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Claire Duquette
Gather Around the Table
A remodeling project knocked out a wall separating the kitchen and dining room, opening up previously cramped areas. Knocking down that wall brought new life to the entire home. The remodel enhanced the Lake Superior views, too, at Chris Lindsey’s home north of Washburn, Wisconsin.
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Claire Duquette
Gather Around the Table
Chris Lindsey was all smiles after the remodeling project.
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Claire Duquette
Gather Around the Table
The bright, cozy sitting space features a fireplace for wintery days or even those occasional chilly summer nights you get living right beside Lake Superior.
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Claire Duquette
Gather Around the Table
When Chris needed drawer and door pulls to match ones she already had, she turned to artist Joyce Halvorson, of rural Barron, Wisconsin, to cast a set of bronze elm leaf pulls.
Chris Lindsey says the best part of living in her Lake Superior shoreline home is her connection to the Big Lake.
“I feel I am part of the Lake. It’s the first thing I see in the morning. I see it when I walk through the house, from every window. I check the Lake throughout the day to see what’s happening.”
Built in 1947 as a second home for a Chicago-area politician, the ranch-style yellow brick house was one of the first built on the lakeshore north of Washburn, Wisconsin. The bricks were brought in by rail on tracks that once ran between Washburn and Bayfield. The original landscaping features native brownstone quarried at the nearby Houghton quarry.
Claire Duquette
Gather Around the Table
The centerpiece of the kitchen is a central island with seating for four at the counter, allowing conversation with the chef. The kitchen has become the gathering place Chris had hoped for.
Chris and her husband, the late Bayfield County Judge Tom Lindsey, bought the house in 1987, moving in with their two preschool-age children – a third was born soon after – and raising them in a home where swimming and kayaking were available from the dock just outside their door. They were only the third family to own the house, the second being horticulturalist John Brubacker and his wife, Dee. The Brubackers created “beautiful gardens everywhere on the property,” Chris says.
While there was much to love about the home, there were some things that always bothered her.
“It was a 1940s house, and the style at that time was to have lots of small rooms. The house was broken up into many tiny rooms, and I didn’t like that.”
Claire Duquette
Gather Around the Table
The remodel created a sitting and study space, just off the kitchen, on the home’s north end.
A cramped kitchen that separated her from guests in the dining room was also a frustration. Another sore spot was that one of the main entries led visitors directly into her laundry room.
“I knew at some point I wanted to change the layout,” she says. When her mother passed away last year, Chris, a library media specialist at Lake Superior Elementary School in Ashland, used part of her inheritance to remodel her kitchen and entry – a move she feels her mother would appreciate.
“She was a such a gracious hostess, she would have loved this,” Chris says, gesturing toward her new, open kitchen and dining area.
Chris worked with Washburn architect Jill Lorenz of Su Casa Design to find the best way to transform her problem spaces.
Tile Mosaic
Chris brings echoes of outside wildlife inside with elegant touches like a wren tile mosaic by Rebecca A. Campbell of Ashland.
“It was lovely to work with Jill,” Chris says. “She gave me a lot of ideas, and I picked the ones I liked.”
Knocking down a wall between the kitchen and dining area opened up the entire home from the living room on the south end to a sitting and study space on the north end. Putting in a wall next to the entryway created a hallway with a door closing off the mud room and laundry area – still handily nearby for storing muddy winter boots and hanging jackets, but closed off from view.
Construction was undertaken by Granger Builders of Marengo, Wisconsin, who spent the summer of 2013 on the project.
The centerpiece of Chris’ new kitchen is a central island and stove that seats four at the counter, allowing conversation with the chef. The island features a wine rack, bookshelf for cookbooks and a light granite countertop that brings in the colors of brownstone and the yellow brick exterior.
Tonya Hexsom, owner of Creative Floor Decor in Iron River, Wisconsin, installed 24-inch tiles, using a diagonal pattern that subtly breaks up the large granite expanse and solves a problem of having the tiles end up with an odd measure.
Appliances came from Ferguson in Duluth, another regional business that Chris says was helpful and with whom it was easy to work.
Chris relied on Dick Olson of Olson Building in Washburn for advice on her natural cherry cabinets. Olson took the space available and created options for cabinets that fit and created useful storage space. “I’m very happy with them all,” says Chris of the bright kitchen space.
As president of the Chequamegon Bay Arts Council and a pastel hobbyist, it was important to Chris to incorporate artwork into the designs and to create space for displaying the works of art she already owned.
Chris had a set of bronze maple leaf drawer pulls she wanted to use, but discovered she didn’t have enough for all her cabinets and drawers. She turned to metal artist Joyce Halvorson of rural Barron to cast a set of bronze elm leaves and matching bronze coat hooks for the entryway to complement the existing pulls.
A ceramic tableau with a pear by Washburn artist Pat Juett is presented above the sink and completes the kitchen.
The traffic flow of the new kitchen got one of its first workouts when Chris hosted a Chequamegon Bay Arts Council gourmet fundraising dinner for six at her home in the fall of 2013.
The new space gets thumbs up reviews.
“It worked beautifully,” Chris says. “We had board members here cooking and serving, and the guests had a wonderful time.”
The kitchen has become the gathering place Chris wanted.
“I love the Lake and being outside, but this remodel makes being inside a lot more pleasurable.”
Claire Duquette is a freelance writer based in Washburn, Wisconsin.