Timeless & Multipurpose

A constrictive layout becomes a clean, classic kitchen you could stay in all day.

- Jolene Nolte

Historic homes are charming, but when it comes to the kitchen in this Montgomery home, built in the early 1900s, the original layout did not suit the homeowners’ needs. Alabama-based interior designer Ashley Gilbreath, however, worked with her team to transform the space, while still incorporating many elements original to the home.

ORIGINALITY

The present kitchen was actually two rooms before—a breakfast room and a kitchen—which made the layout constricting. Broadly speaking, kitchens in the past were viewed as utilitarian space rather than as a multipurpose hub for cooking, eating, working and hanging out. It shows in their layouts too, with small kitchens walled off from other rooms, in this case the breakfast room.

Ashley explains that the homeowners, a young professional couple, wanted to expand their kitchen’s uses: “The goal of it was to give this couple a kitchen that could be lived in—a place they could have friends over and gather in. It was a very tight space before, so we had a lot of space constrictions. They wanted space to sit down and eat, but also a space to hang out. [Now] one can cook and sit and talk at the same time,” Ashley says.