C.W. Wolff Greg West

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Interior Designer Patricia Fitzpatrick has been friends with her neighbors, Robin and Glenn Normandeau, for years. So when they asked her to help with the new home they were building across the street from their old home in Portsmouth’s South End, she and Robin worked together easily as a team.

Robin made a long list of what she wanted, especially in the kitchen, where top priorities included compact efficiency, minimal maintenance and a set-up that would politely keep guests out of the cooking area.

“I love the flow of the kitchen,” Robin says. “It’s round and everything works in sequence of how you cook.”

The strategic placement of a spacious center island provides plenty of room on one side for guests to gather and on the other for the chef to work: “I could put caution tape around the center isle and still be able to visit while I cook. And visitors can still reach the refrigerator and garbage without getting into the cooking area.”

Distressed black finish on the under-the-counter cabinets and dark blue silverstone countertops provide some kick-and-scratch insurance in a household that includes a boy, a Springer Spaniel and a lot of impromptu entertaining.

Fitzpatrick pulled colors, tone and details from the family’s Portmeirion Compleat Angler china set. “The dishes have such lovely mossy greens, blues and corals—it was inspirational,” says Fitzpatrick. And Robin hired another neighbor, artist Nancy Grossman, to create tiles modeled on the fish in the china, that were inset in the kitchen’s backsplash and in the fieldstone fireplace.

C.W. Wolff is a freelance writer living in Kittery, Maine. She can be reached at ForesideCommunications@yahoo.com.

Greg West's clients include architects, interior designers, contractors, builders and developers involved in commercial
and residential properties. See his work at gregwestphotography.com.