Tamara's design journal--creating a cozy kitchen nook in New York City!

Let's Talk Kitchens

my two favorite features to a well designed kitchen: 

a cozy eating nook, and a good, quality stove/oven

photo  via massuccowarnermiller on Pinterest

I love banquettes in a kitchen

 Houzz.com

In my own kitchen, I dream of creating a perfect banquette with cushy built in seating where we can all cozy up on a cold winter's eve and drink hot cocoa near the roaring fireplace. 

The only problem is my pre-war new york city apartment 

does not have a fireplace in the kitchen,

but a girl can dream, right? 

 For the culinary talented a Wolf stove
is the top of the line in my book...

Wolf Stove photograph from Pinterest

here I am cooking on Wolf stoves and ovens
in Madison, Wisconsin

at their headquarters with in-house chefs and other designers

Cassandra of Coco+Kelley blog and I
were the two blogger & designers added to this designer-only event.
 It was fun to bring our journalistic perspective to the experience. Read one of my stories about the trip HERE

 It was perfect timing this summer when I returned from a trip to Wisconsin and an inundation of the Wolf/Subzero products, and was hired by a new client who was in the beginning stages of redesigning their entire pre-war apartment.  The kitchen was completely replaced and with a contractor in the throes of tearing down walls and re-shaping the apartment, one of the first decisions was which appliances to choose.  Armed with my new plethora of information about the company and products, I enthusiastically convinced them to purchase a Wolf stove and double oven.  Now, several months later and with a brand spanking new apartment, walls painted and floors stained and finished we move onto the furniture, light fixtures and window treatments.

Check out my Kitchen Pinterest Board

I curated to get me started on visuals for this project. 

The board shows you links and credits for all these

great photographs and sources.

the apartment in the end stages of construction
during September & October

A finished Kitchen: 
simple, yet with the finest of details and quality,
 and now we need to add those special touches...
photograph taken with iPhone

Are you catching a glimpse of those famous red knobs?

the fabrics have all been ordered and are en route to the workroom.  I used mostly Kravet and Brunschwig & Fils fabrics in a muted blue/green and brown/grey tones to complement the adjoining den we painted a glossy grey color

(one of my very favorite paint colors, Grey Gull from Pratt & Lambert).

With brand spanking new dark wood floors, a new wine refrigerator, and all new appliances, this banquette needs to pop and bring in the needed colors. First I scoured many sources to find the perfect pendant light over the eat in kitchen banquette.  The light will hang over the Tulip table that I ordered from Lexington Modern.  I came up with many great light options from Circa to Vaughn.  In the end, we wanted something with clean modern lines but with traditional sensibilities, and of course a little pizazz.  We chose an antique light fixture from Remains. 

after much shopping, we settled on a light from Remains. 
They sell beautiful, quality lights both modern and antique check out the stats of this cool light we added an extension rod to lengthen the entire light so it hangs 42" from the ceiling. It's hard to see on the photograph but this vintage light has a very unusual prism-like diffuser with cut glass. The light should arrive any day and will look extra cool over this tulip table...

these are the fabrics we've settled upon

the solid linen will be the roman shade, the dot the window seat cushion with contrast welting from the solid, and the green and blue/brown

ikat and solid will be the back pillows 

the glossy walls and trim in the gray next to the kitchen

stay tuned there will be more updates
as this cozy nook gets lit and comfy...