Dream Kitchen: Buena Vista home on tour will showcase big makeover

When Ragan Folan set out to remodel her kitchen, she wanted to create a light, bright, happy space where she could cook with ease and efficiency and still have enough room to visit with friends and family.

"I'm an Italian girl," she said. "It's all about food and eating in the kitchen."

The result is a 13-by-25-foot room with yards of cabinets and countertops and plenty of room for socializing. Sunlight pours into the room through multiple windows and a glass door with a transom. Extras such as a commercial-grade stove, slots for baking tins and a storage drawer for trays between the microwave and wall oven make her work easier.

Soft aqua walls, cream-colored cabinetry and warm oak floors give the space charm and serenity.

The kitchen, which Folan shares with her husband, Dara, and their three children is one of 11 that will be open today for the 4th Annual Tour of Fine Kitchens sponsored by the Junior League of Winston-Salem.

Folan and her family bought their house on Buena Vista Road last year and have been remodeling ever since. She is a veteran of kitchen remodels, having redone one in their previous house a few years ago.

The kitchen she started with was true to its original 1923 footprint and had been redone some years ago, all in white, she said.

Folan didn't turn her back completely on the white. The new backsplash is made of white tile with accent pieces in a blue-and-white pattern, with a blue-and-white mural over the stove. White trim looks crisp against the colored walls.

But she changed everything else. Workers gutted the room and took the floor down to its studs. Creating the new space cost about $100,000.

"I wanted to create a different space, make it a little more open," she said. Workers expanded into a butler's pantry and a narrow powder room to add more square footage. The space where the powder room used to be now holds a storage piece built with custom cabinetry that looks like furniture. Its cherry finish contrasts with the pale cabinets but echoes the finish on the nearby cherry table.

The storage piece holds platters, extra sets of china, glasses, vases -- everything that Folan uses when she entertains. She likes mixing finishes, she said, so she didn't want it to match the other cabinets. But she tied the piece into the rest of the kitchen by repeating the granite countertop and choosing pulls that, while more ornate, are finished in a similar tone to those on the cabinets.

The kitchen is jam-packed with storage space that reaches to the room's 12-foot ceiling, giving a serious cook room to store everything needed to turn out a feast.

And she tried to make that space easy to use. Cabinets contain pull-out drawers, and she used deep drawers instead of cabinets in some spots.

"You can pull them out instead of bending down and reaching in," she said.

During the work, Folan had hoped to uncover some history within the walls. She didn't. But she kept a forest-green octagonal tile that had once been part of the floor.

"I wanted a souvenir," she said. "It was interesting to peel back the layers."

And some day, someone may find the current newspaper hidden behind the new cabinets and relive a bit of today.

The Folans relive yesterday when they sit at the cherry table that has been in their family throughout their married life. The table was a wedding gift from her parents, and it had seen better days when they moved into their house.

"It was so beat up from children's infant seats and booster seats," she said. But the scale was just right for the eat-in kitchen, so they had it refinished. Now it creates a homey space for family dinners with children who no longer need help with their food. The Folans' children are 23, 17 and nearly 14.

Folan achieved what she set out to with the kitchen remodel.

"Now everybody congregates in the kitchen," she said.

■ Janice Gaston can be reached at 727-7364 or at jgaston@wsjournal.com.

If you go

The 4th Annual Tour of Fine Kitchens, sponsored by the Junior League of Winston-Salem, will run from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. today. Visitors will be able to tour kitchens in 11 homes and to sample food prepared by caterers and chefs from local restaurants at each kitchen.

Guest chef George Stella will offer cooking demonstrations at the home of Ruth Hudspeth at 900 Marguerite Drive. Stella is the former host of Low Carb and Lovin' It on the Food Network and the author of Livin' Low Carb and Eating Stella Style. He is the spokesman for the "Kids in the Kitchen" program, an educational program on nutrition and childhood obesity supported by the Association of Junior Leagues International and member leagues.

Tickets for the kitchen tour cost $25 and can be bought at any of the houses. For more information, visit www.jlws.org, the League's Web site.