullough says. “A simple palette of white oak stitched over various planes is balanced by natural light, diffused and direct, as well as unexpected pops of color.”
Special features. White oak-lined two-story light well above the island. Glossy white backsplash tile in stacked layout. Windows framing colorful side-yard fence. Carrara white marble perimeter countertops with waterfall edge. Custom white oak cabinetry with integral pulls. Staircase divider made of horizontal wood shelves with a rhythm of vertical planes.
Designer secret. “We love placing staircases against a south wall of a home with windows above, when possible of course, for indirect natural light filtering to the floor below,” McCullough says.
“Uh-oh” moment. “The building inspector requested we relocate the mechanical equipment during construction, which affected our supply-air register locations in the kitchen and dining room. Instead of the heating and cooling registers being in the ceiling near the dining room, they were relocated to near the upper cabinets over the window due to the only available path through the skeleton of steel and wood framing. The ducts were routed to land exactly over said upper cabinets. Instead of the originally planned doors on these upper cabinets, we decided to have open shelves so wood grilles for the heating and cooling could be placed. They are somewhat obscured by tying the aesthetic of the open shelves to the stair detailing.”
Ceiling and wall paint: Swiss Coffee, Glidden Paints; flooring: engineered white oak, 7-inch-wide panels; backsplash: Paper glazed thin brick tile in gloss finish, clé tile; pendants: custom, Heather Levine Ceramics
