Sage Island Kitchen

Two-tone kitchens go wrong when the second colour is picked to be interesting rather than to do a job. Here the sage island is the anchor — it sits under the pendants, it is what you see from the dining room, and everything else steps back so it can.

The green veining in the backsplash stone is what ties the two halves together. Slabs like that get laid out and cut to the room rather than run off a stack, so the movement lands where you actually look — behind the range, above the sink — instead of dying behind a wall cabinet.

The island is long enough to need thinking about. Seating on one side, a beverage fridge and open shelving worked into the other, and the panelled ends detailed like furniture so the back of it holds up from the living room, which is the side most people see.

Framed cabinetry into an existing house means dealing with what is there. Walls out of plumb get shimmed and scribed, filler strips get cut to the wall rather than left as a gap, and the crown gets run last so it can absorb the ceiling’s own variation. None of that shows in a photograph, which is rather the point.

Cabinetry designed and supplied by Carolina Cabinet Specialist.