Country kitchens

2 Rustic style kitchen
As host of the popular Room Service, a sophisticated makeover show on HGTV, and the principal of a busy design practice, Sarah Richardson has faced down just about every kind of interior design challenge. However, reconstructing this generations-old farmhouse kitchen in Ontario's Prince Edward County – while making it functionally efficient – proved a unique task, even for Richardson. The first order of business as she saw it, was to peel back the layers of time – the plaster and drywall of more recent renovations – to reveal the kitchen's original character.

After months of painstaking work, a local stonemason's efforts yielded three perfectly preserved stone walls, plus a fourth brick one, whose unexpected feature was a still-functioning bake oven previously concealed behind drywall and a shiny new pine mantel. The discovery was a bonus for the homeowner, an avid cook. "It really anchors the room," says Richardson, who then revamped the rustic space to accommodate a professional-style gas range (which runs on propane), new maple cabinetry (lower units only), butcher block and stainless steel countertops. Alas, while the overall room itself is large (14' by 24'), the actual cooking space is limited. "We really struggled with that," says Richardson, who would have preferred her client, who loves to entertain, to have a larger workspace. But in the end neither the designer nor the homeowner wanted to tamper with the room's hard-earned authenticity. When it comes to country kitchens, this one's the real McCoy.