Sometimes you just have to show off your colorful side — with your kitchen range. Adding a pop of color can bring out the wow factor in a kitchen remodel.
“When you do something that is wild, but really, really, rooted in good design, it might stamp when you did the project, but if the work is well done, it will not date the project,” says Michael Sauri, owner and president of TriVistaUSA Design + Build in Arlington.
Two projects completed by his firm — one in Arlington and the other in Alexandria — show how a hue can work in either a kitchen with colorful cabinets or one with a neutral backdrop.
Wild Choices
The Arlington homeowners traveled around the world, getting inspiration from hotels, hikes, and museums. Sauri says in their kitchen, they wanted to highlight the “zest for life that they have.”
The transformation from a dated 1990s clay-pink kitchen with black appliances started not with selecting appliances, as many renovations do, but with the owners selecting Wynnbrooke cabinetry, with a Drexel door style, in an inky blue finish.
The owner then told Sauri: “‘I want a wild stove. I don’t want just like a normal stove. I want something wild.’ So, we started looking at colors and we found that canary yellow, [and] we all just sort of fell in love,” Sauri says. “That yellow just happened to knock it out of the park.”
The 48-inch-wide KitchenAid range in Yellow Pepper complemented the cabinetry. With 3-by-6-inch Maiolica white ice glossy ceramic subway tile behind it, the range stands out from the other stainless steel appliances, becoming the focal point of the space.
The color scheme continues in the adjacent turquoise dining room with yellow pillows on the banquette seating, next to a retro diner table and chairs.
Tangerine Touches
In Alexandria, the kitchen renovation for a couple whom Sauri described as having very intense jobs features a 36-inch ILVE USA Majestic II induction range in Salmon Orange.
“They wanted to come home to something that’s a hell of a lot more fun. And that’s what we’re able to deliver on with that beautiful range,” he says.
The wife, whose career puts her in constant surveillance mode, wanted “something really wild,” Sauri says. The orange picks up on the existing floral wallpaper in the adjoining dining room.
“What was interesting about her sense of style, unlike the other kitchen [in Arlington], she wanted a neutral background against which this appliance could really just like, jump out and scream at you, but not from a forest of screaming, just one screaming thing, from a more polished [approach]. Her whole project had this sense of reserve,” he says.
Above the range, one of Sauri’s carpenters custom-built a wooden band around the hood that matches the kitchen’s walnut island that’s topped with Calacatta Lavasa Q quartz, which has short brown veining.
“Then, of course, we did this beautiful, very clean, simple white cabinetry with that slight extra detail” and added “some brass hardware with the pulls,” Sauri says.
The Staunton-style cabinet doors by Wynnbrooke are featured in the panelized 42-inch Sub Zero side-by-side refrigerator/freezer. The custom color, Snowbound, was factory-applied and not standard to the cabinetry line.
Both color and texture play a role in a kitchen’s composition, he says, with the neutral tones giving the range center stage.
Considering Color?
Adding a brightly colored range to your kitchen isn’t for everyone and requires some thought. The ranges may cost a couple hundred dollars more than typical stainless steel ones.
“The threat is always, ‘I’m going to like it this year and hate it next year.’ Right? That’s always the threat,” Sauri says.
He says homeowners need to consider their personalities and how they will use the kitchen. For some, he says, appliances are like a good pair of sensible shoes. “Some people just want appliances to do what appliances do, and they don’t want to make them part of the statement.”
Others opt for the safer choice of a neutral kitchen and then add color through backsplashes or kitchen towels out of fear that they will hate the colors a decade later.
“If you’re going to make a wild choice … if you really design it carefully, you can make it last, if that’s who you are,” Sauri says.
Bottom line: “If it doesn’t match who’s going to be in [the kitchen], color doesn’t work.”
Feature image courtesy Nova Soul Imagery
This story originally ran in our April issue. For more stories like this, subscribe to Northern Virginia Magazine.
