A kitchen renovation grounded in trust and really great color

Project overview: A family of five needed a kitchen that could keep up with them: two IU psychology professors, three high schoolers, a serious cooking habit, a small army of countertop appliances, and more houseplants than most people own in a lifetime. The bones of the older East Side home were good — tall shuttered windows, crown molding, a dining room one doorway away — but the kitchen was cramped, the pantry was a coat closet down the hall, and the counter space had long since lost the battle with the KitchenAid.

Client description: These clients gave us something rarer and more valuable than a big budget or a blank slate: they gave us their complete trust. They knew what they liked (their nightly conversations over dishes, and their flame-colored le creuset collection), told us clearly, and got out of the way. They didn't even visit the stone yard to approve the slab — they looked at our photos, trusted our read, and said yes. That kind of confidence is what allows great design to happen. More than square footage or investment level or architectural constraints, trust is the ingredient that makes a kitchen beautiful.

Design solutions: The tall shuttered windows stayed — too lovely to touch, and the plants needed them — so we tucked drawers beneath each one and let the home's traditional bones lead: crown molding, original hardwood floors, grasscloth wainscoting. The palette emerged, navy below, crisp white above, a two-tone strategy that grounds the color while drawing the eye upward, making a modest kitchen feel larger than it is. Against variably-sized white tile with dark grout, it delivers exactly the punch the clients wanted — vibrant and traditional at once, right at home in an older Bloomington house and unlike anyone else's kitchen. Warm wood and color pull the contrast back from the edge: oak stools with plaid cushions, a built-in wine rack, a butcher block that looks integrated but isn't, ochre-capped pendants, and a plaid runner tying mustard, olive, and blue together at floor level. Every finish chosen, nothing defaulted.

The island kept its sink and its two levels, because those weren't aesthetic decisions — they were relational ones. When the cooking is done, the cook sits at the high counter on her stool while her husband does the dishes on the other side. Eye to eye. End of day. Good design doesn't redesign what's already working. The appliances got a dedicated counter run with a dramatic veined stone backslab — all accessible, all looking intentional rather than tolerated. And on the sunny wall by the window: cutting boards, a rolling pin, and a beautiful straw broom hung like sculpture in the afternoon light. No one staged that. That's just a household that knows how to live.

Outcomes & testimonials: "Susan Yeley Homes was wonderful to work with. Clear, professional, and fully engaged in the process. Susan and the team created such a great design for our kitchen and we are very excited with how the renovation went. The kitchen is fantastic!"

A Bloomington home with five people, a hundred plants, and a kitchen that finally fits the life being lived in it — colorful, functional, and completely, unmistakably theirs.