The challenge: Oliver and Jamie Perez and their two young children live in a charming older home — with a kitchen that was closed off and separated from the main living areas. "I spend a ton of time in the kitchen, cooking and baking," said Jamie. "I was missing out on time with the kids and social time." Pre-pandemic, the Perezes enjoyed entertaining but their kitchen was too small to comfortably accommodate a group. "The party naturally gravitates to the kitchen," Jamie said. "It would get very crowded."
The couple contemplated moving to get a better kitchen, but they were happy in the Kingfield neighborhood in Minneapolis. Besides, nearby homes had become prohibitively expensive since they bought in 2010, Oliver said. "Remodeling a house we love made much better financial sense."
The team: Architect Kari Nelson, K|Nelson Architects; builder EK Johnson Construction.
The swap: Like many homes of its era, the kitchen was at the back of the 1911 house while the main living area was at the front. "They wanted the kitchen to be the epicenter of the home, but where it was, it couldn't connect with the rest of the house," said Nelson. There was another space adjacent to the dining room — a den that had been converted into a guest room. "It was odd to have a bedroom off the dining room," said Nelson. By flip-flopping the kitchen and bedroom, the family could get the larger, connected kitchen they wanted without adding square footage to the home. They did take 3 feet from a first-floor bathroom to add space for the refrigerator and make the kitchen layout more functional. "You have to use every square inch," said Nelson. "The kitchen wouldn't have worked without those 3 feet."
Staying in character: The Perezes wanted their new kitchen to look like it belonged in their vintage home. "The goal was to have a more open space and keep the charm," said Jamie. "We never wanted someone to walk in and say, 'That kitchen doesn't fit the rest of the house.' "
Preserving the buffet: They wanted to keep intact the original built-in buffet in the dining room. "When you open up space, the first response is to tear out that wall, maybe find a new spot for the buffet, but it's such a beautiful piece," said Oliver. "That was a primary goal, to preserve that." Instead, the wall between the new kitchen and the dining room was removed, which required new support beams in the basement.
Room with a view: Removing the wall between the new kitchen and the dining room created a strong connection between those spaces, but they also wanted a connection to the living room. Removing another wall would have accomplished that, but there wouldn't have been enough wall space remaining for kitchen cabinets. "We ended up opening a window to the living room, above the sink," said Nelson, so that Jamie can be in the kitchen and still see and hear what's going on in the living room, including her beloved Packers football games on TV.
Vintage look: The kitchen's lower cabinets are quartersawn white oak with a dark stain to echo the woodwork of the Craftsman-era buffet in the dining room. Details from those buffet cabinets were replicated in the new kitchen cabinets. The challenge was "making sure we used the existing millwork in the right way," said Nelson. "We didn't overdo it. But we borrowed enough that we could fool people that the kitchen had always been there." The upper cabinets are enameled white, with the final coat of paint backbrushed on to leave "a teeny bit of brush texture," said Nelson. "We did it to bring a little of that old-home texture into the cabinetry."
