Kitchen renovation creates family center

Matt and Daneen Downey moved into their Penn Wynne house in 2004, but they had to put off kitchen renovations until their children were older and they had saved some money.

Last year, they converted their 1920s-era galley and formal dining room into a large open-concept, family-style kitchen.

"Now, we do everything in this room: eat, entertain and do homework," said Matt Downey, father of Owen, 12, and Grace, 9.

Their 2,898-square-foot home feels larger because of the multi-room renovation, which came out so well that the contractor submitted it to the DelChester chapter of the National Association of the Remodeling Industry for an award. And it won.

"We had done a cheapo cosmetic fix when we moved in, [when] my son was a year old, but we had to wait to do the real thing," Daneen Downey recalled.

The standout feature is the Quartzite island, which she said her father jokingly calls "a regulation ping-pong table."

"We originally thought the island would run sideways, where the old wall was dividing the kitchen and dining room," she said. But in the end, the Downeys rotated the island, after realizing they could install cabinets, a dishwasher and storage underneath it and actually gain space.

The renovation involved reconfiguring work spaces in the house. First, the Downeys moved the door to the basement - originally located off the galley kitchen - to underneath the main staircase in their front hall.

Daneen Downey requested that the washer and dryer be moved up from the basement to a mudroom off the kitchen, to save trips up and down the stairs. The couple's contractor added a pocket door between the kitchen and laundry room.

The Downeys splurged on a Rohl sink in the island, a Perrin & Rowe faucet and other fixtures, and an Elkay hammered-steel sink over in the bar area.

"The sink and faucet feel like the jewelry of the kitchen," Daneen Downey said.

But they saved money buying many other needed items online.

"I became a junkie on Houzz.com," the home-design website, she said. She bought chairs at Target and Pottery Barn sales and kept a spreadsheet of expenses.

From the project's start in March to its finish in August, "we didn't have a functioning kitchen, but we managed. We ate a lot of cereal for dinner," Matt Downey said.

Cabinets from Jim Bishop Cabinets Inc. were their other big splurge - beaded inset custom cabinets, with specially ordered windows over the range.

The Downeys installed soapstone and marble counters, a Thermador gas range, and Paris subway-style tiles as a backsplash. Daneen Downey found the tiles at Home Depot, and "this was a big save and helped us keep under budget."

So did a two-for-one deal: She got a free 36-inch Whirlpool dishwasher by buying the Thermador range.

For the kitchen floor, the Downeys chose acacia wood and saved money by purchasing it from Lumber Liquidators.

"We decided on a dark cherry finish to prevent scratches, especially with the dog," a rescue named Maggie, and the cat, Buddy, who earned his own cat door under the staircase, Matt Downey said.

The laundry/mudroom was redone in slate flooring, as was the family room.

The kitchen lamps were found at Rittenhouse Electric in Ardmore. Daneen Downey negotiated with the store to get the better online price she'd found for the beehive lanterns.

There were bumps in the road: The beaded inset cabinets didn't match the windowed doors, which had to be sent to be refinished at the Bishop factory so the surfaces would match. Ultimately, that saved money for the Downeys, although it delayed the finish date.

The entire multi-room project, including appliances and construction costs, won its award in the category of $60,000-$100,000 kitchen remodels, said Paul McAlary, the Downeys' contractor with Main Line Kitchen Design in Narberth.

The general contractor was Al Panaccio, of AD Panaccio Inc. in Upper Darby.