IN AN ENGLISH BASEMENT KITCHEN

In the spirit of an English country manor, I recently added a kitchen in the basement of my Victorian house in Seattle. The English Victorians had it right: The basement is indeed a good place for the kitchen. Often there’s plenty of room for kitchen duties and extra storage; cooking activity and smells are kept out of the way. Urban row houses from New York to Chicago also placed the kitchen in the so-called English basement, a “garden level” space with some natural light, as is the case at my house.

BY BRIAN D. COLEMAN

This Victorian Revival space perfectly suits a charming house filled with color, texture, pattern—and antiques. WE STARTED at the top, with an embossed metal ceiling that recalls kitchens of the late-19th and early-20th centuries. We bought copper panels from W. F. Norman, then painted the background with a soft, powdery green to tone down the shine. Next came the upper walls, papered in Morris’s ‘Golden Lily’ pattern. I’d bought a Collier & Plucknett English oak sideboard, ca. 1900, from a local antiques shop; it inspired the room’s period cabinetwork. Talented local furnituremaker Stephen Hultberg built cabinets with reference to the sideboard’s details, including a backsplash of hand-carved scalloped panels. We had the brass pulls reproduced. (After Stephen’s meticulous finishing, it’s hard to tell which cabinets are old and which are new.)…

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Old House Journal (Digital) - 1 Issue, March/April 2024

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