Kitchen Tour Spectacular

Bonnie Birnbaum, ASID, CID
190 Interlachen Lane, Tonka Bay
Surrounded by water on three sides, this home offers panoramic views of Lake Minnetonka, but that wasn’t always the case. Since city regulations prevented designer

Bonnie Birnbaum from enlarging the home’s footprint on the lakeside during its remodel, she needed a creative design that would open the home to take full advantage of the kitchen’s spectacular views.

The original kitchen, built in 1971, had dark cabinetry, orange-and-blue-striped wallpaper, and dark brown indoor-outdoor carpeting. “The kitchen created a difficult space-planning problem,” Birnbaum says. “Because the size of the space was predetermined, it was like putting together a puzzle.” By taking the adjacent laundry and bathroom spaces and adding them onto the kitchen, Birnbaum opened the room and created a wonderful hearth-like cooking area. “I wanted the character of the room to be 1885, with a country, lake-cottage feel,” she says. To accomplish that, she chose inset cabinet doors and a broken, brick patterned tile for the backsplash, both in a calm, creamy yellow.

Several unique features make cooking in this kitchen a treat. First, the island is on castors, which allows the chef to bring it to the refrigerator for loading, then to the sink for prep, and finally over to the cook area. The generous cook area, with its double ovens, grill, and six burners, is offset from the rest of the light and airy kitchen with dark cherry cabinetry. The area is further differentiated by a hand-painted tile mural of a rural vineyard and nearby clean-up sink.
Resources:
Appliances: Sub-Zero refrigerator and wine cooler; Thermador stove; ASKO dishwasher; Sharp microwave
Cabinets: Crystal Cabinetry
Countertops: Granite
Flooring: Australian cyprus
Lighting: Tech Lighting

Mark Nelson, Allied Member ASID, AIA
400 Groveland Ave. #612, Minneapolis
True to the era in which it was built, this 1960s condo was defined by partitions and separate spaces. But with a view of downtown Minneapolis from the living room, the walls simply had to go to fully enjoy the cityscape from other areas of the home.

The kitchen, eating, and living areas were gutted to create one large room. Mark Nelson, the designer and homeowner, wanted the focus to be on the living room, so he devised the kitchen as a backdrop to the living area. “The idea was that because the kitchen was open to the other living spaces, it should have a library sort of feel, sort of sedate, with clean lines,” Nelson says. The kitchen is an extension of the living room and shares the same oak parquet floor, but it is also slightly set apart by a change of scale in the ceiling (it’s lower than the living room ceiling) and use of black appliances and finishes in the kitchen and off-white paint in the living area to define the space. The island triples as a workspace, buffet, and bar, all of which are conducive to the cocktails-and-hors d’oeuvres type of entertaining Nelson prefers. “I like how the kitchen functions in that I can work at the island and watch TV or look at the city view,” he says, “and it works very well for entertaining because people can sit at the bar and chat while I’m cooking.”

The cherry wood cabinets were custom-designed by David Heide Design Studio, and Nelson changed all of the doors in the home to match them.
Resources:
Appliances: GE range and refrigerator, ASKO dishwasher
Cabinets: Custom, designed by David Heide Design Studio
Countertops: Absolute Black granite
Flooring: Oak parquet