Sunday family dinners are obviously about spending time with one another, but if you’ve got nine children and a small kitchen, it’s virtually impossible.

Kim and John Pawelski have lived in their Waynesville house—formerly a two-family—for more than six years. Kim says the previous owners left little major overhauling for them to do. They loved the old farmhouse feel of the home, and it matched Kim’s love of primitive décor.

“Kim set her house up sympathetically to its original design,” says Clive Morgan, of Knapke Cabinets. Head designer of the company’s Centerville showroom, Morgan was hired to help with the renovation. But he agreed the kitchen had to go.

“They needed a live-in kitchen popular with today’s Midwest living style,” explains Morgan, who describes the former kitchen as essentially U-shaped. A dining room was situated adjacent to the kitchen but, with just a framed opening, the two rooms lacked flow.

“Everyone wanted to congregate with mom in the kitchen and when it was time to eat, we’d be stuffed into the dining room,” says Kim.

Keeping integrity intact

So after an initial meeting, Morgan felt sure about one thing: “We had to open it up.”

First, the wall separating the formal dining room and kitchen was knocked down to create one large, open space. The couple’s old formal living room was turned into the new formal dining space, an idea Kim loved because that room features a fireplace.

Morgan loves any design job he gets, but this one was especially exciting for him for two reasons: first, his European background gave him an affinity for older homes; and secondly, while the space required major work, it possessed inherent features that gave him certain design advantages.

“I had a strong desire to keep the integrity of a family farmhouse kitchen. I was a bit anal about that,” he laughs.

The former kitchen’s high ceilings allowed Morgan to retain height typical of the time period, and he says the proportions and thicknesses of the walls made his job easier.

One of the first orders of business was the foundational cabinetry. Morgan suggested Wellborn Forest’s distressed Mediterranean collection—Venetian Blonde for the room’s main color and Black Oak for both islands. Knapke tends to stick to the same vendor lines unless a kitchen requires a butcher block that they design and build in-house, said Morgan.

Morgan especially likes this line’s distressed glaze finishes for their rubbed-through look, which offered “aged integrity.”

Kim knew she didn’t want a traditional cream pigment, and she wasn’t afraid to mix two colors since she trusted Morgan’s ability to understand and “sense” what she desired. However, she admits she wondered a bit after the cabinets were ordered, but the second they were delivered, “I knew right away they were perfect.”

But prior to the cabinet installation, walls were eliminated, and both soffits and ceiling crown molding were created. Morgan says the flooring in the original dining room offered a great pre-determined palette for the renovation. Since the house was built as a duplex and a kitchen expansion was completed later, Morgan knew a support beam would solve any structural dilemmas.

A commanding presence

One of the reasons Kim chose Knapke was the islands she saw in the company’s showroom. She wanted the island to be her new kitchen’s main feature—and she wanted it to be big.

Knapke gave Kim what she asked for. “I wanted that to be the gathering place. I have another island that serves as a workspace.”

“It’s essentially a farmhouse table,” says Morgan, “but has functionality a table can’t give you.”

The island not only serves as a central component for entertaining, it offers a way to manage day-to-day tasks. Kim says she often supervises homework time while she cooks weekday dinners.

While the outside looks like an island/table combination, Morgan found a way to offer modern amenities without detracting from the farmhouse appearance by hiding laptop cables underneath and out of sight.

Kim is especially pleased by the extra touches she initially didn’t expect such as how Morgan extended the crown molding down to the counter, and on the floor around the cabinets. “And before it appeared like the cabinets just sat on the floor. Now they look like pieces of furniture.”

Some visual tricks Morgan and the Knapke crew utilized included the creation of soffits and crown molding, as well as notched cabinets, to solve the problem that the ceilings in the original two rooms differed in height, and the fact that the sidewalls didn’t butt up.

The Pawelskis have tested the kitchen and it has held up to their expectations. Kim can now cook while she visits with her husband and nine kids, and portions of the family don’t have to retreat to another room. Morgan attributes design success at the Pawelskis to creating an environment where a fusion of minds can take place. “I don’t go in to measure but to learn how people live their lives. It’s knowing the right questions to ask.”