Kitchen of the Week: Warm and Industrial in New Hampshire

Kitchen designer Karen Swanson of New England Design Works and the owner of this New Hampshire kitchen found each other on Houzz. “She liked some of the ideabooks I’d put together,” says Swanson. “She contacted me to help her redesign her kitchen. It was the first time I got a client that way.” Swanson quickly found that she and her new client were style soul mates. “Her taste is impeccable,” she says. “It made the job a lot of fun.” When they established a common visual vocabulary, the pair set out to re-create the kitchen.

“To keep the costs down, we left the appliances where they were,” says Swanson. “That gave us room in the budget for the custom island.”

Although the owner would have preferred to use Calacatta marble throughout, it cost too much; she splurged by topping only the eat-in island with the natural stone. “It was cheaper to use it on the smaller counter of the island, and we put it in the center of the room where it would make the most impact,” says Swanson. The rest of the countertops are made of Caesarstone.

The cabinets that line the room are a soft white, but Swanson advocated that the island be gray with a pale green undertone. She had the color custom mixed, and the cabinetmakers liked it so much, they added it to their general collection. “They let me name it,” the designer says. “I chose the name Marguerite, for my grandmother. I was at the beginning of my career, and a number of jobs just fell into my lap. I felt that if anyone up there was watching out for me, it was my grandmother.”

On one end of the island is a walnut butcher block. “She actually uses this to prep food; it’s not just decorative,” says Swanson. “It’s an end cut, which is the toughest butcher block you can buy.”

More about the Kitchen of the Week: Warm and Industrial in New Hampshire

Kitchen of the Week: Warm and Industrial in New Hampshire