Tessa Tillett just bought her first home. The recent graduate is a freelance photographer who captures the moment at weddings and events, so she wanted the house she bought to have plenty of light.
“When I was looking at the house I knew I would have to renovate the kitchen,” she said. “The rest of the house has 10-foot ceilings, but the kitchen had only 8-foot ceilings. It had only two tiny windows in the kitchen, and It was dark and so I knew I wanted to replace the side windows and lift up the ceiling.”
She got a design idea while house shopping: a skylight in the kitchen of another home she bid on, but didn’t get.
“I thought the skylight was cool,” she said. “I watch a lot of home makeover shows. There was going to be a lot of white ceiling and I wanted something more interesting.”
So, with friends and family helping out, she took sledgehammer in hand and demolished the old kitchen. She added new cabinets painted deep navy blue, hung a mustard yellow sliding door into the adjoining laundry room, installed butcher block countertops and an oversized subway tile backsplash.
After creating a vaulted ceiling, she had two VELUX fixed skylights installed in the kitchen.
She found a modern, geometric light fixture on Etsy and contacted the maker to have two more designed in triangle and tetrahedron shapes. The light fixtures hang in either side of the skylights.
The house was built around 1900, and the rest of it is very old, original hardwood and big windows. Tillett wanted the kitchen to blend in while adding a touch of modern to her new home. The skylights help the kitchen stay bright throughout the day.
“I get so many different shadows throughout the day,” she said. “I’m a photographer and I’m obsessed with light and natural light especially. It was important for me to have tons of natural light coming in.
The cool thing is the sun rises on the front of the house and sets on the back of the house, where the kitchen is located,” she added. “So, even in the morning, I get some light in there.”
