Initial Budget: $50,000.

Final Cost: $69,250 (cabinetry and cabinet installation). The cost of the kitchen increased by nearly $20,000 when the client selected a different, more expensive style of cabinetry and added a butcher-block countertop. The clients chose not to relocate the kitchen to the home office area because of the expense and difficulty of moving plumbing, electrical and gas lines.

Client's Goals:

• Open up the small kitchen, which was adjacent to a large, dark, unused living room

• Possibly move the kitchen to the space used as a home office, which featured cathedral ceilings

• Keep the space full of light

• Create a kitchen with room to cook and entertain friends

Designers' Solutions:

• Developed a floor plan that expanded the kitchen's footprint without completely relocating it

• Took down a wall between the kitchen and living room

• Opened a doorway between the living room and home office

• Built a banquette with a farm table for meals in the former kitchen

• Moved the cooking, cleanup and prep areas of the kitchen into the former living room

• Turned the former office into a formal dining room

• Installed a seating area by the windows for reading the paper in the morning.

• Designed an island to create a division between cooking and living areas.

Cabinets: Cherry cabinets (on the island) and white painted cabinets (on the perimeter) from the SieMatic Hudson Valley Collection

Appliances: Sub-Zero refrigerator, Wolf range and hood

Countertops: SieMatic butcher block and honed black granite