Kitchen Kraft Remodel Revitalizes German Village Home

“The kitchen was outdated,” says Terry Bigham, owner of a home in the German Village area of Columbus that was built in 1918. “I think it was remodeled maybe 20 years ago. The appliances were outdated. The cabinets had been painted over. There was a small sitting area that really was not usable.”

With those thoughts in mind, a massive makeover was planned for the kitchen and an adjoining space in his home.

“The goal was to update everything, but still try to keep it very much in line with the period of the house,” Terry says.

Enter Keith Rupp, designer for Kitchen Kraft.

“I met Keith at the Home & Garden Show at the convention center in Columbus,” Terry says. “Then he came over for a meeting and we looked at the area and talked about what we wanted to do – and then he did all of the design work.”

After their discussions at Terry’s home, the pair met at Kitchen Kraft, where Rupp took Terry through the idea of how he envisioned the space and what could make it a very useful kitchen for cooking and conversation.

Before

After

The overall space was meant to maintain the roots of the house with a little bit of an urban touch,” says Rupp. “He wanted to go back to more of the traditional style.” It’s a Craftsman house, so we kept it very clean and classic.”

So how was the entire space updated while sticking with the history of the home and still adding an urban flair?

“We used traditional materials,” the designer says. “for the flooring, we used the same wood from the rest of the house and carried it into the bar and kitchen.” That thin oak flooring that was running throughout was stained to a darker patina and replaced an old tile floor in the kitchen. “Because of it being an older house, they took this thing all the way down to the studs, and then they reinforced underneath the kitchen with some heavy beams,” says Terry. ” And then they built it back up, and we have a completely wood floor.”

Shaker white cabinetry a was installed, and quartzite countertops were added. Traditional subway tile in a larger format was used to for the backsplash.

The area adjacent to the kitchen was a small space that wasn’t particularly useful. “They had tried to put a table in the breakfast area, but it wasn’t suitable for that,” says Rupp. “It was kind of a useless area,” adds the homeowner.

“The walls were built so that it was kind of a closed-in place, so we opened that up.”

Before

After

In fact, Rupp decided to create a bar area in that newly opened space. “We used some rehabbed wood from a barn to make a great-looking bar,” he adds.

That reclaimed wood from a 100-year-old barn also was used to build the shelves and the entryway into the bar.

Rupp installed a brick veneer to almost the entire area of the bar – something the homeowner appreciates. “A lot of German Village has a lot of interior brick walls, so we brought a brick wall in,” Terry says. “It’s just a great place. There’s a little TV there, so people can either hang around the bar or we’ve got some stools in there where they can sit. You can now have a great conversation and flow from the kitchen to the bar.”

To help finish off this deluxe remodel, all new Jenn-Air appliances were installed. Terry loves to cook, so he is enjoying the new appliances and all the technology that comes with them.

“We put in a big six-burner Jenn-Air oven with a nice hood,” says the homeowner. “It definitely updated the whole kitchen area and made it a much more comfortable place to have people in to entertain.”

Terry especially likes the functionality that the space now offers him and his guests.

“It’s just a much more useful space for more people to be in here and to congregate,” he says. “People can hang at the bar and have a drink and at the same time talk to the people who are doing the cooking.”