The kitchen-family room comes of age

Sunset, July, 2000 by Ann Bertelsen, Mary Jo Bowling, Daniel Gregory, Peter O. Whiteley

* Recent surveys by the National Association of Home Builders confirm it: Like the little-used Victorian parlor, the living room is nearing extinction. Now home life tends to be focused in and around the kitchen, which has expanded to accommodate a broader range of uses. Westerners have helped prompt the change, as we look for a casual do-everything room, where we can cook, entertain, pay bills, go on-line, do homework, or just plain relax. No matter what you call it--kitchen-family room, multiple personality room, or fusion room--it's where we really live.

So where should this space be located? What functions should it perform? How should you organize it? How should you decorate it? Here's a gallery of examples to spark your imagination.

Tradition meets today

The challenge in this home was to create visual excitement within a kitchen-family room while incorporating efficient organization and traditional styling. "Our client wanted pine cabinets and bright color in the kitchen," designer Pamela Pennington explains.

Her solution was to organize the space according to function--the cooking zone separated from the sitting zone by a large butcher block topped island--and then to use a palette of primaries to accentuate each area within the larger space.

Staining the cabinets allows the wood grain to show through, updating the country look without overwhelming it. Pennington used what she calls "washed Levi" blue for most of the cabinetry in the kitchen, brilliant yellow for the backsplash and accent cabinets beside the blue refrigerator, and fire-engine red for the workstation-message center. Black granite counters provide elegant and functional work surfaces that blend with the blue cabinetry.

The cozy sitting area around the fireplace repeats the primary color scheme with a leather sectional and a colorful kilim rug, while wroughtiron accessories continue the country styling. With its fresh twist on tradition, this room manages to be down-home and up-to-date at the same time.

DESIGN: Pamela Pennington Studios, Palo Alto, CA

A place for everything

A good fusion room isn't Just A bigger than a conventional kitchen or family room, it's better organized. Indeed, combining several rooms to make one multipurpose space can seem like courting chaos. The trick is to define zones or activity centers, making each area distinct but open. Witness the remodel of this 70-year-old house, where walls between five rooms, including a porch and a laundry, were removed to make one L-shaped space.

The expanded kitchen is organized around a central island with a butcher block top that divides the space into four function areas: cooking and food preparation, dish washing and storage, relaxing and studying, and informal dining. Built-ins that help define the areas also provide generous storage space, so clutter doesn't threaten to overwhelm the room.

Repeated elements--open display shelves, glass-door upper cabinets, ceiling-mounted light fixtures, old-fashioned drawer pulls--work with the yellow paint and white trim to unify the space while repeating vintage details found elsewhere in the house.

DESIGN: S.E.A. Design/Build, San Carlos, CA (650/802-9585), working closely with the owners.

Cars out, people in

If your kitchen is near the garage, as it was in this home, then consider the annexation approach taken by Denver architect Doug Walter. He combined an existing two-car garage with the adjacent kitchen to create a spacious kitchen-family room where the cooking and sitting areas are separated not by walls but by a modest change in floor level (the sitting area is two steps below the kitchen) and by an elegant, classically inspired architectural screen, consisting of columns flanking a low wing wall.

New oak floors and a flat ceiling tie the areas together, while ornamental details, including crown molding and beaded paneling, complement the architectural character of the 80-year-old structure. The room opens through a wall of French doors to a covered porch and views of the rear garden; nearby, a new garage replaces the one that was annexed.

"The remodel reflects the changes in how we live in and use houses to- day" Walter says. "Where once someone cooking in the kitchen was confined to an 11- by 15-foot room, now they feel like a part of the living room and garden."

DESIGN: Doug Walter Architects, Denver (303/320-6916). Leczinski Design Associates, Denver (303/329-0202).

Deck connection

Architect Rick Chesmore deftly preserved the character of this vintage 1900 Seattle home while opening the kitchen to adjacent spaces and to the backyard. "The kitchen was a very dark, very narrow space," says Chesmore. Now, French doors connect the new room to a wide deck, while transom windows above the doors brighten once-gloomy high ceilings.

The key to the remodel was the addition of 40 square feet, achieved by pushing part of the house's side wall back 21/2 feet. "Those few feet provided enough room to include a kitchen island and a dining nook," Chesmore says. Now the slightly larger and much more open space functions as a kitchen, dining area, family room, home office, and entertainment zone.