Food and merriment are two things that lure great parties into the kitchen.
That the room truly mirrors the host is another.
A recent survey of four kitchens selected for this year’s “Kitchens on Fire” tour, a two-day, self-guided peek into nine coveted Boulder kitchens, illuminated the way the food room really is the heart and hearth of most homes.
Take the freshly remodeled kitchen inside an old Tudor-inspired house on The Hill. Designer Beth Joseph of Studio3 Kitchen and Bath says the old kitchen was too small and misconfigured for the family of four that it was to serve.
“It was important to them that everything look natural,” Joseph says of the new kitchen, which is part of a larger addition to the house. The kitchen in particular was inspired by the country homes the lady of this house became accustomed to as a child in England.
“She wanted an English farmhouse kitchen with chunky (walnut) butcher block on the (brick red) island and painted cabinets,” Joseph says. “It really is a kitchen that fits the family and the house.”
Elements that help make the remodel warm and inviting include:
Alternately, the luxurious personal kitchen at the heart of a custom home near Chautauqua Park shared by designer Tami Wakeman and her husband pairs modern conveniences with the homeowner’s professed crush on thrift-store chic. “I love anything with a vintage flair,” Wakeman says. “I also love bistro style.”
For the kitchen, she selected:
“I wanted the kitchen to have timeless design,” Wakeman says. “I wanted a kitchen I can entertain in, where people can hang out and … feel good.”
The Wakemans’ luxury is balanced among this year’s “Kitchens on Fire” stops by a cozy, loft-inspired, environmentally friendly kitchen designer Eric Balstad created for novelist Gail Donohue Storey – a woman who greets guests in cowgirl boots, tie-dye and a tiara – and her husband, hospice doctor Porter Storey. This small kitchen’s curvaceous flow spills into larger living and dining areas. It screams color with a series of solar water towers filled with blue water and accented with bubblers and backlighting as the room’s focal point.
This kitchen’s roundness is picked up in a distinctive cylindrical cabinet with stainless steel doors – home to Donohue Storey’s leopard-print cleaning supplies. And the designer made sure the drawer pulls were blue moons and stars, which coordinate well with the gurgling blue towers, and reflect the novelist/homeowner’s celestial nature.
“I love the circles and shapes,” she says of the kitchen. “And I love the sense of fun, because we love to have fun.”
A final, key “green” element in this home is the radiant-heat flooring powered by solar panels on the roof.
While this kitchen was inspired by a loft, a fourth kitchen on the tour is located in a brand-new downtown Boulder loft building that reflects the city’s recent explosion of urbane residential development. Its exposed air ducts, expansive mountain views and crescent shape, all at the center of 3,400 wide-open square feet, was handled by Margie McCulloch of Red Pepper Kitchen and Bath. Its among the designer’s favorite recent products: “It’s a sweeping, beautiful space,” she says.
“Kitchens on Fire”
What: This eighth annual, self-guided tour of nine Boulder kitchens benefits The Dairy Center for the Arts.
When: May 19 and 20, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Cost: Tickets are $15 at the The Diary, 2590 Walnut St., Boulder; online at thedairy.org; or by calling 303-444-7328.
