Project by project, a two-bedroom, circa-1927 house across from Davenport’s Garfield School is getting a fresh look.
While retaining the charm and character of an older house — arched entryways, hardwood floors and an open front porch with Craftsman-style pillars — Ryan and Amy Orr are giving their home a fresh look, with new colors, landscaping and a total re-do of their galley kitchen.
Anyone who’s ever lived with a galley kitchen — a relatively small rectangle — knows that space is limited. But working with Dan Marine of Oak Tree Homes in Wilton, Iowa, the Orrs made the absolute most of what they had, gaining about six square feet of counter space and additional cabinet space compared with what they had, which was a remodeled space from the 1990s.
In addition, they now have all-new everything: stainless-steel appliances, custom Mission/Craftsman quarter-sawn oak cabinets and black granite countertops. The only original feature is the oak floor that Ryan “revealed” one weekend when Amy was at a conference, pulling up the carpet that had been glued to a type of subfloor that had to be removed with a plane.
The capstone, though, is how the space was reconfigured. “There was no option of adding on (or tearing down walls), so we wanted to get as much function into (it) as we could, with a new look,” Ryan said.
On the south wall, they put back a window over the sink that had been covered up in the previous remodel. And in a corner where there were two windows, they moved one window to center it in the wall, and they covered the other with a floor-to-ceiling, multipurpose, built-in cabinet.
They like to call this built-in a “mini mud room.” It has a bench that gives them a place to sit down and take off their shoes. The space below stores shoes and dog food. Hooks hold sweaters, and the shelves above display Amy’s cookbooks and decorative glassware.
The built-in is highly usable, but they debated considerably before going ahead with it. Amy didn’t like losing a window and the light it provided, but the promise of a place for her cookbooks eventually won out.
The north side of the kitchen was another challenge. Because the home had a wall-mounted heat register, previous owners kept the space between the floor and the countertop open — “wasted space” for the sake of air circulation.
Marine moved the register to the floor, with circulation through the kick plate area, and filled in the “wasted space” with cabinetry topped by several more feet of countertop. All cabinets were custom-made by Pearl City Wood Products of Muscatine.
At the other end of the north wall was a pantry closet that was so high it was difficult for even Ryan to reach. The Orrs removed that, replacing it with a half-wall below and a pot rack (think more storage) above.
The focal point of the kitchen is the five-burner gas stove, topped with a stainless-steel range hood from Ikea and a backsplash made of 30 brown/gray/rust slate tiles.
“We sat in the aisle at Lowe’s and went through four boxes (of tiles) to get just the colors we wanted,” Ryan said.
The Orrs recommend talking with professionals before embarking on a remodel. They had about 95 percent of their ideas before they met Marine at a home show, but he helped them in ways they didn’t anticipate because he knows what’s available in the trade and has experience with what works and what doesn’t, they said.
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