FinishedFinished 2025

The Kitchen

A small galley that stopped fighting itself

Grey-green cabinets: #7C8B72
Honed marble: #EDEAE3
Unlacquered brass: #A9834F
Warm grout: #CFC6B8

The KitchenGalley kitchen with grey-green cabinets and a marble checkerboard floor

Ten feet by twelve, with a door on every wall. There was no version of this room that fit an island, so I stopped trying and made the perimeter work harder instead.

The cabinets are the original 1926 boxes with new doors, painted a grey-green that reads almost neutral in the morning and distinctly green at dinner. Keeping the boxes saved roughly eleven thousand dollars and all of the character.

The brass is unlacquered, which means it patinas. Three weeks in it looked like a mistake. A year in, it is the thing people touch when they walk in.

What changed

1Kept the original cabinet boxes, replaced doors and drawer fronts, painted grey-green.
2Laid honed marble checkerboard, dry-laid first so the pattern lands square in the doorway.
3Removed one upper cabinet run for two open shelves and a pair of plug-in sconces.
4Installed an unlacquered brass bridge faucet over a fireclay apron sink.

Open shelving with stacked ceramics above a fireclay sink

Brass faucet detail showing early patina

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