{"id":2304,"date":"2025-05-04T01:48:22","date_gmt":"2025-05-03T17:48:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/homeofmaterials.com\/2025\/05\/04\/kitchen-of-the-week-a-new-heart-of-the-home-for-a-young-family-in-columbus-ohio\/"},"modified":"2025-05-04T01:48:22","modified_gmt":"2025-05-03T17:48:22","slug":"kitchen-of-the-week-a-new-heart-of-the-home-for-a-young-family-in-columbus-ohio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/homeofmaterials.com\/de\/kitchen-of-the-week-a-new-heart-of-the-home-for-a-young-family-in-columbus-ohio\/","title":{"rendered":"K\u00fcche der Woche: Ein neues Herzst\u00fcck des Hauses f\u00fcr eine junge Familie in Columbus, Ohio"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A few years back, I wrote about the off-the-grid guesthouse that architect Greg Dutton, of Midland Architecture, built on his parents\u2019 rural property in Ohio (you can read it here.) Then, he wrote to share news of his next personal project: the renovation of the Columbus, Ohio, home he shares with his wife, Liz, and their two young children, Shep and Joan. Our favorite part? The kitchen, without a doubt, the kitchen.<\/p>\n

Their prairie-style house comes with history: It was designed by Florence Kenyon Hayden Rector, Ohio\u2019s first female architect. While the brick exterior remains largely unchanged, many of the original details in the interior were lost after years of neglect. A renovation in the \u201990s helped make it inhabitable again, but the cramped, dark kitchen didn\u2019t function, as the new parents had envisioned, like the heart of the home: \u201cAside from the aesthetics not being a great fit for us, the space was isolated from the rest of the house,\u201d says Greg. (Scroll to the end to see the before.) \u201cIt was difficult to keep an eye on the kids while making dinner [because] there was literally no room for them to be in the kitchen while we made a meal.\u201d<\/p>\n

The renovation proved to be challenging, as most projects involving historical homes are, but theirs came with an unexpected layer of nail-biting angst: \u201cWe started the project in the first week of March 2020. So by the time we gutted our entire first floor, everything had gone into lockdown. Obviously, there were more serious issues at hand at the time, but being in the middle of a construction project when things were shutting down was really difficult to navigate,\u201d recalls Greg. \u201cWe had no cabinets or walls in our house and we were like \u2018Are we going to be able to put this place back together?\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

As was the experience for so many the past year and a half, they made do and persevered. Join us for a tour of their beautiful new kitchen, now the heart of the home.<\/p>\n

Photograph by Alexandra Ribar, courtesy of Midland Architecture; interiors and interior design by Greg and Liz Dutton; staging by Studio Lithe.<\/p>\n


Above: \u201cWe placed our kitchen table in the center of the kitchen, in the spot where you would traditionally put an island. It seems like a small thing, but it creates so much more energy in the room. Now everything revolves around that table. It\u2019s where we have breakfast every morning and dinner every night.  It\u2019s where we spend time as a family,\u201d says Greg.,

Above: \u201cAll of the windows are in the original locations. The construction of the house is early 1900s brick masonry, so it would have blown the budget to alter them,\u201d shares Greg. \u201cBut in the kitchen, it became a fun challenge to make the layout work while keeping all of the window locations intact. I feel like it gives the house house an Old World feel.\u201d The pendant lights above the sink are vintage from Skinflint. \u201cThey\u2019re such a great resource because their lighting is all vintage but at really great prices.\u201d
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Above: Note the two different countertop materials, Bianco Gioia marble on one side, white oak on the other. The sconce is by Bestlite.
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Above: The cherry wood cabinets installed during the \u201990s remodel were replaced with cabinets designed by Greg himself and fabricated by Schrock\u2019s Woodworking, local Amish builders. (Their contractor was Hubbard Construction and Carpentry.) The 40\u2033 stove is from Ilve\u2019s Nostalgie line.,

Above: A hutch-like built-in lends itself to the modern old-fashioned style of the room. The cabinets were all painted Farrow & Ball \u201cHay\u201d; the walls are painted Farrow & Ball \u201cLime White.\u201d
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Above: The couple removed the wall between the kitchen and the family room. \u201cThe wall was three layers of brick and the new opening is 10 feet wide, so it required a sizable steel beam that was no small feat to install. But it was totally worth it,\u201d says Greg. Their biggest splurge, though, was the French oak flooring from Pave Tile Wood and Stone, a company located in Western Massachusetts that specialize in historic flooring.
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Above: \u201cOur vision was really just to breathe some soul back into the house,\u201d says Greg.  \u201cI love that we took a room that was dark and isolated from the rest of the house and transformed it into the heart of our home. It\u2019s now a space that\u2019s bright and open and flooded with natural light.\u201d <\/p>\n

Vor<\/h2>\n


Above: The very \u201990s kitchen featured cherry cabinets, huge appliances, and no space to congregate. \u201cTo take a room where formerly, only one person could occupy it comfortably, and turn it into a place where the whole family gathers is pretty special,\u201d says Greg. <\/p>\n

For more kitchens with dining tables in them, see:<\/p>\n