IN WITH THE NEW
By Chris Wadsworth
The first major planned neighborhood in Ashburn was Ashburn Village – given the green light by county officials in 1985. Since then, the community has grown rapidly: Ashburn Farm, the Broadlands, Lansdowne, Brambleton and on and on.
Many of the homes around us were built in the 1990s and the so-called “aughts” of the early 2000s. But those homes are now 15 to 30 years old – so for many homeowners it’s time for a change.
“I felt it was outdated,” Susie Carrillo said about the kitchen in her Broadlands home that was built in 2006. “It had an aging color palate – it was basically all one color of wood from the cabinets to the floors.”
Carrillo, along with her husband, Nino, and their three daughters, moved to Ashburn from Texas in 2022. They knew pretty quickly that they wanted to give the kitchen a makeover.
“I wanted it to feel warm and welcoming yet also be functional – that was the main goal,” Carrillo said.
That’s where Joy Ferrara, owner of Home Joy Designs, came to the rescue.
The Carrillos brought Ferrara to come in and remodel their kitchen. Ferrara just happens to have been named Ashburn’s best interior designer two years running in Ashburn Magazine’s Best of Ashburn contest.
We sat down with Ferrara to find out more about the Carrillo’s project and how local residents are embracing an “out with the old and in with the new” attitude.
THE BIG ISLAND
The number one thing that is changing about modern kitchens is the size of the island, according to Ferrara. She says many kitchens have a large square footage, but the old islands were built too small for the scale of the room.
Nowadays, large islands with seating or cabinetry (or both) are often a must for families who gather around it, dine around it and entertain around it.
“We expanded the footprint by a couple of feet,” Ferrara said about the Carrillos’ island. “We basically took the original one out and started from scratch – more cabinets on both sides and a pull-out trash can. They probably have double the square footage of storage.”
LET THERE BE LIGHT
Certainly, hundreds upon hundreds of Ashburn homes once had dainty, bell-shaped pendant lights hanging in the center of the kitchen. They were “de rigueur” for the era. But no longer. Big, bold “statement” lighting is what new kitchen designs demand today.
Susie Carrillo eschewed going too modern, instead opting for some “classic modern” vintage-inspired milk glass lights that are a little oversized compared to what builders put in years ago.
“I wanted something current, but also timeless,” Carrillo said. “As soon as you walk in now, it’s hard to decide where to look first – everything is a statement – but the lights are definitely beautiful.”
IT’S ALL ABOUT THE HOOD
“The lighting and range hood pair together and this tends to be kind of the showpiece of any kitchen,” Ferrara said.
Yes, range hoods used to be more utilitarian than stylistic – often an angled metal “roofline” over the stove. Even the frequently seen upgraded curved glass hoods don’t cut it these days.
“Now, we’re often doing custom range hoods in various types of wood tones that might match the island, but contrast elsewhere in the kitchen,” Ferrara said. “We’re doing fun things with these design elements.”
WHAT’S WITH THAT DESK?
One of the hot trends when many Ashburn homes were built was the inclusion of a small desk in the kitchen. The idea was probably that a homeowner would sit there and work on meal planning or paying bills, or perhaps a child would do homework there. But let’s face it – they often turned into a catch-all for stacks of mail, school books, maybe some mittens or even a dog toy.
“It’s not really practical,” Ferrara said. “People don’t want their bills out in a high traffic area where other people are going in and out. A desk in the kitchen has just become really outdated.”
In the Carrillo home, the makeover saw the long desk opposite the butler’s pantry get removed and replaced with an oversized 42-inch-wide refrigerator with French doors and a drawer freezer on the bottom – another popular item in modern kitchens.
ICE ICE BABY
Speaking of refrigerators, units with a water and ice dispenser on the front are out of fashion currently. Ferrara says this has led to an increase in the requests she’s receiving for separate, standalone ice makers, often placed in the aforementioned butler’s pantry.
“I took my clients appliance shopping … for their ice maker, and we were even able to select which shaped ice cube they preferred with acrylic ice cube samples,” she said.
In addition to oversized fridges and ice makers, the third leg of the refrigeration stool is under-the-counter beverage coolers, be it for beers, soda cans, sports drinks or bottles of fine wine. Ferrara says she puts them in most kitchen projects these days.
Other changes common in newly designed kitchens include a move away from bright whites towards creamier whites. Butterscotch and dark wood tones are being removed and replaced with shades of walnut and white oak. Navy was big as an accent color, but now it’s moved toward French blue, shades of green and even “greige” – a combo color of grey and beige that is in style right now. Quartz is the hot material for countertops for many homeowners.
Many of these features were incorporated in the Carrillos’ project, and Susie Carrillo is thrilled with the results.
“I’m very grateful that this is the kitchen we get to have in our home,” she said. “It’s unbelievable. Every day, I’m in awe when I walk in.”