Kitchens We Love: Turn of the Century Charmer
Meredith Bishop a micro flower farmer, and husband Darren, a landscape designer, and their children enjoy living off their small plot of urban land in Green Hills.
We bought the first house built on Woodmont Blvd two and a half years ago and poured love into restoring the kitchen. It had been remodeled in the 70’s and didn’t fit with the character of the rest of the 1917 home. It was very important to us to take it back as close to its original function and aesthetic as possible. An English/Downton Abbey “scullery” kitchen was our inspiration. We took down a wall and gutted everything except for the original, glass-front, built-in cabinets. We really appreciate that our kitchen is its own distinct room and lends itself to our family priorities- one of which is to be away from the influence of media and the TV.
Our farm table is the heart of the kitchen versus a large island- sensing neither the scale nor use of these type islands were true to turn-of-the-century kitchens. Instead we asked Darren’s father, a woodworker, to make a custom pine island for food prep.
Our kitchen is our family room in the truest sense of the word. While it seems that today most kitchens bleed into the “family room” (which primarily means the TV space), we love that you can neither see nor hear a TV from our kitchen, yet it offers plenty of room to gather together for daily living...room for our three children to pull up a barstool & help prepare dinner, or gather around the kitchen table for homework or a game of dominoes while we complete the work of the day.
