Here we have the perfect book for the homebound worker of 2020.
It’s all about kitchens – by a couple who know.
Barbara Sallick and her husband raised the bar when they founded Waterworks 42 years ago, with products for functional and aesthetically pleasing baths and kitchens.
“When we started, hardly anything anyone talked about was the bath – and now it’s a primary area in the house,” she says. “And the kitchen – we always had our own point of view with our own products and bringing our original designs to the market – including bathtubs, surface tile and stone, kitchen hardware, and lighting.”
Now she’s written “The Perfect Kitchen,” a book that looks seriously at a number of architect-designed spaces for cooking, gathering and preparation. “This is not a how-to book,” she says. “It’s what I call informed inspiration – to intensify experience through design. That’s been the Waterworks mantra forever.”
The idea is to bring beautiful kitchens to her clients and the public, and show the way in which people live their lives and experience their kitchen. A special focus is on layering materials – like a marble counter with a tile backsplash and an emphatic use of color.
And it’s definitive. “What does a kitchen mean?” she asks. “It means to take something functional and make it experiential. It’s the heart of the home – where you prepare meals, entertain friends and even use it as a home office.”
These are not kitchens from IKEA or Home Depot. Instead, they’re one-of-a-kind, beautiful and extraordinary. “There are inspirational ideas to use from the book, like hefty hardware or the size of lights,” she says. “The idea is that even though these kitchens are expensive for sure, the ideas are useful throughout the spectrum.”
The trick is to make your space aesthetically pleasing and functional, even on a budget. “If it doesn’t work well people don’t want to go there, but if has a gravitational pull everybody wants to go there,” she says. “So you figure out the best design.”
For those with time on their hands during an era of worldwide pandemic, it’s a sourcebook for better days in the future.
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