The Heart of a Home
Guy and Cherie Scott consider every inch of their one-of-a-kind kitchen
The inspiration came from a custom cabinet shop in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. You could see these beautiful Quaker-style cabinets from the window, and you could immediately tell they were handmade. When it came time to renovate the kitchen, we had to compromise and figure out which big-ticket items were nonnegotiable. The cabinets that we loved weren’t in the budget, so we decided to build and paint them ourselves. We kept testing lighter stains and shades of color, but none of them seemed to fit the aesthetic we had in mind. One night, we sampled a darker color, and knew it was perfect.
“We chose soapstone for the counters, and while it’s definitely not the right choice for everyone, we absolutely love it. It’s the most forgiving countertop, especially if you work really heavy-handedly in the kitchen. And you don’t have to worry about it getting stained like a quartz or marble counter. The soapstone is so easy to maintain, and the bucolic aesthetic of it is exactly what we envisioned. It looks like it has been there for 100 years.
“A layer of glass covers the brick face behind the stove because we needed a way to protect the integrity of the brick. It makes it really simple to clean, and it’s the perfect backdrop to our Wolf stove. When we were playing with ideas for the beadboard on the ceiling, we briefly considered using a composite board that would just snap together, but we decided against it. We wanted the knots, we wanted the cracks—we wanted the character! Finally, when it came time to put up the mason jar–style chandelier, we were so worried that it was going to look too trendy, but instead, it blended right into the feel of our kitchen. It just worked.
“We knew this would be the core meeting place in our home—where we would come together every night to share a meal and work on family projects. It’s been an incubator in so many ways for so many creative things. Cherie is constantly inspired by the space for her culinary show and blog, Mumbai to Maine, which is filmed right in this kitchen. We took a lot of time, made choices very carefully, and didn’t take any easy ways out. Every single detail was painstakingly thought through to ensure that it was more than a custom-designed kitchen— it’s the beating heart of our home, and it resonates with who we are as a family.” —Guy and Cherie Scott