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"Location: Atlanta, Georgia      With a bright cobalt blue island and fresh green accents, the new storage-smart kitchen brings a sense of playfulness to this old Victorian house.    The Beath-Dickey home in Atlanta&amp;#039;s historic Inman Park neighborhood was built for newlyweds-it just took more than a century for a pair to move in. John M. Beath, an English merchant, built the three-story, towered Victorian in 1898. He hoped that the home and its fashionable address in the city&amp;#039;s first suburb would entice his wealthy Bostonian fianc\u00E9e to move south. Yet the couple never married, and eventually the house and the neighborhood fell into disrepair. By the early fall of 2000, when Kathy and Mike Taylor bought the house, the picturesque area was undergoing a rebirth. (It is now one of Atlanta&amp;#039;s most desirable in-town neighborhoods.) The 4,500-square-foot, Queen Anne-style house itself had been restored by the former owner, Inman Park&amp;#039;s pioneer preservationist. So most of the living areas were in good condition. Even better, many of the period details were intact, including silver hardware, hand-painted tiles, bird&amp;#039;s-eye maple doors, and elaborate woodwork hand-carved by a team of Austrian craftsmen. &amp;quot;It was the house both of us had always wanted,&amp;quot; says Kathy.      The kitchen&amp;#039;s comfortable new seating area had been the family room, separated from kitchen by an outsize, chalet-style island. The brass fireplace hood, original to the structure, was repaired, cleaned, then reinstalled with a new fireslate surround.   A wine cooler and an ice machine, both across from the sink, help the Taylors keep the cold beverages flowing.    But there was a major drawback. A gloomy kitchen-cum-family room at the rear of the first floor, haphazardly redone in the 1970s with a lumbering, chalet-style island separating the two areas, desperately needed an overhaul. So the couple poured their resources into this 325-square-foot space, ending up with one bright, streamlined kitchen that includes a comfy sitting area. &amp;quot;Our main goal was to use the space better,&amp;quot; says Mike. &amp;quot;The [old] island took up a lot of space.&amp;quot; Extending to the ceiling, it had molding that protruded dangerously at eye level, and its wiring was outdated. &amp;quot;We wanted a room that we could live in comfortably but not compromise the [house&amp;#039;s] historical nature,&amp;quot; adds Kathy.      Salvaged heart pine floors set off the cobalt blue kitchen island.   A rolling library ladder runs along a stainless rail, providing access to ceiling-height cabinets in the seating area of the new kitchen.      Click here to see the floor plans \u2026Continued in the November 2003 issue of Home Magazine "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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