Simon Pearce pendants illuminate an oversized island that finds friends and family gathering for meals and fun. Photo by Paige Biviano

This article was written by Julie Craven Wagner and Rachel Ayotte

White Wood Kitchens helps a newly blended family create a kitchen that will cook-up new traditions

Ashley Briggs is an architect. Armed with that professional talent and expertise, she set out to create a new home for her new family on a very special spot overlooking Buzzards Bay. She and her husband had recently married and combined their households to become an active unit of six, and embracing this new adventure started with an almost two-year construction project culminating in a stunning home. Despite being a talented design professional, Briggs turned to White Wood Kitchens in Sandwich to design and manage the kitchen installation.

Influenced by the surrounding environment of her new home, Briggs wanted to acknowledge the natural elements that filled her view as she looked out each day. In the kitchen that meant that the tree trunks—most visible during the colder months, but their presence, behind the wind tickled leaves, still sublimely tall, strong and rooted in the warmer months—were interpreted through the custom paint finish on the cabinetry. Eight-inch-wide engineered oak flooring in the Colonna color by La Palazzina reflects the pools of sunshine that flood through the custom wood architectural windows manufactured by Dynamic Window Company in Canada.

“This is a very special family, one that is embarking on a brand new life together,” says Kathy Hurlburt, lead designer at White Wood Kitchens. “The home is very grand, and everything is within a large scale. The kitchen had to blend with all of the unique elements in the home, yet we had to manage the scale of the design so that it still maintained the comfortable, cozy atmosphere that is meant for a kitchen and entertaining.”