Published in Caledon Living, Summer 2006:
     On entering the gorgeous addition and renovation to Cally and Keith’s kitchen, what impresses most is not the new interior, but ironically, the view outdoors. And that is exactly what they were aiming for.
     Cally and Keith live near Inglewood, and the back of their property dips down over gentle hills, descending right to the bank of the Credit River. Yet their kitchen had only a small window and door to a rear terrace. Keith in particular, wanted to open up the kitchen to the expansive view.
     While they were at it, they decided to increase their entertaining space so that guests can enjoy the enlarged vista. This meant renovating the kitchen. Cally asked Barb Shaughnessy, design consultant with her own company, Tamerlane Interiors, to design the layout and help choose the finishes.
     The kitchen was gutted but kept the same size, roughly 14 ft. by 22 ft. The back wall was taken out to allow a dining room addition of about the same size as the kitchen, doubling the available space. The addition also provides another room in the basement.
The new back wall is entirely windows and sliding glass doors that open onto a new large deck that wraps around the addition to the formal dining room. A sliding glass door was installed here to give another access to the deck. Now, the view from the kitchen is a vast panorama overlooking fields, forest and village.
     “My old theory is to drop the windows as low as you can go,” says Barb. “This lets light in for a longer time in the day. As the sun goes down, you still have light.” 
     “My favourite thing about this renovation is that now it’s the meeting place,” says Cally, standing at the large granite-topped island. “Everyone’s always in the kitchen. We like to entertain so we wanted to make it bigger.”
     Cally gestures toward the cook top in front of her. “We like to cook. I’ve cooked garlic shrimp here and passed it around to people. Everyone originally suggested putting the sink in the island and the cook top here.” She turns around to the large sink behind her.
     “But I didn’t want my back to people as I’m cooking.” She returns to the island. “Also, I didn’t want people sitting around the dirty dishes. It’s good to work with designers but they have to do what you like. The island is the focal point. We do all our casual eating here.”
     The dining area is dramatically furnished with a large black walnut table that can seat 12, and a three-tiered chandelier that leads the eye up to the beamed, open ceiling.
     “It was ‘How big a chandelier can we get in here?’” remembers Barb. “I say go big or go home. Everyone always underestimates the size of their chandeliers.”
     Barb is also responsible for adding the corner fireplace, which is surrounded with tiles laid in her “famous herringbone” pattern.
     The end of the island has been built as a sideboard that acts as a room divider between the kitchen and dining area, and as a buffet serving table. The large top drawer is suitable for storing tablecloths without excessive folds. It is made of black walnut, the same as the dining table.
     The full-length windows and sliding glass doors are sophisticated units that have screen that can be slid across when wanted. They also have blinds built right into the glass, offering the full range of closure options with none of the dust collecting of exposed blinds.
     The chandelier and wall sconces have similar rope details on their frames. Decorative rope details also appear throughout the kitchen on some cabinet doors and drawer handles.
     While the overall décor style is English Country, there are some touches that wouldn’t be out of place in a French Country kitchen. The extra-deep, single-basin sink is one, with great practicality for cooks with big pans, pots and serving dishes. The other French Country touch is the look of chicken wire in some of the glass-fronted cupboard doors. Practicality is foremost here, too, as the glass makes the wire visible while keeping dust out of the cabinets.
     Stained glass in other cupboard doors brings beautiful jewel colours into the kitchen. Diamond shapes in the glass evoke a Tudor atmosphere.
     One entire wall of the kitchen is devoted to a desk and plenty of surrounding storage. The desk drawers are as deep as the cabinets, which flank either side and extend to the ceiling. Inside, the shelves and drawers are finished, not with white melamine, but with maple laminate. There are fixed shelves, pot drawers and a pantry unit with one door covering individual slide-out drawers. The variety of shelving offers many possibilities for storing specific items in appropriate places. All cupboards have full-extension glides to give access right to the back.
     A clever detail about the desk is that its height is the same as the island, allowing for the bar stools to function in either place.
     Two new wall ovens were installed in the same location as the old ones. There’s a deep drawer below the ovens, and a cupboard above with dividers to hold baking sheets. Beside the ovens is another deep pantry cupboard, this one sliding out as a complete storage unit and holding supplies for baking and making tea and coffee. Hot food from the ovens can be placed directly on the solid granite countertops. The side-by-side refrigerator-freezer is faced with cabinet doors, as is the dishwasher, making these appliances seem to disappear.
     Cupboards beneath the sink have inserts for special uses. One contains a sliding drying rack for dish towels and another one is the waste centre, holding bins for garbage and recycling. The large stainless steel sink has a faucet containing an extendable hose, useful for directing water into hard-to-get places.
     The island serves many practical purposes also. The cook top is vented by a large panelled exhaust hood that passes through the attic. On either side of the cook top are sliding drawers; pot drawers are underneath. There are several utensil drawers. A narrow dead space caused by a corner cupboard was turned into a useful spice cupboard at Keith’s suggestion.
     At the base of the island is a toe switch that activates the central vacuum to take in sweepings from the floor. Cally is eager to demonstrate one of her favourite features, but the spotless floor yields no crumbs or dust.
     Ceiling pot lights and under-cabinet lighting give a warm glow to the kitchen and bring out the sparkle of blue quartz hidden in the counters. Cally and Keith treasure a handmade blue pottery teapot that they recently brought home from the Caribbean.
     The addition and renovation took about four months, during which they cooked in the well-equipped basement bar kitchen. While they had known for a while that they wanted more of a view of Caledon for themselves and their guests, they didn’t rush into renovation after moving in.
     “We had lived here for two years,” explains Cally. “It’s good to live in a house for a few years first.”
By Gloria Hildebrandt