Seeing potential where mere mortals cannot is what designers like Linda Dolman, Liza Brenchley and Nancy Ulakovic do best. And their top-to-bottom kitchen reno in this century-plus stone house in Aberfoyle, Ontario, proves it. Take, for instance, the paintbrush trickery they used to give clunky, circa-1970s cabinetry a ‘new' English Country look. This alone lends the kitchen in this guest house – owned by Nestlé and used by executives travelling to the region – a cozy home-away-from-home feel. What other changes took the kitchen from ho-hum to homey? We asked Liza Brenchley to tell us.
What needed to be done?
Everything. We face-lifted the existing cabinetry and put in the new slate floor. We replaced a large picture window that wasn't age-appropriate with three sets of French doors that open onto a covered porch. We replicated original mouldings around the windows, removed the entire bulkhead and added crown moulding to the top of the cupboards. We put the original-sized window back in above the sink since it had been made smaller, and renovated a storage room into a back kitchen, adding a door [to this room] for access to the back porch. This new area becomes the entrance when larger groups come for meetings because the front entry to the house is so small.
What inspired you?
The house had an old English farmhouse feel so we decided to create a gentleman's country home with heavy tapestry fabrics, stone floor, lots of browns and earthy farmhouse colours. We wanted the cabinets to look like they'd been there a long time, so we painted them black with a taupe overtop and sanded back. We used rustic gunstock hardware and found old-fashioned hinges. The backsplash is brown tumbled marble tiles with lots of deep crevices.
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