Kitchen of the Week: A Before/After Remodel in Sydney, Australia

Sydney interior designers Juliette Arent and Sarah-Jane Pyke have been lauded by the Australian design press for “tearing down the walls of conservative design and replacing them with color and layers of sophisticated style.” A good example is their remodel of an early-20th-century house in the Sydney suburb of Woollahra. We particularly like the kitchen with its accents of sage and oak and subtle curves. The design preserved the existing horseshoe layout (see Before shot at bottom) but turned the uninspired into something glamorous and fresh-looking.

Photography by Felix Forest, courtesy of Arent & Pyke.

Above: The kitchen is set in the back of the house overlooking the garden, which provided inspiration for the color and materials choices. “The palette,” the designers say, “is layered from the earth upwards, growing from silver travertine flooring to mossy green cabinetry and natural solid oak with a fade to pure white.” Black accents also punctuate the space, including a classic Thonet bentwood barstool.

Above: Meet the curvaceous kitchen: The Calacatta marble counters are detailed with rounded edges that are echoed by the oak finger grooves on the cabinets, the Astral Walker spout faucet, and the contours of the Belfast butler’s sink.

The open shelves have arched brackets made of MDF: “We couldn’t find the right little black brackets,” explained Arent & Pyke associate Dominique Brammah. “so we designed our own and our crew made them.”

Above: The cabinets are in Moorland from Dulux paints, “a semigloss enamel that we rolled on and then finished with a brush,” says Brammah. “It’s very hard-wearing and unlike two-pack polyurethane paints, you can touch it up if it gets scratched or chipped.”

Above: The glossy, outsize subway tiles are handmade (sourced from The Art of Tiles) and the Miller sconces are by Rubn: See New Classics from Sweden. Tall cabinets next to the counter serve as the pantry. A stainless steel fridge and freezer stand on a side wall.

Above: The travertine floor travels from the kitchen to the adjacent dining room. The table is the Atticus by Lowe, surrounded by Bedont’s Drive Chairs. The owl is by Sydney photographer Leila Jeffreys.