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"VIEW MORE PHOTOS    Rural California homes from the 1880s have many attributes worth preserving\u2014it was still Victorian times, after all, and the characteristic soaring ceilings, plentiful windows and architectural charm have persisted. History is less kind, however, to their increasingly unusable kitchens. So although Kerry and Don Davison wanted to keep the farmhouse spirit alive in their home in Penngrove, about 45 miles north of San Francisco, the kitchen required a complete revamping that eventually called for a home addition to double the room&amp;#039;s diminutive 19th-century footprint. Kerry says she hesitated to remodel the kitchen because she was afraid it could come off as historically inauthentic. She ultimately entrusted the project to her sister and architect, Colleen Mahoney, AIA, of Mahoney Architects and Interiors in Tiburon, California. Everyone&amp;#039;s happy with the results. The old kitchen suffered the standard maladies of limited size and a countertop deficit. The room was so small, in fact, that it technically didn&amp;#039;t have a refrigerator in it. &amp;quot;The refrigerator was in the mudroom,&amp;quot; Kerry says. &amp;quot;The house was built in the days of the ice box, before electric refrigerators.&amp;quot; The cabinets had been painted so many times they didn&amp;#039;t close. The quest for authenticity meant Mahoney couldn&amp;#039;t just blow out a wall, drop in a new kitchen and put a roof over it. For starters, Kerry insisted on keeping the old vintage stove, even though its oven is impractical for everyday use. That required adding a modern oven to the new kitchen. The stove teams up with a massive workstation to anchor the design. &amp;quot;We had the cabinetmaker create a center island in a natural finish with a granite top,&amp;quot; Mahoney says. &amp;quot;With the wood frame and stone top, it&amp;#039;s heavy enough that you would never move it, but it looks like a piece of furniture.&amp;quot; Kerry says the granite was the easiest decision she made in the design process, probably because of the distinctive burgundy vein running through the slab. That color picks up on the brilliant, tomato-soup-red wall opposite the main kitchen\u2014also Kerry&amp;#039;s idea. &amp;quot;When my sister told me that was the color she was going to use, I was afraid we weren&amp;#039;t going to be able to pull it off,&amp;quot; Mahoney says. &amp;quot;Now I can&amp;#039;t imagine the wall without it.&amp;quot; A local woodworking shop built the cabinets in an era-appropriate style, and a friend of Kerry&amp;#039;s handled the custom finishing. &amp;quot;We wanted it to look old,&amp;quot; Kerry says, &amp;quot;so we had the cabinets distressed.&amp;quot; The wood floor, like the stove, is a holdover from the original kitchen, but that&amp;#039;s only half of that story. Mahoney and company scavenged wood from outbuildings on the property to use in the addition. A specialty hardwood-floor contractor came in to finish and interweave the reclaimed wood with the existing floor. Kerry&amp;#039;s big fear in approving an addition was squaring it with the steep incline of the roof. Mahoney found a solution. &amp;quot;Fortunately,&amp;quot; she says, &amp;quot;the house has a front porch that has a lower pitch to its roof. So we were able to match that lower pitch and still get that great Victorian ceiling height.&amp;quot; In many ways, Mahoney found and disguised the seam between historical accuracy and function. In so doing, she made her sister&amp;#039;s home superior, both inside and out. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elledecor.com/design-decorate/room-ideas/a1167/farm-follows-function-33000/>