Cook's Custom Cabinetry

Fine Furnishings International: A Cook's Kitchen

Jacqueline Schaeperklaus describes her Sarasota home as a typical Florida ranch house, but the interiors hardly fit the notion of typical Sunshine-State style. Warm colors and traditional furnishings prevail throughout, giving the home more of a New England feel.

Both she and her husband, Alan, a dentist, moved to Florida as young children. Both grew up in Clearwater and they feel the tropical colors, floral prints, and bleached woods and rattan often associated with resort living are more the province of Sun Belt transplants in second or retirement homes. As a professional decorator, Schaeperklaus believes you should be true to what you like, no matter where you live. "So many of my friends and clients are sorry they sold their antiques before moving down here," she says. "I always tell them to hold off if they can."

But she also knows when it's time to make a change. And she recently turned her attention to her kitchen. Although spacious, the kitchen of her 16-year-old house had dark cabinets and a dark wainscoting around the dining area. The layout and low ceiling of the work area were closing in. Overall, the space seemed cramped and a bit gloomy. And, the appliances no longer seemed right. Because she loves to bake, Schaeperklaus wanted more oven capacity and counter space. Entered through the dining area, the kitchen also needed an improved traffic flow to the pool and gardens at the back of the house. She wanted to turn the space into a new living area with work zones, a dining zone, and finally, one for sitting and relaxing, as well.

ABOVE: Ron Cook's plan for the renovated kitchen removed cabinets from the
dining area and made greater use of the storage potential of the pantry.

A Recipe for Change

Jackie Schaeperklaus met Ron Cook, of Cook's Custom Cabinetry, in Sarasota at an open-house kitchen show staged by area builders and dealers. When talking about and planning kitchens, one of the first questions Cook asks is the number of people who will really work in the space: Is it going to be a one person, two- or three-person kitchen? Given the growth in kitchen size, and how many people like to entertain in these bigger spaces, Cook says a residential kitchen accommodating three cooks is no longer unusual.

		LEFT: The former kitchen of the Schaeperklaus's Sarasota, Florida, home featured a drop ceiling, dark cabinets and mostly white appliances. The original brick-paver flooring remains in the new kitchen.
	LEFT: A higher ceiling gives the kitchen a lighter, airier feeling as do the honey-colored maple Wood-Mode cabinets with hammered pewter knobs. Ron Cook continued the units to the ceiling line. Charcoal granite counter tops highlight the cabinetry. Sarasota artist Patty Dugan hand-painted the floral bouquet on the white-tile backsplash between the Dacor 48-inch range and hood.

In addition to kitchens (a new project will take him to Newport, RI), Cook maintains a full-service design studio, and custom designs and builds other types of furnishings as well. A native of Saco, Maine, Ron Cook takes pride in the fact that he was born with "sawdust between in his toes," learning the art of cabinet-making from both his grandfather and father and eventually starting his own company in 1969.

For Schaeperklaus, Cook drew up a kitchen plan that raised the ceiling and radically altered the cabinets, not only in style, but in number. The configuration reduced the number of units, but resulted in the same amount of storage. The mellow, honey-colored maple cabinets from Wood-Mode (he is the firm's area dealer) opened up the space, while the recessed-panel door fronts suited the decorator's taste for traditional styling.

The change was startling, says Schaeperklaus. What had been a large kitchen visually held in check by dark cabinets throughout now appeared as a more contemporary great room with cabinetry and furnishings distinguishing the different work, dining and seating areas.

After the renovation was complete, she decided the best way to enhance the traffic flow was to replace a large bay in the informal sitting area with French doors, allowing easy access to the pool. If it ever gets too hot in Jackie Schaeperklaus's kitchen, a refreshing swim is only footsteps away.

ABOVE: The renovation transformed a large kitchen/eating area to a more multidimensional space, or a "great" room.

LEFT: The removal of cabinets in the dining area allowed room for furniture. To the left of the dining table and chairs is an antique dry sink brought in from another room. Jackie stores her selection of pewter and ceramics in the hutch; to its right is the door to the butler's pantry. No longer in the original refrigerator's location, the new Sub-Zero was moved to the angled wall next to the kitchen's entrance.

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