Home & Design

Western Window Systems sliders and Windsor windows from The Sanders Company offer expansive garden views.

Walkers Creek Cabinets applied off-the-shelf moldings to flat-fronted cabinetry to create a custom look; a large quartzite slab covers the island.

Garden Spot

Colleen Healey Architecture brings the outdoors in while remodeling a dated kitchen
Merit Award Kitchen Design
Colleen Healey Architecture

Working on a tight, urban lot in DC, Colleen Healey masterminded a kitchen addition centered in the rear yard—thereby uniting the husband’s penchant for his vegetable garden with the wife’s love of cooking. “This project connects their two passions visually and practically,” notes the architect.

The new plan incorporates full-height windows, sliders and skylights. “We avoided cabinetry on the east elevation so as to draw the garden’s foliage and texture into the experience of the kitchen,” Healey says. The original kitchen became a butler’s pantry that facilitates entertaining. A spacious center island anchors the glassy new kitchen, which features white cabinetry topped by quartzite counters. An adjacent space can be used as a breakfast nook or sitting area; it opens onto the garden.

"Great circulation and a beautiful connection between indoors and outdoors.”
— Mona Hajj, jurist

Renovation Architecture & Kitchen Design: Colleen Healey, AIA; Sydney Harmon, Colleen Healey Architecture. Renovation Contractor: Freeman Builders.

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