1960’s Kitchen Renovation
The Situation
The kitchen was 9×11 feet. The previous owner had put an island in it — nine inches from the counter on one side. Not a typo. Nine inches. Enough to technically walk through, not enough to actually use.
The family called it their boat kitchen. Storage was rationed. Two people couldn’t be in the room at the same time without negotiating. In the morning, when breakfast and lunch prep overlapped, it became a problem with no good solution — just people working around each other in a space that had never been designed for how they actually lived.
The 1990s renovation had made the room smaller without making it better. That was the real problem to solve.
The Build
When I told my clients I could give them three different layouts, they were surprised and incredulous. A 9×11 kitchen with decades of workarounds baked in — they couldn’t see how the room had options. It did.
The island came out. We went back and forth on replacing it: island versus peninsula. The peninsula won, and not narrowly. It gave them a run of storage that an island in a room this size simply couldn’t — no floating footprint eating floor space, no circulation gaps to manage. The peninsula anchored the room, gave it back its perimeter, and picked up bar seating on the end — a place to land that wasn’t in the middle of someone cooking.
The house is 1960s MCM and the clients’ instincts matched it, so we let the architecture lead — slab doors throughout. Walnut lowers, painted white uppers — enough warmth to keep the room from reading cold, enough contrast to give it some structure. White quartz countertop with a waterfall edge on the peninsula end. White oak flooring, lighter than the cabinets, which keeps the room open rather than grounded.
The backsplash is a grey-green tile. The appliances are all new. And then — one splurge, the right one — a 48-inch pendant over the range. In a minimalist kitchen, one focal piece does more work than a dozen small decisions.
One drawer sits at the peninsula’s edge, accessible from the hallway and living room. It’s dedicated entirely to charging. Every family has a version of this problem; many kitchens ignore it.
The Result
The boat kitchen is gone. Two people can make breakfast and pack lunches at the same time without bumping into each other, and the storage problem they’d been managing around for years is actually solved.
The house is mid-century, and the kitchen follows that now instead of fighting it — slab doors, clean lines, one pendant. A 9×11 room that finally works.
Details Scope: Kitchen design, layout reconfiguration, custom cabinetry, peninsula with bar seating, countertop, flooring, bathroom and laundry room design.
Location: Boulder, CO
Coming Soon!! – See the full build sequence — before, during, and after —
