A Kitchen That Fits
In Ridgewood, this vital room had cabinets too low and an oven too small for comfortable cooking. But that was before.
Design by Linda Granert, Linda Granert Interior Planning & Design
Photography by Raquel Langworthy
Text by Donna Rolando
They weren’t exactly giants, this Ridgewood pair. But the European-style kitchen in the five-bedroom colonial they’d bought in 2014 seemed somehow to be built for smaller folk. Parents of two growing high schoolers, they found themselves having to bend over to prepare meals. But they exercised patience until the timing was right in 2020 to end the Goldilocks “nothing fits” scenario with a kitchen sized just right for them—and maybe perfect porridge too.
The kitchen didn’t work well for them because they were always bent over,” recalls Linda Granert of the eponymous Midland Park design firm. She notes that the cabinets in this 1988-built home fell below the 36-inch standard height, and the double oven couldn’t fit a traditional cookie sheet. So, although Granert was first contacted in 2018 for her take on paint colors, window treatments and furniture elsewhere in the home, the biggest project was on the back burner.
“They knew from the beginning that they were going to renovate the kitchen,” Granert says. “They just waited so they could do it properly.” She explains that “properly” meant a gut-job renovation, from floor to ceiling, including a redesigned window area “to let in more light.”
Gold tones not only accentuate the pendant lighting but are a design hack to heat up the white of perimeter cabinetry.
While the couple’s tastes were transitional, they found their kitchen to be outdated and dark. “The kitchen was done with European-style cabinetry and the people that they bought the home from were older,” recalls Granert. But “it wasn’t just a cabinet upgrade,” she says.
Actually, the kitchen was “a decent size” and required neither expansion nor revised layout to accommodate both an island and table as well as a coffee bar and plenty of storage. “A lot of people put in coffee bars now, and we had the space,” Granert explains. Now the kitchen’s entire backsplash is Eastern white-and-gray marble by Wayne Tile, but the coffee bar dances to its own beat with an overlaying leaf motif—a departure from the room’s predominant brick pattern. While a beverage fridge makes the coffee station a hostess’s helper, style is also brewing with glass-front cabinet doors.
For the room’s perimeter cabinets, Granert chose modern, recessed panels in white with a top layer of decorative glass and complementary hood over a Wolf stove. The cabinetry’s upper panels of decorative glass flank the window feature wall, which went through a light-bright transformation, losing an arch to a rectangular transom.
Taking advantage of the commodious kitchen, the navy-toned coffee bar with marble backsplash is both a style and a social-function hit.
Because the wife adores blue, Benjamin Moore’s Hale Navy became the accent color, helping the island cabinetry dominate aesthetically in accord with her vision. The navy, which also wakes up the coffee bar, goes a long way to warm up the white but isn’t alone in this mission.
The allure of gold tones—another warm element—lends elegance to the lighting, everything from a milky-white glass pendant at the sink to painted-metal-drum pendants over the island and a beaded chandelier in the dining area (all Visual Comfort). Gold “just looks good with the white and the blue as well as the soft gray tones that are on the walls,” Granert says. Even the cabinet hardware boasts a gold effect.
Taking a further step in pursuit of warmth, the designer added a wooden look to the flooring with the help of easy-care porcelain tile that masterfully mimics oak planks—a switch from the room’s dated tile squares.
“Most people want wood in their kitchen, but wood for families that are busy, that utilize their kitchen every day, is not a practical flooring material due to wear and tear,” says Granert. She’s grateful that porcelain has become an adept copycat. “It gives you the warmth and beauty of wood but with the durability of tile.”
A three-tiered beaded chandelier introduces glamour to the kitchen dining area—as eye candy to go along with meals at the pedestal-base table in a sun-kissed room with a wall of windows.
As per the wife’s wish list, the island commands attention, not only with its navy base but also with extra oomph from the quartz countertop. “The design goal was to paint the island in an accent color and have the quartz be slightly different from the perimeter,” says Granert. This goal is met at the island with a more striking quartz pattern and a two-inch-thick edge. In keeping with the flooring’s no-fuss makeup, the island stools (Essentials For Living) combine style with woven-rope backs, antique teak legs and performance fabric for carefree living.
The island stands out, but it is far from the family’s only sit-down option. In the kitchen’s dining area, there’s a pleasing lattice pattern to the Hooker Furniture chairs, which have a practical side: easy-to-clean fabric. With the glam of gold, a three-tiered chandelier makes a grand impression over Bernhardt’s round table with pedestal base— and abstract art adds further visual impact. And the wall of windows that celebrates the beauty of the outdoors? Granert keeps it open but accentuates with custom Roman shades adorned with gray banding by Kravet.
With the kitchen’s long-awaited redesign, life has regained its proper perspective. The kids have started college, and the kitchen is sized right for everyday use as well as for gatherings.
“It made it a lot easier for them to cook and clean because the sink and the cooktop became normal height as opposed to many heights,” says the designer.
And when the homeowners entertain, the coffee bar does more than dazzle the eye. It’s quick on the draw with either java or cocktails, demonstrating that the best things in life are worth the wait.
