The kitchen, scullery, and dining room run across the back of the Scout House, and I designed them to work as one continuous space. The dining table sits right in the middle of the kitchen because I didn’t want a formal dining room. And I decided to leave the scullery open, letting that unexpected pop of color become part of the view. Here’s how these spaces came to life:
 

One kitchen, three distinct spaces

The work in this kitchen is spread out instead of stacked into one corner, and that was a very intentional decision I made.
 

The island is the first zone, with the range, hood, sink, and dishwasher right in the middle of the room. Along the wall of windows is a second setup with another sink and dishwasher, plus the full-size refrigerator. The scullery at the end is the third. Each has its own purpose, which means three people can be cooking, prepping, or cleaning without getting in each other’s way. It sounds like a small thing until it’s Thanksgiving.
 

I also added built-ins next to the refrigerator that gave me a chance to incorporate open shelving into the prep area. It created a place to display special pieces of china, favorite cookbooks, and other collected pieces, while keeping them close to where we actually use them.
 

One feature I’m so glad I added is two dishwashers. When you’re entertaining, the last thing you want is a sink full of dirty dishes sitting in the middle of the party. Load one, close it, and the other is ready for whatever comes next.
 

Inside the kitchen cabinetry, I added pull-outs on both sides of the range for spices, knives, and utensils, with towers on either side of the hood for plates. Even the paper towel holder is built into the island, so there’s no roll sitting on the counter. These are the details you don’t notice in a photograph, but they’re exactly what allows the counters to stay clear.
 

The island is eleven feet and it seats five. I put wipeable leather on the stools, because homework and cocktails happen on the same surface.
 

The scullery has no doors, and that was on purpose
 

The question I ask in every room is simple: Do I want to see this, or do I want it tucked away? I wanted the scullery to be seen. The unexpected color and contrast add something to the kitchen, so closing it off would have taken away one of the details that gives the space its personality.

I pictured the scullery as part of the gathering; food and drinks set out, someone popping in to make a cocktail while everyone else stayed in the kitchen. The main kitchen is a creamy white, so leaving the scullery open gave me the chance to bring in an unexpected pop of color and let it become part of the view.
 

The scullery does a lot of the work behind the scenes. I put in two True Caliber refrigerator drawers for extra cold storage, an ice maker for entertaining, and the microwave, which meant it never had to take up valuable cabinet space in the main kitchen. I chose the ice maker in olive first, then color-matched the cabinetry to it. That’s my trick with a colored appliance: match to it, don’t decorate around it.
 

I decided to use only base cabinets in here—no uppers. The Marvin windows were too beautiful to give up for storage I didn’t need, especially with the pantry right behind me.
 

I think sculleries work best when they have a purpose. I didn’t need a second kitchen hiding behind the first one. I wanted a pantry that could handle the small appliances, extra refrigeration, drinks, and some of the overflow when we entertain. This one could stay open because of where it sits in the floor plan and what you see from the kitchen. 

The pantry is the room I actually hid

The pantry sits just beyond the sightline, revealing itself only as you come around the corner, which is exactly how I wanted it.
 

It wraps the scullery in a U, so when you turn around from the scullery counter all the dry storage is right behind you. The small appliances live in there within reach of that counter instead of out on the kitchen counters. The stand mixer comes out, gets used, goes back.
 

The best decision in that room is the door to the garage. Groceries come out of the trunk, through the door and into the pantry without ever crossing the kitchen. If you have ever carried a Costco run through a kitchen while somebody was cooking in it, you know exactly why that door is there.
 

A cased opening connects the two rooms, so the working one is visible and the food storage is not. That is the whole layout in a sentence, and it is the reason the open scullery works here.

Everyone told me the refrigerator was too far from the range

The one thing almost everyone questioned when I shared the floor plan was the placement of the refrigerator. It felt too far from the range and sink.
 

But, that decision was intentional. The countertop along the windows, right next to the refrigerator, is the prep area. Everything gets pulled out and prepped there, then moves to the range for cooking. The refrigerator doesn’t need to sit next to the range for the kitchen to work well.
 

Distance is relative, too. I’ve been in much larger kitchens where you’d walk farther to reach the refrigerator and no one would think twice about its placement. What matters more to me is how people move through the space. I don’t want someone reaching past me for a drink while I’m standing at the range.
 

That’s why I don’t think every kitchen has to follow the traditional work triangle. A floor plan can tell you where everything sits, but it can’t tell you exactly how the room will feel or how people will move through it. Understanding that difference is part of what a designer brings to the plan.
 

The dining room is in the kitchen, and it is the only one

I chose this floor plan specifically because the dining is in the kitchen and there is no separate formal dining room.
 

We used the square footage that would have been the formal dining room to get the sunroom at the end of the house instead. We could not have both, and I would give up a formal dining room for a more closed off space like that sunroom every time.
 

One of the most common complaints we hear from clients is that their formal dining room never gets used, or that it becomes the room where the boxes go, because it usually sits right off the front door. A UCLA study of real families found the same thing at a larger scale. Households use roughly 40 percent of their floor plan, and the formal dining and living rooms are the ones barely touched.
 

I want people to feel like they have permission not to build one.
 

It is not a downgrade. The room takes a nine foot table, and the island seats five more, so you can host a real crowd. I ran vertical tongue and groove and added beams through this space so it reads polished enough for a dinner party instead of feeling like you are eating in the kitchen. The chairs are mixed rather than bought as a set, with two end chairs slightly different from the rest. Everything at that table is a high performance fabric, because this room gets used every day, not twice a year.
 

Creamy white, which gave me a warm foundation for the rest of the home.

All the cabinetry is a creamy white, and that was deliberate. This was a spec house, and I wanted the kitchen to feel classic and timeless, especially knowing I was making bolder choices elsewhere.
 

When I think about how long a kitchen has to last, white is hard to beat. But I didn’t want the bright, crisp white you see everywhere right now. I went creamier and softer—a more lived-in white. I have a painted kitchen in my own home that I love, and I still wouldn’t have done it here.
 

The island is a dark stain pulled directly from the deeper variation in the white oak floors, and I carried that same tone up to the stair rail. That’s how I like to mix wood tones: pull the second tone from something that already exists rather than introducing a new one from nowhere.
 

The wallpaper in the scullery brings the green into the space in a completely different way. I originally specified a tapestry paper, but it went on backorder. The Schumacher pattern that replaced it ended up being softer—and better.
 

The materials needed to feel as timeless as the architecture.

I loved that the entire main floor has ten-foot ceilings. There’s a tendency to think higher is always better, but I wanted the intimacy and proportion these ceilings give the rooms. It feels classic and right for this house.
 

The countertops are Taj Mahal quartzite. I think of natural stone almost like art. It was formed in the earth, no two pieces are exactly alike, and it only gets better as it becomes part of the life of a home.
 

The back of the house is where everybody ends up anyway

The window run in here has room for a two by three butcher block. We did not put one in, and I still love that the space is there for it, because a butcher block is the thing I grew up gathering around. Nobody stands around an island the way they stand around a butcher block.
 

That is really what all of this is for. Three zones so more than one person can cook at the same time. Two dishwashers so the night does not stall at the sink. A scullery you can see into because somebody is going to be in there making a drink. A table in the middle of the kitchen because that is where everyone was going to end up regardless of what the floor plan called it.
 

Your house should be used, not just stared at.
 

FAQs
 

What is a scullery?
A scullery is a pantry with small appliances in it. It is a small room off the main kitchen that takes the prep, the microwave and the coffee maker, and often refrigerator drawers or a second sink. In the Scout House it holds two refrigerator drawers, an ice maker and the microwave, and I left it without doors.

What is the difference between a scullery and a butler's pantry?
A butler's pantry sits between the kitchen and the dining room and holds serveware, glassware and china for the table. A scullery sits off the kitchen and does the actual work: prep, small appliances, sometimes dishes. One is a staging room for serving. The other is a working room.

Do you need a scullery if you already have a walk-in pantry?
They do different jobs. A pantry holds dry food storage, and a scullery gives you counter space and appliances outside the main kitchen. In the Scout House the two connect through a cased opening, so the working room stays visible and the food storage stays out of sight.
 

Is combining the kitchen and dining room a good idea?
In most houses being built now, yes. Clients tell us constantly that their formal dining room goes unused. In the Scout House the table sits in the kitchen, and the square footage a formal dining room would have taken became a sunroom instead. Beams and vertical paneling keep it from reading like eating in the kitchen.

Are two dishwashers worth it?
If you entertain, yes. You load and close one while the second keeps taking plates, so a sink full of dirty dishes never sits in the middle of the party. In the Scout House one is in the island and the other is on the window run with the second sink.

What are kitchen work zones?
Work zones split a kitchen up by job instead of clustering everything around one sink. In the Scout House there are three: the island with the range and hood, the window run with the prep sink and the refrigerator, and the scullery at the end. Three people can work at once without crossing each other.

How big does a scullery need to be?
Smaller than you think. I am not a fan of the second kitchen that is as big as the first one, where the mess lives in the back so the front can stay pristine. A scullery is a pantry with small appliances in it. It needs a counter, the appliances you want off your main counters, and not much else.
 

Does a scullery need doors?
Not necessarily, and I did not put them on. I ask on every room like this whether you are going to hide it or you want to see it, and I was fine seeing this one. It works open because the floor plan puts the pantry behind it, so the food storage still stays out of view.

What should go in a walk-in pantry?
Dry food storage, and the small appliances you do not want living on your counters. In the Scout House the pantry wraps around the scullery in a U, so the stand mixer comes out, gets used on the scullery counter, and goes right back. There is also a door straight to the garage for groceries.

Is Taj Mahal quartzite a good countertop?
Taj Mahal is on every counter in the Scout House kitchen. I think about natural stone as art. It was formed in the earth, and it wears well over time, which matters in a kitchen that gets used every day. Its movement is soft enough that the counters never compete with anything else in the room.

What is the best white for kitchen cabinets?
Creamier than you think. In the Scout House all the cabinetry is a soft, lived in white rather than the bright crisp white everybody is doing right now. When I think about how long a kitchen has to last, white is the safest color there is, and a warmer white ages better than a stark one.


How do you mix wood tones in a kitchen?
Pull the second tone out of the first one instead of introducing a third from nowhere. In the Scout House the island is a dark stain I took straight from the darker variation already in the white oak floors, then carried up to the stair rail. Everything agrees because it all came from the floor.