Clients who offer minimal direction to designers can be liberating, but also trigger a sense of responsibility. For this home in Southampton, N.Y. Bakes & Kropp senior kitchen designer Guillaume Dupré worked with a single, seemingly simple mandate from the homeowner: the cabinets had to be green (in the chromatic sense of the word, not the sustainability context).
“This was my first-ever green kitchen,” said Dupré, who is based in the company’s Hamptons showroom in Sag Harbor. “The clients were drawn to the color, but didn’t have a specific shade or hue in mind. Ultimately, they fell in love with our signature sage.”
One look at the existing kitchen gives a clue about the homeowners’ motivation. The somnambulistic color palette was restricted to beige and off-white, with a black-and-tan granite countertop the lonely source of visual interest. Compounding the design problem was the smallness of the room, its U-shape plan measuring a mere 200 square feet.
A Kitchen Goes Green
Once the new cabinet color was chosen, the designer focused on refining the footprint of the kitchen. To accommodate dedicated workstations and appliances, he developed an L-shaped workflow that offered more flexibility than the old space.
“It was a challenge to incorporate an island in a kitchen that originally didn’t have one,” said Dupré. “By moving the refrigerator to the window wall, we made room for an eight-foot-long island.”
Relocating the fridge also created an opportunity to increase the kitchen’s storage capacity. On the interior wall formerly occupied by the refrigerator, the designer situated a 9-foot-long, 8.5-foot-tall cabinet – in sage green, of course. The designer said, “Lack of storage is always a concern with small kitchens, so I tried to compensate by dressing up the wall with tall cabinets. For some added flair, I added a decorative aspect, placing a glass door in the center of the unit.” The bank of cabinets was kept shallow so as not to obstruct access to the adjoining hallway and to maximize the circulation around the island.
Matters of Style
Dupré specified finishes and materials that wouldn’t upstage the sage. Polished white quartz with silvery veining for the counters and backsplash relate to the cool stainless appliances while shiny brass cabinet hardware, faucets and light fixtures are warm touches that bring brightness to the kitchen.
The takeaway from this project for Bakes & Kropp designer Dupré? ”Don’t be afraid to go bold! We had so much fun with color in this space.”
—By Leslie Clagett, KBB Managing Editor
