“I never ever thought I would move,” Barbara Sallick explains, but within 30 seconds of walking in the front door of her new home in Southport, Connecticut, she fell in love.
Soon, Sallick and her husband, who co-founded the luxury kitchen and bath company Waterworks 40 years ago, were bidding adieu to the address they had lived at for half a century and contemplating a kitchen remodel opportunity that looked much different from the one they had undertaken as a young family.
“When it came down to it, it just seemed like the right thing to do,” Barbara notes of her new kitchen, “and what’s more, over time, I’ve learned a thing or two.”
What was important to you when designing this kitchen? The overriding conversation I had with myself was about how I would feel in the space and how I would create a kitchen I loved. To achieve this, I knew it had to be warm, friendly, easy and accessible. I feel privileged to live this more casual lifestyle, which is really the way many of us operate in the kitchen today.
Your treatment of the wall tile is so striking. I love tile and it’s my thing, so I wasn’t going to just put up a backsplash! I tiled the entire kitchen because I like the idea of grids and how they add a textural component but can also make a room feel larger when a wider format style is used. Because this entire area isn’t too big, I wanted to make sure the dining and operational spaces were tied together in some way and the tile achieved this.
How did you choose the hardware? This was a very difficult, deliberate decision and you can see that all of the pulls and lights are unlacquered brass. Yet, I chose matte nickel for the faucet because it aligns visually with the stainless steel sink and stove. This gave me a chance to mix metals in places that felt logical.