Client Must Haves

The homeowners had a small kitchen.  They wanted to keep the existing layout, but wanted the new space to feel more open. The color blue and their love of art deco had to be incorporated into the design. 

Unique Features

Raising the ceiling, enlarging the opening between the kitchen and the dining room and using bamboo flooring throughout the entire house helped create the illusion of a bigger space. Cabinets that went all the way to the ceiling, a double sided peninsula with glass frontage cabinets on the dining room side and a tall cabinet that held two trash bins provided additional storage.  A modified shaker cabinet door in cherry with a light stain paid homage to the art deco style. Blue backsplash tiles and painting the existing louvered doors blue completed the brief.

Client Review

“Rita Lezama designed our total kitchen remodel due to our working with her 7 years ago on a bath remodel. We kept her in mind for the kitchen and got in touch with her when we finally accumulated the money to do the job. Rita is a talented, smart designer with a great eye for detail and colors and she sees her designs in a coordinated way, with all parts of the puzzle fitting together. I am an artist with an eye for detail and she often saw design and quality things I missed, so she was invaluable in providing a trained eye's look at what we wanted and how we wanted it to be done, and within budget and schedule. She also wrote a job progression schedule to keep the work on track, and by working together we agreed on her final design using only top quality materials, cabinets, flooring, fixtures and appliances. Rita also helped us with the best suppliers and contractors so we would get the top quality kitchen we wanted. Finally, with everything ordered and delivered, and the contractor set to go, we set off on our remodel journey. $65k and nearly 2 months later we had our dream kitchen ready to use.

Rita was always on top of the job progression with advice on any issue of concern. She also commiserated with me on contractor/supplier reliability and quality problems as the job progressed, and listened to my complaints about one thing or the other and made suggestions that were very helpful. We had to be very firm with our contractors to get the finished job we wanted, and still I had to do many little detailed things myself at the end to get it just right. Rita helped me try to be more patient with this "new" construction industry, which is disappointing compared to what it was when my father ran a family building business in the 60's and 70's. So, she was my remodel shrink too and held it all together, and she was just as great at that as she was at her real job.

They say "all's well that ends well" and that is mostly true, but if it wasn't for Rita's talent, skills, patience, great sense of humor and positive attitude, it would have been a lot more trying than it was. All remodels are tough, and kitchen remodels are the worst due to not having a kitchen for what seems like forever, but we got through it, with many thanks to Rita's much needed help. I would not consider doing a kitchen or bath remodel without her and recommend her highly for quality remodels needing a great design eye, knowledge of construction and related materials, dedicated responsibility to the client, and an unmatched positive attitude and sense of humor through everything.”

Richard C. – San Ramon