Designer Madeleine Sloback’s Favourite Room

By Kristin Doucet | 2 minute read

What and where is your favourite room? 

The heart of any home — the kitchen! I love to entertain, so I knew I wanted a large enough kitchen to be able to seat large groups so we can comfortably host our families and friends together. I also love the view out to my backyard, where I can see my kids playing. If I’m in the kitchen preparing a meal, I still feel like I get to enjoy what they are busy doing outside. I also have a beautiful view of my garden, my favourite outdoor space.

What was the inspiration behind creating the room? 

The original home is a 1980s Rancher that we extensively renovated. My inspiration was to create a timeless coastal aesthetic that would blend with the existing architecture of the home, adding modern features to help bring it into the 21st century. I love incorporating coastal design into our projects and I was so excited to be able to apply it to my own home.

Vancouver designer Madeleine Sloback melds functionality with a coastal aesthetic to create a stunning kitchen for entertaining friends and family.

What were the challenges in creating this room and how did you overcome them?

The existing kitchen was very small and closed off to the rest of the home. There was a wall that ran down the middle of the house, separating the kitchen and living room, and another wall with a small entry off the dining room into the kitchen. We decided to vault the existing 8’ ceilings to make the space feel even larger than it would just by taking down the walls, but that posed structural challenges. Those challenges were overcome by installing a new ridge beam that ran the length of the half of the house we vaulted, supporting it on footings in the crawlspace. With the new vault of the ceiling and the layout needed for the kitchen, the millwork was designed to balance the sloped ceiling while still maximizing storage potential.

Sloback opened up the first floor of her Rancher home to create a larger space that combines the kitchen and living room.

What are your favourite features of the room?

I love my prep area with the additional sink. It also allows me to look out into the yard to see my boys playing. I also love the appliances we selected. We use our 24” Miele convection steam oven for everyday use but have the 36” Fulgor induction range for large gatherings and different types of oven cooking. 

The kitchen’s prep area looks out onto Sloback’s garden where she can watch her children playing in the yard while preparing meals.

How does this room make you feel?

This room makes me feel happy (especially when it’s clean!), but I also love when it’s filled with people and a complete disaster. I love waking up and turning the corner down the hall to see my beautiful kitchen. The design aesthetic perfectly represents me and everything I love, and the fact that it’s so functional is what we’re all about at Madeleine Design Group. We create beautiful and functional homes that represent our clients’ individual styles and personalities, and I get to live it!

Describe a favourite moment in this room.

I have so many! Our first memory in our finished kitchen was hosting 25 of our closest friends for “Friendsmas.” We were just wrapping up our renovation and were spending our first night in the house. My husband was feverishly installing cabinet handles on the doors while I unpacked  boxes into the cabinets the morning of the party. We successfully hosted dinner that night and utilized all the kitchen’s hosting potential! It was a blast.