Meghan Murray’s house is a family home in a couple of different ways. She grew up in this farmhouse in Faber, built by her grandparents in 1942, on land that’s been in her family for a century. So to occupy it now, as she and her family have for the past year, means that the farm is a connecting thread through multiple generations.
Pretty special—but when Murray and her husband, Steve Bowers, bought the place, it was not exactly a “family home” that would work for their family. The couple and their two children needed something more up to date and functional, especially in the kitchen. The existing room was small and isolated, with finishes a few decades out of date, and didn’t take advantage of the mountain views to the west.
“We wanted to do the same thing everybody does,” says Murray: make the kitchen more open to other functions besides cooking, such as sitting by a fireplace, doing homework and sharing family meals.
With the help of architect Bethany Puopolo and cabinetmaker Todd Leback of Vaneri Studio, the couple created a kitchen that’s stylish, practical and well connected to a number of other spaces in the house—all without enlarging the home’s footprint.
“It took an architect with vision to say, ‘You need the whole kitchen to focus on looking outside,’” says Murray. Puopolo changed the layout and the placement of doors and windows so that the working and eating spaces in the kitchen are oriented toward the great views.
The shape of the room is complex, with multiple openings into the adjacent hallway, bar area, breakfast nook and mudroom. Leback created cabinetry to wrap around corners, physically and visually tying the kitchen proper to these many satellite spaces.
Granite countertops—in a streaked white and gray pattern reminiscent of marble—provide unity, but the real common denominator is the Farrow & Ball paint color, Manor House Gray, in which all the kitchen cabinets are finished. “I had wanted to do pickled wood, but realized it would be too busy,” says Murray. “I thought, ‘What’s moving away from white, but staying in a simple, clean family?’”
“It was the first big job I had done with that much gray in it, and I wasn’t sure how it would come together,” says Leback. “I ended up being really pleased with the results.” A darker gray, Sherwin Williams Charcoal, makes the cubbies and shelves in the mudroom distinct but is an obvious color cousin.
Warm touches come in the form of the wooden barstools, oak floors and a leather L-shaped sofa near the gas fireplace. “This is all we do, is sit on the couch,” says Murray. “If I’m cooking supper the kids will hang out here and read or play a board game.”
The renovation team paid keen attention to functionality—from the tiny powder room that Puopolo located off the front hallway, to the clever specialized cabinets Leback created for appliances, spices and the kind of items that should hide—but not get lost—in a lower corner cabinet.
Homework even gets its own zone in the form of fold-down desks, one for each child. What looks like another cabinet door swings down to become a writing desk, then folds up to hide clutter. “We wanted them to have desks where we could help them,” says Murray; these are just steps from where parents would be at work in the kitchen.
A new door to a newly extended front porch “gets more light into the kitchen and makes the porch more accessible,” says Murray. It’s a far cry from the dark, closed-in kitchen that was there, with its rustic style drawn by exposed brick and ceiling beams. Yet Puopolo managed to retain touches of these original materials where the kitchen rounds the corner to the sunny breakfast nook.
Murray also placed one of the original kitchen cabinets, in a natural wood finish, against a wall in the nook. “We kept this because my uncle made it,” she explains. It’s a kind of tribute to the family—that is, the family that came before.
SHOW TIME
Charlottesville, you’ll officially be represented at this year’s Smithsonian Craft Show, billed as the most prestigious craft show in the country. Our man in Washington? Todd Leback of Vaneri Studio, who builds fine furniture in addition to cabinetry.
The show takes place over four days, and will include work by 120 artists from around the nation: potters, jewelry makers, leather and fiber artists and more. Leback had applied two times previously before being accepted to the show. “I’ll be taking four pieces with me: two older pieces I’ve done before and two originals just for the show,” he says.
Catch the show April 21-24 at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. Tickets are $20 and can be purchased at the website, smithsoniancraftshow.org.—E.H.