THE 2007 HC&G IDEA HOUSE

August 15, 2007

As the heart of the home, a kitchen has to meet a variety of requirements—ease of use, maneuverability and a style that's appropriate for both those intimate dinner parties and everyday living. For the 2007 HC&G Idea House, Tom Vecchio of Bilotta Kitchens had yet another challenge: to blend it in with Kyle Timothy Blood's casually elegant family room at the opposite end of a large, open space. Furthermore, unlike a traditional, enclosed kitchen, this room had limited wall space available to accommodate cabinets and appliances. "This was a bit of a challenging layout," Vecchio confesses. "There are only two main walls, and the rest is broken up by doorways and windows."

To fuse the two spaces, which are separated by a dining area, Vecchio took cues from the wide, graceful archway that defines the kitchen entrance. "The kitchen is like a stage," Vecchio explains. "It's a large focal point and you can see it from the entire family room space. I wanted to blend it in with the family room so it almost became a part of it." To do this, he asked builder Rich Gherardi to install a barrel-vaulted ceiling that mimics the archway, and installed a curved range hood that is accentuated by an arching mantel the color of driftwood. In addition, the top level of the two-tiered island at the kitchen's center also curves outward. "If you were to look at it from above, it is the same shape as the mantel, and if you're standing behind it and looking into the family room, you can see that the curvature of the island matches the arch shape and the ceiling shape," Vecchio says.