Award-winning Craftsman Winnetka – Kitchen
A pre move-in tour with Architects Beth DeBaker and Jeff Eichhorn of a craftsman style design and build project in Winnetka, IL – including the kitchen, with a modern oven with side-swing doors allows safer access to hot food and a coffee bar larder that keeps the coffee maker, microwave and toaster neatly tucked away. Electric appliances include an induction cooktop that is safely cool to the touch right after use.
Video Transcript
We started the design process with Betsy and Barry actually visiting their existing house, which was on this property. They had some unique features in their kitchen that they wanted to incorporate into the new house. She’s quite tall, and the countertops in this kitchen are almost three inches taller than an average kitchen counter. So that presented some unique design challenges.
Originally, we were looking to do soaked stone counters, which are very traditional for an Arts & Crafts house. We found these, which is a quartzite, but it’s called Ocean, and it had a lot of interesting depth and movement to it that the client loved. We were able to take the countertop, and bend it up the wall as the backsplash. This is a carbon-free house so there is no gas. Some of the features that we included were electric appliances throughout. So we have an induction cooktop here. This is cool to the touch right after you use it so you don’t burn yourself. Obviously, it’s got a glass surface so it’s easy to clean.
One of the unique features of this kitchen is the side opening oven. Rather than a traditional fold down oven where you have to reach across a hot door and get out a hot tray. This opens on the side so you can easily walk up to your hot food and take it out.
We incorporated this coffee bar larder, which is a traditional cabinet storage unit behind closed doors so we can fit the coffee maker, the toaster. There’s a special plug up here for the microwave because microwaves are ugly, with a sink and lots of drawers to store coffee and breads and all these things you need for breakfast.