yaupon remodel

A west Austin kitchen and powder bath remodel, for a young family of three. This was a fun project for me because I did all of the interior design and material selection, as well as managing the construction. 

The kitchen is grey porcelain tile and mahogany cabinets with a custom pull design, achieved by joining a mitered piece of hardwood to the veneered doors. The cabinets are white silestone with waterfall terminations, and the appliances are all stainless steel with glass. The fixtures add a touch of farmhouse while matching the matte black deepness of the lacquered steel beam that opened the kitchen to the rest of the house. A turquoise glass tile backsplash and orange upholstered built-in dining area add a splash of color to the austerity. 

In the bathroom, an unbroken black stripe of penny tile runs down the shorter wall, across the floor, and up the opposite wall. All the rest of the surfaces are white subway tile and white gypboard. The vanity is a stainless steel and mirror vertical stripe that interrupts the black. This powder bath doubles as the cleaning station for the clients’ screen-printing studio, where she designs and prints bicycle themed apparel. The stainless steel sink was custom fabricated to fit the size of the screen, and the fixtures are bicycle-influenced. 

Personally, the most active aesthetic consideration for modern design is the small scale repetition that sets off the large swaths of machine-like smoothness. Traditional design has elements at each scale, or fractal orders of magnitude, but modern design purposefully omits skips the middle three or four. The inclusion of the tile on the thumbprint scale in both spaces generates the aesthetic strength of the austere countertop and stainless steel surfaces.