When a Long Island homeowner recently came to Alure Home Improvements for help renovating a dysfunctional kitchen, the company cooked up a Modern Farmhouse eat-in that perfectly solved the client’s culinary conundrum.
Christina Piekut, the Custom Kitchen and Bath Designer at Alure Home Improvements, says the existing kitchen had stock cabinets with no thought put into the layout or detail. The proportions were way off with such a tiny island in such a large area. The client hated the flow of the space and was constantly allover the kitchen to cook one simple meal.
“The client’s wishes were to have a better flow, high-end appliances, all the bells and whistles but above all, they wanted a high-end designer look that fit their style,” Piekut says. “They wanted modern colors, such as the blues and grays. However, they wanted the overall look of the kitchen to be farmhouse. Modern Farmhouse is what we went with for overall feel and style.”
From a design point of view, Piekut accomplished this with using very large, rectangular bluestone porcelain tile. It had a texture similar to the grain in a wood floor but did not look like wood.
The cabinets she went with are frameless to reflect the modern construction, and she used a timeless wide-pland Shaker door style. To enhance the Shaker door, Piekut used a very ornate light rail molding, crown molding, and decorative legs on the stove focal point and island. To help ground the space and add contrast, Piekut added an Espresso Oak Island cabinet finish.
The 5-foot-by-11-foot island enhanced the white painted main cabinets, which also had a nickel linen rub to pick up the blue in the floor tile.
“It is the details that make a kitchen a custom design,” Piekut says. “All of the appliances were panelized to add to the customization of this kitchen. The stove and hood pop as a modern focal point in stainless steel.”
The granite countertops are very special, she adds. They are from a limited lot of granite, filled with a few different blue tones with some silver iron running through it. Unlike a typical high-gloss finish, a limited finish called Leather, which replicates a real leather look, is used to give additional character to the counter. This makes the stone highlights and lowlights pop even more, giving it a unique characteristic.
“Rather than do a simple subway backsplash, we decided to add a pattern to it and do the entire backsplash in a subway herringbone pattern,” Piekut says, noting that the tile is also a unique 2-inch-by-8-inch size that creates a more dramatic scale in the kitchen.
“Of course, no kitchen is complete without the finishing touches,” she adds. “We did a farmhouse-style sink, farmhouse-style island light fixture, farmhouse island stools and hardware.”
The finished product is a modern farmhouse masterpiece.
“These clients were amazing, as they trusted me as a designer and allowed me to guide them with all the selections, layout and special details,” Piekut says. “As a designer, when I meet with new clients to design their kitchen, what I am really doing is designing a relationship. I get to know my clients so I can see their hopes and dreams for the kitchen clearly and execute the dream with a little bit of magic.”
Alure Home Improvements is located at 1999 Hempstead Tpke., East Meadow. They can be reached at 516-296-7777 or alure.com
