Ray 17" Pendant

🦋 An extremely cute #afterandbefore for your Thursday enjoyment! I got to stop by a project we wrapped up at the end of the year yesterday and was so pleased to see how beautifully the space is filled with life and use! It’s one thing to see the project on the last day, when you pack up and wave goodbye, but its a completely other and (for me at least) much more enjoyable experience to see it months after it’s completed, when it’s been worn in by the day-to-day utility of the space. Life is mess, mess is good, if what we do can lead to a healthy mess I feel like my job is well done. There’s mess, and it’s beautiful! This project was a big one for us! Petite is stature but robust in considerations. The brief was : please make our kitchen less awful to use. A TRUE galley kitchen, it was TIGHT. And not in the early 2000’s use of that word but in the way that only one person could be in the kitchen at a time and there was no elbow room to do much other than exit. But it made me nervous. How do you make this kitchen functional without removing the dining room and how do you remove a dining room without making a home start to feel like a weird flipper has had their paws all over it? We decided to lean into a contemporary design for the kitchen in order to distinguish it from their rather traditional bungalow architectural details so we went for flat panels and simple lines, not too much kitsch but just enough. I didn’t want anyone to think we were trying to trick them into believing this kitchen had always been here. Adding light also became very important because we were deleting a large window from the dining room and the sliding double door. We went through a few iterations of cabinetry and window plans but landed on this one which I think, even on this very dreary day, leads to plenty of beautiful light streaming in because they’re south facing. And! Banquette! Made by their personal friend, adds the eating space required. 🎀 These clients were a dream! They placed their full trust in us from the beginning and the team felt that. It goes a long way when the trust & respect is mutual. I think the proof is in the jiggling pudding with this one! #letshavefun