globe magazine: ultimate bachelor pads
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YOUR HOME
Space Uncluttered
A vintage collection takes center stage in a well-organized kitchen remake.
It wasn't that Eddie Kelly was a pack rat. He just had more Rosite glass, Jadite, Moderntone, and Platonite dinnerware and accessories from the 1940s, '50s, and '60s than he had display space. The lovely collectibles, many of which he had inherited from his grandmother, were packed into cupboards and appreciated only when he pulled them out to show friends.
That the kitchen of his 1940s Quincy bungalow was small, dark, and inefficient didn't help the disheartened Kelly's outlook. "I felt completely overwhelmed," says Kelly, a hairstylist at Avanti Salon in Boston. "Where do you begin?"
Michele Matties of No Worries Professional Organizing Services in Framingham came to the rescue. "In a case like this, the organizer's role is to optimize space, create work areas, and help the client decide what to keep and what not to keep," says Matties. She also assists her clients in accessorizing a room. "With Eddie's limited budget," she adds, "we needed to prioritize where to spend money."
The 9 1/2-by-16-foot kitchen doubled as laundry room, with a top-loading washing machine tucked into a closet space by the back door. By replacing it with a front-loader, Matties noted, they could add a counter above the machine for folding clothes and preparing food. They could also install overhead cabinets and, beside the washer, add deep storage drawers. A bulky table jammed into a corner of the kitchen could be replaced by a custom breakfast bar with cabinets and a dishwasher underneath. A narrower refrigerator would also help streamline the space.
They pictured a white ceramic sink replacing the dark-brown one by the window. They could repaint the sturdy white wood cabinets and dress them up with new hardware. Ceramic tile was an easy, inexpensive replacement for the worn laminate countertops.
Better lighting would vastly improve how the space worked and felt. "A lot of the existing lighting didn't even work," says Matties, and swapping a ceiling fan for one with a built-in light would help. To display Kelly's collections, Matties suggested glass shelving in front of the room's lone 7-foot-wide window.
Matties estimated basic labor costs at $2,000 to $3,000 ("A good carpenter-handyman will cost $35 to $45 an hour," she says). The custom cabinets and shelving would be $4,500. Kelly realized he had to scale down. He'd been living without a dishwasher since he had moved into the house nine years ago, so that item was eliminated, as was the new fridge and the ceiling fan. When his stove died and had to be replaced, he took the sink off the list as well. Instead of replacing all the cabinet hardware, he kept the hinges and just swapped the door pulls.
"We needed to even out the palette to reduce the visual confusion," says Matties, so they settled on a white and silver color scheme. Next, Matties brought in Phil Wallace of Prestige Custom Mirror & Glass in Waltham to design display shelves. "We needed an expert," she says. "It was not the kind of thing where you could go to
The transformation is stunning. "I keep looking at the space," says Matties, "and if I didn't witness it myself, I wouldn't believe the change." Kelly plans to add some of those left-out items as his budget allows, but for the time being, he says, "I use the kitchen more. People always wind up in the kitchen, but now it's really a comfortable place to be."
Organizing and Design
Michele Matties, No Worries Organizing
Framingham, 508-405-1234, noworriesorganizing.com
Carpentry and Painting
Nate Roach, E.J. Wells Property Maintenance Services
Boston, 617-922-2656, ejwpms.com
Custom Cabinetry
Allen Frechter, Great Garage & Closets
Needham, 781-444-4133, greatgarageandclosets.com
Glass Shelving
Phil Wallace, Prestige Custom Mirror & Glass
Waltham, 781-647-0878, prestigecmg.com
Gail Ravgiala is the Your Home editor for the Globe Magazine. E-mail her at ravgiala@globe.com.
© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.
