photograph courtesy renovate memphis
A wide view of Teresa Liles’ new pet project, a spacious kitchen complete with a Three Little Pigs centerpiece where a carport once stood.
Picturing a kitchen in place of a carport is something “a lot of people could not imagine,” says Dewayne Gammel, owner of Renovate Memphis, yet he’s recently worked closely with Liles to do just that. “Most people can’t envision something that’s not there. It’s different when you do a refreshed kitchen, or something where a kitchen’s already there. You’re putting in new countertops, new cabinets, whatever. But to put one in that didn’t exist before, it’s hard for people to envision it.”
With the help of Renovate Memphis, though, Liles was able to make the leap of faith that her dream kitchen could be a reality. “That’s the whole reason design services are so popular,” says Gammel, as Liles nods in agreement, “because we can give you a 3D rendering of this before we ever do construction.”
In Liles’ case, that meant carefully reviewing the plans before destruction: Most of her home needed a complete rethinking, from the inside out, including substantial demolition. That was in part due to the age of the building. “I was born in this house,” says Liles. “The house was built in 1957, and when my folks died I bought my brothers out — though I lived in Colorado — in case I ever needed it. I rented it out for a while. Then Covid happened, and I’m getting older, so I just decided to come back, because here, my brother lives only a mile away. So I came back and then we did this.” She gestures around the house, indicating just how much of it has been renovated. The kitchen was only one part of a massive project.
photograph courtesy renovate memphis
The home’s small original kitchen was completely removed to create more living room area.
A Whole-House Remodel
“This house is a new house except for the studs on the outside wall,” says Liles. One indication of that is the sheer openness of the space once you walk in the front door. A dining area near the entrance opens to the living area with a couch and chairs, a glass cabinet displaying quilts that Liles’ mother made, and large double doors leading to the back patio and yard. To the left, these spaces segue into a generous kitchen space, glowing warm with green and beige, bedecked with wall-to-wall counters and a large island in the center. Combined, the three “rooms” together comprise a single great room with an area of more than 600 square feet.
Such spaciousness, unbroken by any supporting walls, was the first step towards realizing what is now the home’s crown jewel: the kitchen of Liles’ dreams. “We did all this,” she says, surveying her “new” home, “but the kitchen was my main focus.”
That first required taking out the old kitchen, which, true to design trends of the 1950s, occupied a small corner of what’s now the living room. All signs of it are gone now, replaced by the sitting area, its windows and doors revealing the back yard. Rebuilding the living and dining spaces was a prerequisite for building the new kitchen, and that in turn required some advanced carpentry.
photograph courtesy renovate memphis
Tucked under the island, the book shelf lends a homey touch. On the other end of the island is the dishwasher, facing the kitchen sink.
As Gammel explains, two LVL (laminated veneer lumber) load-bearing beams were the key to such a long ceiling span. “They’re intersecting each other, and their tension strength is a lot higher — that’s the reason she doesn’t have any walls in here at all,” he says. “That causes some challenges. But the framers that I used and Renovate Memphis know what we’re doing at this point.”
It was all part of the whole-house project, as the pre-existing wall once marking the edge of the carport had to be demolished, the foundation had to be extended, and new walls had to be framed. Yet that was in keeping with the complete modernization of the house Liles was born in.
“It’s a 1957 house,” she says. “So I’m coming back here, retired. I didn’t want to worry about maintenance. So we ripped every piece of sheetrock off, pulled all the old wires, all the old everything, and rewired the whole thing, replumbed it, re-ran the gas lines. New windows, new insulation, and new flooring in the attic.”
As Gammel points out, the new insulation was important. “In the ’50s there was a transition from plaster walls to sheetrock walls, and plaster didn’t have insulation in the walls. So the house was drafty. Being able to pull all the walls off and run new everything provided for a more efficient house.”
photograph courtesy renovate memphis
A flexible faucet above the Thermador range allows for filling pots directly while cooking.
The Main Attraction
After all this work, bringing “new everything” to the entire home, work on the kitchen itself could begin in earnest. And that final project was, in a way, an expression of all Liles had learned in a lifetime of cooking. Before returning home, she’d enjoyed a kitchen with larger, more modern dimensions, and wanted to build on that. “I had a fairly big kitchen in Colorado, but it wasn’t new and updated. I had updated it cosmetically, partially to live there and partially to sell it.” Working with that knowledge while remodeling her Memphis home, “I kind of built this,” she says. “Dwayne and I brainstormed a lot. How to lay it out…”
“More of the functionality of it,” adds Gammel.
“Working with Dwayne was good,” says Lyles. “If there was something I didn’t like, he came in and changed it. If we had any problems, he came over and made sure they were taken care of. So working with him was a really good experience.”
Gesturing to the kitchen, she says, “And this is what I came up with.” “Space” is the operative word, with acres of counter space on the central island and lining the kitchen’s perimeter. The countertops also catch the eye with the natural elegance of the quartzite they’re made of. Not only is the material a cheaper alternative to marble, “I wanted quartzite because I like the veining,” says Liles.
Gammel notes how deeply involved Liles was in the aesthetics of the space. “It was 100 percent her eye in the design aspect. She was dead-set on her quartzite countertops. And she selected every color, every piece of hardware, the backsplash. I mean, all of that. We provided the birch cabinets, which is a higher-end cabinet. So they’re made a little bit more sturdily, bringing a little bit more of a higher class to the to the cabinet. And then it just all came together.”
photograph courtesy renovate memphis
The new kitchen has plenty of storage space, including pull-out doors to hold spices.
Yet it came together rather slowly, due to Liles’ uncompromising eye, and her patience while searching for elements that were complementary. The choice of cabinets dictated the colors of everything else that followed.
“I mean, I got ahead of the curve!” says Liles. “This kitchen was my main focus of the house. So I was really on top of what I wanted in here. The cabinets we bought, ordered, and had months before we ever needed them. And I had the stove in my storage building outside before we even started the kitchen.”
“They’re painted cabinets,” Gammel adds. “But they also have a black glaze on top of them, which gives them more of an antique look. And inside the cabinets there’s some bells and whistles to her liking. The soft-close drawers and doors. The garbage can that pulls out, and some rollout trays.”
“And I’ve got a pull-out spice drawer that I really like,” says Liles. “It’s not the tall skinny kind like you see all the time. This is one of those double-wide pull-out drawers, where the spices are laying in there at an angle, and then underneath is room for more backup stuff.”
photograph courtesy renovate memphis
A former carport has been transformed into a spacious, light-filled kitchen.
Then came the wait for the countertop. “The countertop was at the place where they cut it to size for months.” More months of waiting ensued during and after that, chiefly because, as Liles says, “I couldn’t find the tile.”
In this case, calling the tile a “backsplash” is an understatement. Where that feature would typically go up the wall a couple of feet behind the counter, this is a wall of tiles that reaches to the ceiling. Not only do their colors complement all the other elements, the tiles also bring an Old World charm to the kitchen.
“The tile was a nightmare!” Liles says now. “I struggled. I don’t know how many tile samples I ordered before I ran across this one, and I thought ‘This has every color. It’s got my green, it’s got my cream, and it’s got the black accents.”
photograph courtesy renovate memphis
Cutting the countetop was a special challenge, but Liles is very pleased with the result.
“Yeah, I think we went through like 10 samples,” Gammel chimes in.
“Well, I looked at stuff you never knew about!” Liles tells him. “I probably looked at double that, that you never even saw.”
Meanwhile, other bells and whistles were being built into the space. Over the Thermador gas stove hangs a faucet dedicated to filling pots directly where they’ll be used. The stove itself, as well as the lights and other appliances, can all be controlled by her phone via WiFi. The dishwasher, also remotely controlled by phone, is built into the large central island, behind the sink rather than next to it, making for an easy load-in while freeing up cabinet space under the wall counter. Despite such modern conveniences, the kitchen chiefly suggests tradition. The lighting fixtures over the island evoke carriage house lanterns, reinforcing the Old World feel.
That’s exactly what Liles wanted, as the warm colors and details lend themselves to entertaining friends and family in an ambiance of old-fashioned sentiment. And since the kitchen was completed, that’s just what she’s been doing.
“I’m starting to cook again, because I love cooking on my stove!” she says. And with cooking comes company, who all respond the same way. “Everybody that comes in the front door looks at the kitchen and just stops. Everybody that has visited me is like, ‘Wow!’ over the kitchen!”
Learn more at renovatememphis.com.
