Behind the Scenes of This Year’s Atlanta Holiday Home with Designer Janie Wilburn

This year’s Home for the Holidays Designer Showhouse is the ultimate display of festive design. The showcase home’s spec designer Janie Wilburn joined us to discuss her experience designing the kitchen and breakfast room in her first holiday house, a classic shingle-style Nantucket cottage in Atlanta, Georgia.

What was your role in this year’s Atlanta Holiday Home? Have you been a part of this showhouse before?

I was the spec designer for the entire house, which means I was involved from the beginning stages when we first sat down with the architects to plan the whole house. When you get the team together at the very beginning it’s a much more cohesive process. I selected all of the hard finishes for the house — doors, door hardware, floors, wall treatments, cabinets (concept, style, finish, hardware), tile, plumbing, lighting, fire place surrounds, counters, etc.! This is the first time I’ve done a holiday house, so that made it extra fun — kind of like my own personal Christmas gift!

How would you describe your typical design aesthetic and how does that compare to the Holiday Home?

My aesthetic really combines elements of classical design with modern updates and finishes, using a combination of materials to enhance a space. I think this house is fairly true to my aesthetic. We intended for this house to have some heritage — we wanted it to feel like it had a sense of history — but we used some more modern elements and surprising finishes that create visual interest.

What was your inspiration behind the kitchen and breakfast room’s design? How did you collaborate to find the specific design vision?

The builder for this home and I have worked on a number of projects together so we understand each other’s aesthetics and speak the same design language, and both wanted this kitchen to be interesting. Show houses are meant to give visitors new ideas and inspiration, so it was important to us to have something visually compelling — that really was our inspiration.

We knew we wanted a blue kitchen for sure, but really what inspired the space was the gorgeous Calcatta Lucina marble. When I went to the warehouse to select the slabs I had a number of color options with me. That counter is so pretty — it has the most intensely beautiful swirling veins of taupes, grays, and blues, and the cabinet color, Krypton, came right out of the marble.

The breakfast room is meant to be a tonal palette that layers creams, taupes and blues with light – reflective finishes keying off the kitchen. It really started to take shape when we radiused the corners of the room during the architectural phase of design. Once you enter to space after passing under the cabinets that wrap the opening into the room, you really are enveloped in a tonal palette of soft creamy textures. Wrapping the walls in a laser-cut wall covering that has geometry, texture, and sheen really emphasized the rounded corners, but we also chose to wrap the drapery hardware around the room so it too became part of the architecture.

We painted all the trim the same tone of a creamy taupe, Sherwin Williams Limewash, but chose a high gloss sheen to pick up on the reflective nature of the wallcovering, keying into the high gloss and nickel accents in the adjacent kitchen. Each piece that went into the space was meant to layer in softness as an offset to the kitchen. It was important that the room have thoughtful nods to the blue because of the way we wrapped the cabinets into our space, which is why we chose the rug that combined the taupes, creams and blues, and all of our fabrics have the same ethereal quality and softness.

What would you say are the most outstanding features of the kitchen and why?

This kitchen shares a barrel ceiling that we finished in Venetian plaster, with the living room, so it was important that it be polished and pretty, with a sense of formality that met its function. The left side of the kitchen houses a SubZero 30” fridge and freezer at each end, with counters running in between. We matched this cabinetry with pantry storage on the opposite side, and we carried the millwork over the opening in the breakfast room to balance the space and create symmetry. Because we had so much cabinetry in what is the formal living room area, we wanted it to feel special and furniture-like. Using a high-gloss conversion varnish finish was kind of a leap — but we did it! And then we added the polished nickel strapping to dress the cabinets instead of using heavy molding or millwork. The result, to me, was perfection! The layers of glossy blue and the polished nickel create the most beautiful study in reflection and layering of light. So specifically, while the kitchen has so much great function, I think the combination of the glossy blue and the nickel are the stand out features of the space. But I also love the marble and the lights we chose — because each of these elements leans into that combination.

What drew you to the Traditional PLP Faucet and Wheel Pulldown Faucet? Which finish was used and how does that tie into the rest of the space?

Their beauty! These pieces feel like heritage when you touch them. We have used the Traditional PLP in four projects now and I love the sense of history they imply. The details are just so perfect and refined and they are, as my client reminds me I told her, the jewelry of the kitchen. We chose, of course, polished nickel. One — it is my favorite — but also it’s just so timeless and rich. Polished nickel is still a warm finish, but it feels so clean and has such a brilliance to it. This kitchen is all about repeating the same tones and polished nickel is kind of the star of the show in our lights, strapping on the millwork, and the faucet!

The Wheel Pulldown Faucet I’ve tried to get clients to commit to but haven’t yet. So it was so special to be able to incorporate it into the scullery! This working kitchen is something that the buyer of the home will use daily. It truly is a separate kitchen with ample storage, refrigeration, ovens, and prep space, so it needed a faucet that rivaled the main kitchen. We have an apron-front sink and a window in here, so it was the perfect setting for this beauty. And honestly, it’s been the star of the show house, even the architect was talking about it when he was interviewed on special features in the home! Also, because the scullery is off the family entrance to the home the owners will get to see it each and every time they walk by, which I think is pretty special.

How much time did you spend designing the kitchen compared to the other rooms in the house? Were there any challenges you faced while completing it?

It’s the biggest cabinetry space in the house so it took a good bit of time. In a show house you labor over finishes because you’re so exposed as a designer. When I work with clients I design to their taste. Having carte blanche on this house was a little bit of a stretch for me because I had so many ideas and really was trying to design something with mass appeal. It was, however, so fun to collaborate with Mike Bell at Bell Cabinets and our builder, Chris Davis of KBD Homes. But I’m really proud of what we created — I just love it so much!