ROCKVILLE, MD — One would never know that this spacious, timeless kitchen was once a small, inefficient, dated space, replete with cold, white tile, huge black and white appliances and counter space that was eaten up by small appliances.

Indeed, when the owners – an executive and his retired wife – came to Wanda A. Alexander, ASID, they were ready to start with a clean slate.

“The wife wanted a larger kitchen with more counter and storage space. She also wanted to have more seating,” recalls the designer. She really wanted the new kitchen to have “an elegant and classy feeling” that was “warm and welcoming,” adds Alexander, who is owner of the Leesburg, VA-based Panache Interior,.

Timeless Efficiency
However, before Alexander could address the aesthetic issues, there were the original kitchen’s traffic-flow and efficiency issues to tackle. With the help of Steve Recicar of Rockville, MD-based Paradise Contracting, Lem Payne of Sterling, VA-based Plan-it Granite & Marble, Janet Kingston of Leesburg, VA-based MacDowell Custom Kitchens, Inc., and Joe Rasui of Gaithersburg, MD-based Tile Center, she expanded the space from 177"x270" to 177"x318".

“For more storage space, I had the contractor remove the soffits, enlarge the pass-through opening into the family room, and add an additional 4" to the back wall,” explains Alexander. “[I also had the contractor seal] off one of the two entryways that lead to the adjacent family room. Sealing up that one entry made the kitchen appear almost twice its size.”

Her spatial changes provided 279" of uninterrupted wall space for more cabinet and storage space and a longer kitchen island.

However, with one of the entryways sealed, she had “to ensure that there was ample space for traffic to flow with comfort around the island and through the kitchen into the family room,” she points out. She addressed this by creating a new traffic pattern leading from the garage entrance into the kitchen, plus one leading from the breakfast area, through the kitchen, into the family room.

She also enforced new traffic patterns by moving several appliances. “Except for the double oven and dishwasher, all other appliances were moved to a different location in the kitchen. The traffic flow in and out of the kitchen is now separate from the work zone for the cook,” she notes.

Specifically, she moved the new 36", five-burner Jenn-Air cooktop from the original center island to a countertop against the wall. The original island vent was a down-draft, so the contractor had to do additional work between floors to accommodate the new 36", 1,150 CFM Jenn-Air ductless vent system. The new built-in microwave from Jenn-Air and counter-depth, side-by-side refrigerator by KitchenAid were moved down from the area containing the cooktop, the 30", stainless steel, Jenn-Air double wall oven and the Kohler double-basin sink and Brizo Floriano faucet so as not to interrupt the cook. “[Then] the new 30" Jenn-Air warming drawer was installed into the top drawer space in the new island across from the new oven [for easy] transition from the oven to the warming drawer,” Alexander explains.

The warming drawer is just one element of the revamped island. “Her original 48"x48" island did not accommodate seating, and the old cooktop took up some of the countertop, leaving the client with little room to prep,” she elaborates. “The new island – a multi-level 46"x120" [version] – also has an undermounted single prep Kohler sink with a Brizo Floriano faucet and a pull-out trash bin. It sits across from the cooktop for easy prep and clean-up.”