Kitchen of the Week: Coastal Style and a New Layout

After admiring a designer’s home on Houzz, a contractor and his wife hire her to bring that magic to their new house

Becky Harris December 16, 2021

Houzz Contributor. Hi there! I live in a 1940s cottage in Atlanta that I'll describe as "collected." I got into design via Landscape Architecture, which I studied at the University of Virginia.

Houzz Contributor. Hi there! I live in a 1940s cottage in Atlanta that I'll describe... More

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These Williamsburg, Virginia, homeowners bought a house and planned to fully renovate the first floor. Because the husband was a contractor, they knew what they were getting into, but they needed help with the interior design and layout. They searched Houzz and were drawn to interior designer Joni Spear’s work, right down to the pendant lights she had installed in her own kitchen. They contacted her and hired her to help with their own remodel. Here’s a look at how she tailored their kitchen to the way they work and live while giving them the coastal style they craved.

Before Photo

“After” photos by Jenna Miller

Kitchen at a Glance
Who lives here: A couple with three teenage daughters
Location: Williamsburg, Virginia
Size: 280 square feet (26 square meters)
Designer: Joni Spear of Joni Spear Interior Design

Before: The kitchen was part of a first-floor full remodel. “The previous homeowners were still living in the house and gave their permission for me to come over and measure for one hour,” Spear says.

She went back to her studio and worked on her drawings, and the next time she visited the house her clients had gutted the first floor. The kitchen footprint remained about the same, but her clients wanted to replace the adjacent formal dining room with a walk-in pantry and a home office. “A walk-in pantry was on their absolute must-have list,” Spear says.

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Joni Spear Interior Design

After: This photo doesn’t quite line up with the previous photo — the range seen here is located where the fridge is in the previous photo. The frosted glass door on the barn door track on the right leads to the new walk-in pantry, and the space beyond it is the new home office. These spaces replaced the formal dining room.

The home is located along the James River, so style-wise the homeowners knew they wanted to pay homage to that with coastal style. They also knew they wanted a white kitchen. Spear used Sherwin-Williams’ Naval paint on the island to evoke the coastal feel and to provide contrast to the cabinets and walls.

Besides a walk-in pantry, other client must-haves included an extra wall oven, incorporating their existing formal dining table within the kitchen’s eat-in area and these specific pendant lights. “My clients saw these pendant lights in photos of my own home and had to have them,” Spear says. “In fact, I think I’ve had three clients now who saw those photos and wanted the same pendants. They are fabulous and wind up being the star of any space.” The dimmable oval lanterns are large-scale yet promote an open feel. The finish is aged iron.

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Joni Spear Interior Design

The designer reworked the wall on the right to incorporate a panel-front fridge, the microwave and the extra wall oven her clients requested. Placing them close to the island and range created an easy cooking and prep zone. The homeowners opted to keep all the small appliances on a counter in the walk-in pantry.

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Just past the wall ovens, Spear placed cabinets to house her clients’ formal china. Glass doors add a lighter feel to this area and allow the couple to enjoy the pretty plates and glassware even when they aren’t using them.

Before Photo

Before: The existing kitchen extended further into the eat-in area, which is located in the bay on the right side of this photo.

After: Because the homeowners were replacing the formal dining room with spaces that would get more use, they wanted to turn the eat-in area into a larger dining space. They tasked Spear with incorporating their 108-inch-long dining table into the kitchen space. Spear pushed the working area of the kitchen back a few feet to create a more generous dining area.

“Accommodating their table limited the size of the island,” she says. The island measures 3½ feet by 6 feet and has room for three comfortable counter stools. The three drawers seen on this side contain pots and pans, conveniently located near the range.

“I didn’t take more photographs of the dining area because the chairs we selected had not arrived yet,” Spear says. The finish on the long linear light fixture over the table matches that of the island pendant lights.

Joni Spear Interior Design

The renovation included adding new trim and other molding throughout the house. “The chunkier size of this molding modernized the house,” Spear says.

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Joni Spear Interior Design

Within the layout, Spear was thoughtful about where she placed every element. “Function is so important,” she says. “I always ask my clients for an inventory of everything they want to store so that we can plan the storage accordingly. I factor everything in, right down to how many Saran Wraps and aluminum foils they like to store.”

One of the first things she thinks of in a kitchen is incorporating the trash bin into the cabinetry. “It’s such a pet peeve of mine when I see a beautifully finished kitchen with an ugly trash can in the middle of it,” she says. The pullout to the right of the sink contains the trash and recycling bins. This also makes the countertop on that side convenient for prepping — trimmings can be swept straight down into the trash. Because her client is left-handed, Spear placed the panel-front dishwasher to the left of the sink.

Joni Spear Interior Design

“I also want my clients to be able to take the dishes out of the dishwasher and place them right into the cabinet,” Spear says. They can stand in front of this china cabinet, grab the everyday glasses and china from the dishwasher and place them directly inside. The everyday silverware drawer is right beneath the china cabinet. The clear glass on the doors keeps the area around the window feeling light and airy. Mixing up the cabinet doors also made the kitchen more alluring.

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Joni Spear Interior Design

Spear selected a quartz with delicate white marble-like veining for the countertops and glacier white marble subway tile for the backsplash. The subtle variation in color from the veining adds some depth and pattern to the almost all-white space.

Underneath the range hood, she composed the tiles in a herringbone pattern. “The herringbone breaks up the backsplash,” Spear says. “When everything is so ‘white white white,’ you have to mix it up.” She also added warmth through the finishes, because an all-white kitchen can lean cold. The cabinet hardware is brass, the faucet is matte black with a brass accent and the Roman shade is a natural jute textile.

Soon after completing this project, Spear relocated to St. Louis and is currently working on remodeling her own fixer-upper there. As much as she adores the pendant lights her clients were so inspired by, she’s ready to experiment with something new. Perhaps she’ll start another trend in her new home city.

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