A modern kitchen and bath on a quiet Albany street. White oak slab cabinetry, quartz counters, a Viking range, and a brass-and-stone bathroom that's exactly as restrained — and exactly as confident — as the family who lives here.
The brief from the homeowners on Santa Fe Avenue was unusually direct: a clean, modern kitchen with white oak cabinetry, a serious range, and a custom breakfast banquette wide enough for the kids to do homework in the afternoon. No shaker doors. No subway tile. Nothing that would look dated in fifteen years.
Slab-front white oak became the defining material. Every cabinet door is a single rift-sawn panel with matched grain — no frames, no shaker rails, no trim. We worked with a single millwork shop to ensure consistent grain orientation across the entire kitchen, so when you read the room left to right, the wood reads as one continuous surface broken only by the appliances and the windows.
"The whole kitchen sits at the same volume. The cabinetry doesn't shout, the counters don't shout, and that's what lets the color do its work."
The counters are a soft-veined white quartz selected for how quietly they sit against the oak — almost no contrast, just a slight shift in temperature. Backsplash is the same quartz, slabbed full-height behind the range so there's no grout line to fight the slab cabinetry. The Viking 36-inch range is the only piece of stainless steel that earns its visual weight; everything else is panel-front, including the refrigerator that disappears into the cabinetry wall.
What makes the room is the restraint. The clients pulled out one ceramic vessel in tomato red, two orange Tolix stools, and a custom-upholstered banquette in a navy-and-orange print they sourced themselves. That's it for color. Against the calm of the oak and the quartz, those three moves carry the whole personality of the kitchen.
The bathroom takes the same vocabulary — oak slab cabinetry, stone counter, restrained palette — and shifts the metals from chrome to brushed brass. The vanity counter is a piece of taj mahal quartzite with caramel veining, paired with custom turned-brass cabinet knobs accented in small blue and green ceramic dots. It's the room's only ornament, and it's the one detail visitors keep coming back to.
We told Juan and Brayan we wanted a kitchen that would still look right in 2040. They built one that already looks like it's been here forever.
