Contests
Family Friendly
Like the shingle-style architecture of the home, this award-winning kitchen is workable, beautiful and blends into its environment

Wallingford-based J.A.S. Design-Build specializes in merging the functional and the aesthetically pleasing, and it’s this specialty that the judges recognized when they chose one of the company’s designs as the winner of Seattle Homes & Lifestyles’ first annual Kitchen of the Year contest.

The talents of designers Kim Clements, her husband, Joe Schneider, and their team of craftsmen took a kitchen in a 1907 shingle-style house—last remodeled in a high-end early-1980s décor with gray walls, pink granite counter tops and highly polished finishes—and turned it into a room that seamlessly integrates traditional and modern styles as well as the personality of the family that lives in it.
  • Locally reclaimed Madrona wood from Urban Hardwoods tops the kitchen island and adds a touch of Northwest warmth and texture.
  • Instead of 3-by-6-inch white subway tiles, Clements chose hand-cut, hand-glazed, platinum-colored 4-by-6-inch tiles.
  • D-pulls, from Rejuventation, on drawer mimic the original pulls on the windows. Cupboard latches, also from Rejuvenation, on large cabinets add a subtle touch of class.
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  • Hiding a Viking microwave drawer in the island frees up counter space and gives the kids easy access for making popcorn.
  • Clements placed the custom cabinets and kitchen windows at different heights for variety.
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  • A Sub-Zero refrigerator marks the division between the kitchen and an adjacent office area.
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  • Clements chose soapstone for the counter tops because the soft material takes a lot of hits. “The more hits it takes, the better it looks,” she says. J.A.S. carved a drainboard into the stone next to the sink for easy dish drying.
  • Hand-made brackets under the cabinets echo brackets in the entertaining room in another corner of the house.