Kitchen Magic -- Sleek, Functional And Fitting For A 1903 Home

REMODELING A KITCHEN is like getting a nose job: It doesn't matter how beautiful the workmanship is if the results don't fit the surroundings.

David Levy and Wyn Pottinger's Queen Anne kitchen fits its surroundings beautifully. Remodeled this past summer, the kitchen is sleek and functional, but true to the home's turn-of-the-century spirit. High white cabinets laced with period trim mesh beautifully with the 1903 architecture. The ornate, painted-tin ceiling and patterned floor are illuminated by vintage light fixtures and new multipane windows.

It didn't always look this way. When Levy and Pottinger bought the house eight years ago, a '70s remodel had left the kitchen so cramped the couple had to eat all their meals standing up. The oven didn't work, and the brown-and-mustard decor was dated and dark. "You'd have to turn the light on in the middle of summer to make a piece of toast," says Pottinger, a graphic designer and mother of three small children.

As eager as they were for a new kitchen, Pottinger and her husband, a software marketing executive, didn't want to make any hasty decisions. So they clipped magazine photos and pondered the project for six years until they came up with a solution that felt right for them - and right for the house.

Pottinger had such a clear idea of what she wanted, she decided to forgo an architect's advice and design the space herself, pumping the money she saved into the finished product. She had an architect draft some plans of the existing space, then hired a consultant to draw up her design for the permit process and the builder, Schultz Miller Inc.

In the original kitchen the cluttered work spaces were visible from the front hall. Pottinger reconfigured the layout, tucking appliances to the side, where they couldn't be seen from the entry. She moved the sink to an outside wall and added a bay window above so there would be something to look at while working. The hanging cabinets framing the sink are fitted with glass panes on their fronts and sides, so they transmit light and don't feel confining.

The cabinets were custom-made locally by Mastro Woodworking. (Pottinger says the cost was comparable to high-end stock cabinets, and the process of collaborating with a craftsman far more fulfilling than dealing with a retailer.)

To maximize storage, she extended the upper cabinets to the ceiling, and fitted the lower ones exclusively with drawers. Pottinger says drawers are easier to operate than cabinets, especially for children.

The cabinets were crafted out of medium-density fiberboard (MDF), then treated with a mottled, cream-colored glaze that helps hide fingerprints. "I have the benefit of white cabinets, without having to wipe them down after someone has a peanut-butter sandwich," Pottinger says.

Unhappy with conventional floor treatments, and wary of trying to match the adjacent oak floors, Pottinger hired decorative painters Greg Bain and Pat Pottinger-Carlin (who's also her mother) to create a custom-painted floor in a faux-marble finish. The contractors laid down a base of exterior-grade MDF, and then Bain and Carlin applied a cream-and-beige checkerboard pattern inset with green "marble" squares. The top was sealed with four coats of polyurethane, producing a seamless surface that's warm, but slick underfoot. "With a pair of socks on, you can make it from the refrigerator to the stove in a second," laughs Pottinger.

The owners had admired the pressed-tin ceilings in a couple of downtown restaurants, and decided to replicate the look in their kitchen. They painted the material cream to hide its flashy finish, and added a couple of old-fashioned, fluted-glass fixtures.

Although the owners kept the kitchen within its original parameters to help reduce costs, they opened up the room on two sides, so it feels larger. A peninsula divides the space from a new breakfast bay, housed within an eight-foot addition to the back of the house.

Now that they had a place for the family to eat, Levy and Pottinger tore out the wall between the kitchen and the formal dining room, turning the latter into a family room. A floating cabinet divides the two spaces, with a home-entertainment system on one side and kitchen storage on the other. Columns and pilasters carry the structural load while echoing trim used elsewhere in the house.

These structural changes, along with luxuries such as granite counters and a $400 French faucet, helped push the cost of the project close to $100,000. But the fusion of old and new is seamless enough to make any plastic surgeon proud.

Fred Albert reports regularly on home design for Pacific and other regional magazines. Mike Siegel is a Seattle Times photographer.