On the Grid

It’s a question frequently posed by clients: How can we open up the kitchen and still hide dirty dishes? Architect Richard Williams of Richard Williams Architects in Washington, D.C., designed a particularly innovative solution for a new house. Between the kitchen and dining room, two-sided cabinets allow homeowners to reach for dishes from either room. On the dining room side, two full-height doors mask kitchen clutter when closed and swing apart to reveal open shelves above and a double-sided cabinet below. Shallow cabinet drawers that slide out on the dining room side are designed to hold table linens. A tall pass-through and a third door complete the divider. That third door is hung on sliding hardware and can be pushed over to conceal the pass-through while still allowing light to flow between the rooms. The upper section of each painted wood door is filled with a grid of seeded art glass. Similar grids appear in various forms throughout the house. “It’s a fairly compact house,” says Williams, “and we wanted the same theme running throughout to tie spaces together.”