Thank you, Mt. Angel Abbey, for hiring Aalvar Aalto back in 1966.
Our recent flurry of kitchen features has prompted us to look back at our past kitchen projects, and see the variety of different styles and needs we have encountered. Each one is unique, which is what makes kitchens so interesting. It’s one the most intricate rooms to design in a house.
The Recinos/Cooper Residence kitchen is a study in efficiency. Peg Cooper is a pastry chef, and wanted the flexibility to conduct classes in her kitchen. Even through the confines of the house limited the size of the kitchen, both Peg and Andrew wanted it to operate like a commercial kitchen: with separate and efficient areas for prepping, cooking, and cleaning. In addition, they wanted the style of the kitchen to stay true to the era of their Craftsman House.
As always, we started by looking at the house as a whole, and evaluating essential design issues like natural lighting, traffic flow, and utility. By relocating the rear entrance and studying the movements between the three workstations, we worked with the owners to create a spacious kitchen with distinct work areas and lots of storage.
We recently asked the owners to share how they felt about the experience of working with us, from initial concept to project completion. Here is what they said:
“It is hard to believe that a kitchen remodel could change your life, but in many ways this is the case with the remodel designed and managed by Ogawa Fisher Architects. Prior to the remodel, the kitchen was already the focal point of the house (so often the case, and more so with a toddler), which just exacerbated its deficiency. Poorly laid out, dark, and cut off from the rest of the house, the kitchen was a constant source of frustration. The Ogawa Fisher team imagined a new kitchen in the same space, which was well lit, well designed and integrated into the flow of the house – a focal point we actually want to spend time in. The first time friends entered our house post-renovation, they tended to say the same thing – ‘this didn’t just change your kitchen, it changed your whole house!’”
Thank you, Andrew and Peg! It’s so rewarding to know that changes in one room can transform the feel of the whole house. We really enjoyed working with you and hope we have the opportunity to collaborate with you again soon.
Special thanks to Scorpion Construction for their hard work and craftsmanship; and to Kristin Beadle for the beautiful photography.
For more images of this kitchen, feel free to browse the project album on our facebook page.
Two of our projects (the Samaras/Sorensen Residence dining room and Novak Residence kitchen) were chosen for a featured Ideabook on Houzz’s home page. Woot!
For more photos of both projects, feel free to peruse the albums on our Facebook page.
The Novak Residence project was featured as Kitchen of the Week on Houzz.com. Check it out!
It is always exciting to go to the stone yard and select marble slabs for a project. The large warehouses are filled with row after row of beautiful stone and granite, cut into approximately 5′ x 8′ slabs. Yesterday I had the pleasure of looking through Carrara marble slabs for the Knott Street Residence project, where we are using it for bathroom vanities and thresholds. It has been a while since we have used Carrara, but the look and feel of this particular stone is timeless. The swirls of gray and cool white are so gorgeous it’s breathtaking.
It’s fun to watch them move the slabs so that we can look at them one by one. A rubber-tipped clamp hangs from a crane near the ceiling of the warehouse, and moving each piece from one side to the other is a cautious and time-consuming activity. But it’s totally fun to watch heavy things levitate.
It’s easy to get swept away by the beauty of these slabs, and forget what we’re really there to do: select a slab that will work perfectly for the project. Some things to remember when looking at natural stone: it’s critical to pay attention to the pattern, and even bring a tape measure and some masking tape with you so you can understand where the pattern will go when the slab is cut, fabricated, and installed. If there are large fissures, you’ll probably want to avoid those slabs, as those areas are vulnerable to future cracking. Look for any stains, rub them with your hand, and if they don’t go away, you’ll want to avoid that area for your project, or skip that slab all together. If you see large mineral deposits or other imperfections in the middle of your favorite slab, one option is to configure the slab cuts such that the imperfection can fit within a sink cut-out, or place it between cuts.
Lastly, stone is a precious and limited natural resource. It’s important to make sure that you are using the least number of slabs, and minimize waste. If you can use the leftovers for floor thresholds, accent tiles, or even cheese boards, it is worth the extra effort to put it to good use. If it’s as gorgeous as this Carrara slab, you’ll want it everywhere anyway.
It’s not a true comparison to put our “before” photos, primarily taken for purposes of documentation and reference, to those of Lincoln Barbour‘s “after”, which are shot by a professional and styled to showcase the design. (And Lincoln is particularly good at making everything look fabulous – see him at work in our previous post.) I should also add that the owners, Rachel and Mike Novak, are very clean and stylish people, and the “before” photos don’t do their previous life any justice. It just so happened that I took the photos on a Portland winter day, when things look especially dreary. And I think the owners were clearing the cabinets to prepare for construction. (You can see another post about this project here, where we explain our project concept in more detail.)
So, the before/after photos are not intended to scrutinize the “before”, but to show you the dramatic transformation between the “before” and “after”. Our hope is that you can see good architecture at work:
- warm natural and artificial lighting
- simple, refined lines
- openness and good flow of spaces
- smart use of natural materials
- an improvement to the space, and to quality of life
Let us know what you think.
And as always, we can’t do it without great clients (thanks Mike and Rachel) and a great contractor (thanks Scene Construction). A fun project is always a collaborative process.
Rear elevation – before
Rear elevation – after
Rear elevation – before
Rear elevation – after
Rear mud room – before
Mud Room combined with Kitchen – after
What was the Mud Room – after
Looking into the Kitchen from the Dining Room – before
Looking into the Kitchen from the Dining Room – after
Last week, we had the Novak Residence photographed by the very talented Lincoln Barbour. “Photo shoot” sounds glamorous and fun, and it is to a certain extent, but it’s also hard work for everyone involved. For starters, I arrived at the site at 8am, to go over the shots with the owner, talk to them about what props we brought, and how the rooms might be rearranged (but put back to its original condition after the shoot). The owners had done a marvelous job tidying up the rooms, and since they are both artists and collectors, styling for this shoot was going to be minimal. Still, there are things that we usually don’t notice, that might be captured in a photo. So for every shoot, I go through each room carefully, straightening, moving, or removing things as I go. Then I clean all the surfaces, including counters, cabinet doors, windows, doors, to make sure there are no spots. I start bringing the props back into the room, and that is usually around when the photographer and his assistant arrive. (And I should note that Lynn and I usually work on these shoots together, but I just happened to do this one on my own.)
This is my first time working with Lincoln. I had seen his work on Portland Spaces magazine and fell in love with the composition and quality of light. I thought, someday I will work with him. So it was nice to finally meet, and find out that we were a good fit. He and his assistant Justin were very friendly, and very efficient. As soon as they arrived, they started setting up and got to work.
For every shot, we were able to review the angle, lighting, props, colors, etc. through his laptop. Here, he’s reviewing the shot before he lets me take a look.
Lincoln used reflectors in many of the shots, to get light where he wanted it. The interior of a house can look dark, particularly when it’s sunny outside. I wanted to take more photos of “behind the scenes”, but I was constantly running around, reviewing the current shot with Lincoln, preparing for the next shot, and scrolling through my phone in between to check on other projects. It’s literally non-stop, but since I thrive on that kind of high energy, I loved every moment of it.
So after every shoot, the photographers pack up and leave, and I start moving everything back to its original location, and make sure everything is back in order. Then if I have some time left at the end, I take some photos of my own, particularly of things we didn’t capture in the formal photo shoot.
Here is a view of the kitchen from the interior, as you look out to the back yard. You can see the rich color of the wood pantry wall against the cooler textures of the quartz countertop and the rubber flooring, which I thought was nice. (But boy, I could have used some reflectors in this shot, huh?)
The original window above the sink had a sill and apron, but in the design we proposed that we remove them and make a new sill that acts as a task light and a termination point for the tile backsplash. So here is a shot of that transition.
The sill extends all the way across the kitchen, and here you see the other end. The owners have this magnificent wood figure, which you’ll see in many of Lincoln’s shots. I just liked him so much, both as a piece and also as a vertical composition in the photo.
As I check to make sure we haven’t left anything behind, I leave the owners a little gift and a note thanking them for letting us use their house.
In summary, we got some beautiful shots of a nice project for lovely clients, and I had a great time working with Lincoln. Thanks again to everyone who was involved! And I look forward to sharing photos from the shoot in our next post.
Check out a good sampling of his work here, or go to his website for a more complete viewing. Photography considers space and composition just as much as architecture does, so it is inspiring on many levels. I could absorb these images all day…
