Command Performance

Written by Theresa McTammany • Styled by Arden Nelson
Photographed by Kate Roth

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After years orchestrating meals in a compact galley, when it came time for Janet Weinberg to upgrade her kitchen, she refused to settle for a cookie-cutter remodel. "I love to cook and I'm passionate about food," says Janet, who, in addition to her duties as wife and mother of two, is pursuing a culinary arts degree and plays viola with the local symphony. Training and experience have taught her what works in a kitchen and what doesn't, so she wanted the foodie's equivalent of Carnegie Hall—a space fine-tuned specifically to her needs.

When the family moved to Highland Park, Illinois, she brainstormed with kitchen designer Theresa Sterbis, of Project Partners Inc. in Prospect Heights, Illinois, to come up with a new kitchen from scratch. "It had to be beautiful as well as functional," says Sterbis, a former engineer whose spaceplanning skills proved a plus in drafting the 300-square-foot, U-shaped plan.

Since Janet craved color—her former kitchen was a failed experiment in all white—she selected a sage paint finish for the recessed-panel cabinets. "I read it is associated with calmness and tranabove: quility," she says of the soft grayish green shade. "I knew I was going to be spending a lot of hours in here."

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