A tale of two kitchens

Peter Kirihara and Bruce Erickson, happy with their south Minneapolis Dutch colonial, weren't in the market for a new house. But one day Erickson, a Realtor, took notice of a tiny and decidedly shabby rambler near Cedar Lake in Minneapolis, set way up off the street on a sliver of a lot. Calling it a fixer-upper would have been kind.

"It looked like a really old mobile home up on a hill," said Kirihara, owner of JetSet, Bev's and Moose & Sadie's, a downtown Minneapolis bar, wine bar and coffeehouse, respectively.

"A double-wide," added Erickson.

"And inside, everything -- everything -- was gross," said Kirihara. "But it had hints of coolness, too."

Sensing those hidden possibilities, Erickson was instantly smitten, and convinced his partner to pounce. They faced an uphill battle, because what they wanted from the house sounded impossible, starting with a centrally located kitchen that could seamlessly slip from the center of attention one minute to wallflower the next.

Their solution? Simplicity, although they quickly discovered that with minimalism, less was indeed more. More work, that is.

"Getting things to look simple is actually very difficult," said Erickson. "You really have to work at it to make it right."

The result is simultaneously dazzling and subdued, particularly in the kitchen. Rather than an isolated space, the room opens directly into the rest of the house, but doesn't stick out like a sore thumb. Keeping with the house's all-white color palette helps; the kitchen's stark white walls, countertops and cabinets help the room fade into the background.

Using the same warm cherry floors throughout provides additional visual continuity. A wide sliding-glass door, anchoring a prominent wall, mirrors the giant windows ringing the adjacent living room. And flat-front appliances and cabinetry keep the room's almost two-dimensional planes at a discreet whisper.

Austerity aside, the room is tricked out with smart features. Horizontal backsplash windows provide daylight while reserving valuable wall space for cabinets. A long L-shape counter does double duty as bar and buffet. ("Everyone likes to gather in the kitchen," said Kirihara, "so why not give them a place to do it?")

A bar sink makes cocktailing easy. A new window, strategically located to the left of the stovetop, gives the cook a lake view. And a double oven was nixed in favor of a built-in espresso machine.

"It made sense for us," said Erickson. "We'll use the espresso machine every day, but we'd probably use a double oven once every 10 Thanksgivings."

The couple kept costs in line by handling some of the construction themselves. They also did most of the design work, although they turned to their fathers -- both architects -- for guidance with practical structural matters.

"My dad would look at our plans and say, 'You can't do that!' " said Kirihara. "And I'd tell him, 'That's why we need you.' "

Having renovated the kitchen in their previous home -- and borrowing on Kirihara's build-out experiences at his restaurants -- they also knew where to take a few shortcuts and still come out on top. This included asking a local restaurant-supply outfit to build the two stainless-steel sinks (a move that cost less than buying premade, top-of-the-line counterparts) and dolling up the relatively inexpensive cabinets, made to order at Bennett Lumber in Minneapolis, with distinctive hardware.

In short, they built their dream kitchen: the life of the party when the house is full of friends, and a subdued backdrop when it's just the two of them.

"My mom said that, for two people who don't cook much, it sure is a nice kitchen," said Kirihara. "But we'll cook. And this place is all about entertaining, about having people over and drinking. We're going to do a lot of that."

Everyone laughed when Beth Fisher and Caroline Glawe said they were going to completely remodel their kitchen for $10,000.

"Even the nice woman at Home Depot laughed," Glawe said.

They've owned the 95-year-old house in south Minneapolis for nearly a decade, and slowly have been renovating it, room by room. They left the worst -- the kitchen -- for last.

"It was the scariest room in the house," said Glawe. "We always kept it very clean, but I can't imagine what our friends thought. Now that we look back on it, it's hard to believe we ever lived that way."

Having already logged countless hours on the rest of the house, they took the project on themselves. Fisher, a personal chef, acted as general contractor and was aided considerably by Glawe, who manages Fisher's business and doubles as its wine expert.

On their budget, they went with the face-lift option and began peeling back decades of misguided design decisions. Removing ugly plastic pressboard revealed fine oak wainscoting. Wallpaper, glued to yet more wallpaper, finally gave way to rough plaster. Linoleum on top of linoleum eventually led to a hardwood floor. Beat-up yellow metal cabinets were yanked down and relegated to the garage.

Solutions were improvised, and a warm, inviting and ingenious kitchen took shape. ("It was fun putting our layer on it," said Glawe). Rather than smooth out the rough plaster walls, Fisher and a faux-finish painter capitalized on the texture and tinted it with coffee-based paints. The dark color is derived from instant -- Fisher can't remember if it's Sanka or Taster's Choice -- and the lighter color comes from French roast. A third coat -- no, not decaf -- acts as a protective glaze.

The wood floor, stained from years of hard use and scarred by thousands of tacks, was kept in a somewhat distressed condition.

"It gives the room character," said Glawe. "It shows that there's a history here in this old house."

Friends pitched in to help, but the couple did a lot of the work themselves.

Their finely honed scavenger skills were a distinct asset. A whimsical shelf unit -- refinished and flipped upside down -- became a scene-setting storage solution, and a funky cabinet became an ideal base for the roomy center island. Both were retrieved from City Salvage in Minneapolis.

For projects outside their expertise, Fisher and Glawe hired a skilled carpenter, who designed and built the handsome sink cabinetry and the center island's durable countertop.

Sometimes their good fortune was dumb luck. The sink was a half-price find at a going-out-of-business sale. Their new hutch, a cool 1940s metal medical cabinet, was sitting unused in a friend's basement; he traded it for the small boat collecting dust in their garage. A built-in buffet, the only remnant of the former kitchen, had miraculously survived years of abuse and required little attention.

And uninterested in a standard-issue stove, and unable to afford a restaurant-quality one, Fisher and Grawe decided to go the vintage route. They mentioned the idea to a friend, who -- of course -- knew someone looking to unload a working double-oven Wedgwood stove. They snapped it up, sight unseen.

The tight budget demanded cutting a few corners, but nothing drastic.

There was just a single major design gaffe. At the project's completion, Fisher and Glawe realized they didn't leave any room for food storage ("That was a big 'duh,' " Glawe said with a laugh); they quickly built a pantry on a landing on the basement stairs, a half-flight down from the kitchen.

The rejuvenated room quickly became the couple's favorite place in the house as well as an efficient test laboratory for Fisher's burgeoning cooking business. They knew they were proud of the end result when they permanently removed the swinging door separating the kitchen and dining room.

"We used to keep it closed because we were embarrassed by the old kitchen, and we wanted to hide it," said Fisher. "Now we want to show it off."

In the end, Fisher and Glawe not only got a great kitchen, but also the last laugh; their pride and joy came in a remarkable $2,500 under budget. After enduring three months of disruptive construction, they used the surplus the way any smart self-employed general contractor would.

"We spent it," said Fisher, "on a trip to France."