Family Style
In the spirit of compromise, designer Darryl Carter's renovation of his parents' Potomac, Maryland, kitchen is a study in black and white.
Designed by Darryl Carter
Written by Jorge S. Arango
Photographed by Erik Johnson
Produced by Tyree Victoria & Barbara Bohl
Published by Metropolitan Home
Family Style
In the spirit of compromise, designer Darryl Carter's renovation of his parents' Potomac, Maryland, kitchen is a study in black and white.
Designed by Darryl Carter
Written by Jorge S. Arango
Photographed by Erik Johnson
Produced by Tyree Victoria & Barbara Bohl
Published by Metropolitan Home
Embarking on a renovation project with your parents could be as comical as Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House -- or you might discover that your clients bear an occasional unsettling resemblance to the Macbeths. So when designer Darryl Carter's parents, Richard and Jo, asked him to revamp the kitchen of their Georgian-style home in Potomac, Maryland, he recalls, "we had our discussion about how we were going to work together."
Darryl, a former attorney, had been in business with his dad before. "We have similar personalities, which can be a struggle," the designer admits. "The good news is he's very decisive." As for his mother, "she's a therapist," Darryl reports, "so I was cultivated to verbalize things. The pleasure of it is that we can be absolutely candid and openly critical."
Still, parents and son began with distinctly divergent desires for the 515-square-foot space. "The one thing my father said was, 'I don't want a white kitchen,' " remembers Darryl, who has a predilection for, well, white kitchens. "I'm also a fan of mixing old and new," Darryl observes. His parents' tastes, on the other hand, skew more contemporary. (When Darryl suggested vintage glass-domed pendants for the kitchen island, Jo put her foot down. "There's a certain tone in my mother's voice when I know the matter is non-negotiable," says the designer.)
So he approached things from the opposite end of the spectrum. "If they didn't want a white kitchen," he reasoned, "I'd give them a black one." Translation: white-oak custom cabinetry with an ebony finish. He specified ceiling-to-counter upper cabinets intentionally, Darryl says, because "my mother is a self-proclaimed pack rat." Appliances now hide behind cabinet doors; a row of small drawers for plugs and miscellany replaces the normally vacant space underneath the overhead cabinetry. Carter fils also built plenty of storage into the prep island and located a small office behind double pocket doors next to the refrigerator. "It's an unclutterable kitchen," he says.
Darryl Carter also converted the kitchen from electric to gas and gained a foot of height by eliminating a dropped ceiling with translucent panels that had diffused overhead light. His "big inspiration," he feels, was to bisect the kitchen with a wall of French doors. "I don't really like cavernous spaces, and I like a separate eating area, which feels much more intimate, not as casual as stools at an island."
To bring texture and warmth to the potentially severe assortment of dark planes and blocky shapes, Darryl used tiny white subway-like tiles on backsplashes. Here, too, filial diplomacy was in order when father Richard decided he wanted gray grout instead of white. "It was such a simple decision, but would have changed everything," says Darryl, whose choice of white prevailed.
The tiles -- along with the apron-front sink and crown molding -- add a sense of history, subtly referencing a turn-of-the-century restaurant or the grand kitchens of Victorian estates. Counters and island were surfaced with Carrara marble, which "is not for the faint-of-heart. This stone is not the most forgiving," the designer notes. "It's porous and it stains. But over time it gets this wonderful uniformity," a patina that also enhances the old-world feel.
"It's not always easy with my son, who tends to be very visionary," says mother Jo, "so the challenge was for him to translate what was in his head for my less visionary comfort. I had an occasional apprehension, but this is what he does for a living. Darryl managed to incorporate our functional needs into a beautiful environment."
What the Pros Know
"I wanted the walls to have a presence but not be overwhelming," says Darryl Carter, who chose 1-by-4-inch Fiddle Stick "subway" tiles in Bright White. "I happened upon them when I was at Architectural Ceramics," recalls the designer, who had already specified the standard 3-by-6-inch variety for the kitchen. "I think the appeal is that the smaller tiles feel very artisanal," he says, "so they lend an authenticity and a sense of age." The effect, he notes, is "like true porcelain." The texture of the smaller tiles softens the kitchen's austere palette and rigorously orthogonal layout. Furthermore, says Architectural Ceramics' showroom manager, Sonia Pinto, while more expensive, the minis are easier to work with because they are mounted on 11 1⁄2-by-7 3⁄4-inch synthetic mesh. "One application covers more area [than a single 3-by-6-inch tile]," she says, "and there's less breakage." Since discovering the tile, Carter has used it on several other projects.