A kitchen with white and metallic surfaces provides a great opportunity to add color with bright dishes and cookware. Embellishments from Sears and Executive Chef add a citrus punch. Large, clear vases, from Pacific Home, filled with tall fronds flank each post, creating even more visual interest.
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Last year, Carole Wong’s anniversary present came without a package or a bow. “My husband gifted me with a new kitchen,” she says.
To begin the project, the couple contacted Ed Sugawa, owner of EMEE Kitchens & Baths. “Basically, they had a house with a vaulted ceiling, and the kitchen was a box inside of the house,” says Sugawa. Wong’s primary goals were to open up the kitchen, allowing it to flow into the other rooms, let more light in and make it more usable. After meeting several times, pitching each other ideas and putting them down on paper, they were able to come up with something they both liked. “It’s better to do all that work on paper than to put something in and regret it later on,” Sugawa says.
The first thing Sugawa and his team did was take down the walls that boxed in the space. Then, the laundry machines that were in the kitchen were relocated to the garage, which freed up space for new kitchen appliances. In Wong’s new kitchen, the angled refrigerator, with two tall cabinets on either side, is located where a back door once was. Sugawa and his team sealed up the space and moved the backyard entrance to the dining room instead. To let in more light, Sugawa eliminated Wong’s single, tiny, louvered window and installed a large picture window with two smaller, angled windows on the sides. “The most challenging part about this job,” Sugawa says, “is that Carole had a lot of things she wanted done. That’s where designing and trying to accommodate comes in. To do all of it and stay within budget took us a little while to figure out, but it worked.”
Sleek, stainless steel appliances are the perfect addition to this modern kitchen.
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One of the most difficult tasks, Sugawa says, was remodeling the vaulted ceiling to accommodate her new kitchen, particularly above the new peninsula where the range was located. “Because the ceiling was vaulted, we had to cut the slab and move the lines,” says Sugawa. The new ceiling now has a hood above the range and allows the lighting to be more intimate and effective.
The job was then finished off with the little touches that make a project complete. Aside from the new appliances, the surfaces were all replaced with two-color, solid-surface tops, and custom cabinets were ordered from Canyon Creek and fixed with special doors from Brentwood. Also, to avoid having dishes stacked on top of one another, Sugawa installed all the cabinets with Rev-a-Shelf, which supplies items like dish racks, to make cabinets more organized. “This was one of our rare, truly custom jobs,” Sugawa says.
With Wong’s kitchen almost doubled in size and completely remodeled, she couldn’t be happier. “Ed is an exceptional designer,” says Wong. “The little touches he put around the kitchen are excellent. It’s just a pleasure to be cooking now with everything new. It’s really neat trying to use it all. I love it, really.”
