Using current fashions and styles rather than something tried and true (or in context with your home) as the basis for an expensive remodel is almost always a bad idea. But unfortunately, many designers only care about the surface - that is, they forget that design is about making the useful accessible, and creating spaces and objects that just work. They lose sight of context, tradition and historic preservation issues just to pad their bottom line and keep up with the newest and best materials and styles - and of course to add to their own portfolios.

Terri Sapienza's article in the Arizona Republic purportedly details a "meeting of the minds" between a designer/client and an architect/designer, but ends up being about how ego and a "need" for it to be expressed by one party sublimated another. I'm glad both parties are happy with the result. Of course, I'm orthodox about this sort of thing; there's nothing stupider than designing and ultra-modern Asian glass and lacquer kitchen for a classic Craftsman bungalow.

Originally, Gilmer planned a classic bungalow kitchen. Then Gardner, who had worked on the house's first minor interior renovations three years before Gilmer owned it, helped Gilmer recognize her fondness for contemporary design, and the remodel went from Arts and Crafts to Asian and modern. "It was an immediate meeting of the minds," Gardner said. "We were instinctively on the same page, broadening the ideas of the original project visually, functionally and structurally."

Gilmer said it would cost about $105,000 to replicate her kitchen/butler's pantry.