April is the unofficial launch of remodeling season, and the shelter magazines heeded that fact. The subject of kitchens-how to rescue them, renovate them, create the ultimate one from scratch-got good play in more than a few of the April books.
Right on its cover, Country Home declares March/April its Special Kitchen issue. Find a Top 10 list of ideas on “How to Make Your Kitchen Country.” Find a great, five-page story on how one penny-wise couple from St. Louis snubbed their kitchen designer and contractor, who proposed a $25,000-plus remake of their small, galley-style kitchen, and, instead, did it themselves for $9,190. How they did it, what they bought (and didn’t buy) and how they made stock cabinetry look like antique, painted furniture are revealed. So is their budget.
For a look at a much more souped-up kitchen, but still in the “country” vein, check out the March/April issue of This Old House. Armed with input from famed cook Julia Child, the TOH crew creates a dream kitchen in a home it’s working on in Milton, Mass. The beauty of this story, besides the obvious good-looking kitchen, is that decisions are explained. We find out why the TOH builders chose soapstone counters instead of marble or granite or solid-surfacing materials; why they went for stainless-fronted appliances; why they chose a smaller-than-standard, 24-inch-deep refrigerator, but, in general, opted for “cross-breed” appliances that measure somewhere between the enormous professional ones and those made for residential use; and why they insisted on deep, undermounted sinks.
House Beautiful, Better Homes and Gardens and American Homestyle & Gardening each have their spring kitchen and bath magazines on newsstands now. These are special, quarterly issues that are published in addition to the regular magazine and offer all sorts of technical information on kitchen and bath remodeling. The featured kitchens are worth a look as well.
But our vote for the freshest kitchen in all the magazines this month goes to a 200-square-foot kitchen addition in Arlington, Mass. Find it in Home magazine, the April issue.
Added onto the rear of a Colonial-style house, this kitchen is clearly different. Think “glass conservatory. The room is wrapped in oversize windows and transoms. A skylight pierces the pyramidal roof, sending shafts of light down into the room. All the light and transparency make the room an ethereal space, at one with the yard on the other side of the glass. The standard kitchen accouterments-counters, appliances, cabinetry-seem to disappear.
For realists who shiver at the thought of cold air rushing through those windows during the winter, fear not. The kitchen is equipped with under-floor heating. “It’s certainly the nicest place to sit during a blizzard,” coos the happy homeowner.
Hooray for Hollywood: Architectural Digest goes to Tinsel Town this month with its biannual “Hollywood at Home!” issue. Among the stars featured in their homes: Val Kilmer in his “spiritual oasis in the hills outside Santa Fe” and Diane Keaton in her “relaxed old house,” a 1930s ranch outside of Tucson. Also, AD got its hands on some terrific archival photos of Hollywood legends–Jimmy Stewart, Burt Lancaster and Claudette Colbert, among them–in their homes.
Don’t miss the piece on Stewart. Shown is the “unpretentious Tudor-influenced, two-story family house” in Beverly Hills where he lived for nearly 50 years with his wife, Gloria. Revealed is his love of wildlife (Stewart kept a portrait of Pie, the horse he partnered with in many Westerns, on an easel in full view) and his obsession with family memorabilia (“Stewart used to prepare for family vacations by putting valuables in a vault–not jewelry and silver, but the family photograph albums from this room”).
More is more: Here’s an encouraging picture story for people who have stuff–“The Best Is Yet To Be,” in the April issue of House Beautiful. It’s the home of Robert and Kay Lautman, Bob being a photographer who often shoots for HB. The couple’s “modest stucco house,” built in 1911 in Washington, D.C., overflows with stacks of books, walls lined with books, photographs and mementos. Covering one wall in the kitchen is a 15-foot-long pegboard. It makes a clever tack surface for displaying Bob’s memorabilia from his travels.
While minimalism is hot right now, and the sense of serenity that comes from living without a lot of physical things, this interior proves that the flip side is also true–that learning how to live well with your treasured pieces can be equally joyous.
