Anne Downey Greg West

Related Articles

Sherry Renfrow Moore has been in the interior design business in the Houston, Texas, area for forty years. Her company, Designer Showcase, specializes in big, complicated projects, like the three 15,000-square-foot homes in Houston and a 30,000-square-foot home in Moscow, Russia, she recently finished. Her husband, Paul Moore, also owns a business, Atlas Moving and Storage, and with three homes to take care of, their lives are pretty hectic.

Paul’s family is from the Kennebunk area, and they bought their Tudor-style home a year ago. “We just love it here, and have spent two or three weeks of each season in the house,” Sherry says. Between them, they have four children, seven grandchildren and a lot of friends. “The house sleeps eighteen, and when we’re here, we usually have about twelve to fifteen people staying with us,” Sherry says. “I don’t particularly like to cook, but we have several people in our family who do, so we needed a high-functioning kitchen that, in design terms, went with the rest of the house.”

The mosaic black granite tile with pewter inlay is shiny, sleek and rich in its texture.

Getting help for the renovation
They turned to Pamela Shangraw-Murdough of Kennebunk Kitchens & Baths (who, conveniently, is also Paul’s niece) for help. “The house was built in 1982, the golden oak era, and it looked very dated,” Pam explains. “Plus, Sherry has Texas taste—she is very detail-oriented and likes a lot of shape, color and texture.” Because the kitchen and family room are essentially one big room, Pam’s challenge was to make the kitchen design mesh with the décor of the rest of the house—upholstered furniture with animal print accents, deep, saturated color and big artwork.

Sherry wanted to be able to sit in her family room without having to look at kitchen appliances, so Pam designed the space so that the two ovens, dishwasher and microwave fit underneath the counters. Both the Sub-Zero refrigerator and the dishwasher have a cabinetry façade, and Pam added a lot of architectural details, like columns, corbels and fluted pilasters. The cabinetry is made of dark cherry with seven layers of paint and glazing, and a rubbed-off finish. “We don’t use cherry in Texas,” Sherry says.  “We do a lot of Mediterranean, villa-type design, with dark woods like mahogany.”

The countertops are made of polished granite in shades of gold, and the tile is black granite cut into mosaics with limestone rail and pewter inlay. “We liked the way the pewter picked up the mica flecks in the granite,” Pam says, “and we used antique English brass reproductions for the fixtures to pick up those tones as well.” Originally, the floor was tiled, which didn’t work with Sherry’s aesthetic, so Pam replaced it with an oak floor with a custom-mixed honey-colored stain.

Pam is particularly proud of her design for the wall that faces the work area in the 21-foot by15-foot space. “Originally, it was just a flat, blank wall,” Pam says. “I added depth by installing cabinets to showcase Sherry’s china collection, which also establishes some privacy for the powder room that is off the kitchen. And I added a wine bar, an icemaker and a flat-screen TV. Now, there’s a reason to look at that wall.”

“In New England, kitchens and baths are pretty utilitarian,” Sherry observes. “But in Texas, we tend to go over the top—I recently designed a 20-foot by 40-foot bathroom that had a double waterfall spilling into a domed tub with gazebo pillars, a chandelier and a faux painted ceiling! I love what Pam designed. My kitchen would hold its own anywhere in the world. Even in Texas, you would walk in and say, ‘Wow!’”

 
Anne Downey, who has a Ph.D. in English from the University of New Hampshire, writes features and book reviews for a variety of publications. She can be reached at amdowney@comcast.net.

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