Kitchen of the Week: Chris Mottallini’s ‘Unusual’ Kitchen

Former Home Lovely editor in chief Sophie Donelson has a brand new guide out this week—Unusual Kitchens: A Revolutionary Method to the Most In style Room within the Home (Abrams)—and it’s crammed with the sort of lived-in, characterful kitchens we so admire right here at Remodelista. Her impetus for writing it? “I felt like kitchen design was getting more and more soulless—that in North America, the mid-2000s mindset of designing it for resale had seeped into our unconscious. We’ve perfected the ‘excellent white kitchen’ aesthetic—and I wished to discover what comes subsequent,” she says.

That’s to not say that the only method to obtain an “unusual” kitchen is by way of colour and sample (although that’s actually an efficient technique, one which dominates the initiatives coated within the guide). In reality, the kitchen that appealed to us most from Sophie’s guide is generally white, albeit with a couple of pops of colour, and skews minimalist. It belongs to structure and interiors photographer Chris Mottalini and his spouse, Nepal Asatthawasi. Chris shot a number of of the initiatives that seem within the guide, and when Sophie glimpsed his Hudson Valley house, she knew it had what it takes to make the guide’s roster of big-personality kitchens, many by established designers like Justina Blakeney and Reath Design. Chris’s kitchen is small and easy, however it shares an identical think-outside-the-kitchen spirit.

“Among the best insights [in the book] is to think about the kitchen one other room in the home vs. capital-Ok KITCHEN,” says Sophie. “These of us constructing, renovating, or tweaking our kitchens are sometimes overwhelmed by the fee and dedication of modifications in that house, however there are such a lot of methods to replace, improve, elevate, and luxuriate in our kitchens that don’t have anything to do with a brand new countertop, home equipment, or a revamped ground plan. The fondest recollections of kitchens we now have are by no means of the latest or coolest kitchens in our households. They’re concerning the time we spend with our family members or siblings, even when—and typically particularly if—the room is small or imperfect.”

Chris would concur. What he loves most about his kitchen? “The nice and cozy wooden tones and clear, but pure and not too excellent really feel.”

Beneath, he provides us a tour.

Pictures by Chris Mottalini.