Bird’s Hill project
BEFORE + PROCESS
The dining room was already cramped and hard to navigate around, and our clients wanted to be able to entertain, expand the table, and pull up high chairs (with a baby on the way). We needed to re-design the floor plan of the main living space. By moving the kitchen into the dining room, removing all the walls, and locating the dining table in the centre of the space, we were able to create loads of room for expanding the dining table. However, we didn’t like the experience of a floating table in the middle of the room. We really wanted this open concept space to feel like it had a proper dedicated dining room. By designing a custom wood feature wall (in solid ash), and extending it onto the ceiling, we could create a feeling of enclosure and protectiveness without adding any walls. Custom-made pendant lights drop over the table to further define the dining room.
MAKING THE GREAT ROOM GREAT AGAIN
When kitchens are part of the living space, we often try to make them feel less like a kitchen lined with cabinets, and instead feel more like a living room. Here, we wanted to eliminate most of the upper cabinets in favour of a huge window that brings in the evening sunlight, and a wall of hand-made white tile to further reflect the light around the space. We also concealed the range hood to further minimize the kitchen-y feel. Having eliminated most upper cabinets, we still needed a lot of storage for dishes. Ideally they would be located near the dishwasher and the table. With that in mind, we concealed a floor-to-ceiling cabinet in 1/3 of the giant wood feature wall cabinet which is dedicated to glassware, plates, mugs, and more than enough serving-ware.
SECRET STORAGE-MEETS-FEATURE WALL
We designed the wood-slatted cabinet to have nearly invisible recessed pulls, so guests are always surprised that there’s 3 cabinets behind there. The centre cabinet functions as the home bar, and is designed with a finished interior and a hinge that allows the door to stay open flat. The final third cabinet in the wood slat wall is the broom closet.
