The Heart of the Home

I am so excited to be a part of the Mayhar team. I am blessed to have these two ladies as my family and I have been a fan of their work since the beginning. They are two of the smartest most creative people I know and I am thrilled to get to work with Melanie and Ashleigh and to, hopefully, inspire others to live more beautifully and creatively.

For my first blog entry, we decided to start in the heart of the home, the kitchen. My husband and I host a meal with fifteen to twenty people every week as well as family brunches and dinners. What I notice is that everyone gathers around the kitchen while the final touches of the meal are being completed. We live in a wonderful home built in 1935, but the kitchen is small and there is little room for people to comfortably congregate. I day dream often of how I can one day solve this problem. The following images are inspiration for how to open up a small kitchen to create that great room feel.

Since the wall we would be taking down is a load-bearing wall, we will either need to have a support beam put in or get creative with an attractive support pillar.

Photo Credits: Image 1, Image 2

Below, they used beautiful trim work to cover the support beam that runs across the ceiling.  This is an elegant way to add architectural detail to a space.

Photo Credit: Image 1, Image 2

This arched opening is a charming way to extend the kitchen into other areas of the home.

Photo Credit

All of these kitchens are lovely and inviting and would function well for larger groups as well as for family time while preparing and enjoying meals.  One thing to remember when taking down walls, you want the end result to look as though it had always been that way. Stay true to the design of the home and make sure traffic flows smoothly through the space.  I continue to dream up our kitchen renovation and in the mean time, I make sure and have enticing drinks and appetizers in more comfortable areas of our home so people aren’t left crowded and standing around our kitchen.