From Bethesda Magazine: How to reimagine a 1950s kitchen

A Kensington family expanded their cooking area without an addition to the house

By Jennifer Barger

April 7, 2026 3:00 p.m. | Updated: April 7, 2026 2:38 p.m.

1950s Rambler kitchen — A small appliance garage hides behind a sliding door in the backsplash. Photo credit: Stacy Zarin Goldberg

This story is a part two of a three-part series on home renovations from Bethesda Magazine. Check out part one here.

When the rambler now owned by Dan and Anne Batlle was built in 1954, it starred the snug, closed-off rooms that were in fashion during the Eisenhower era. But the couple, both lawyers in their 50s, wanted more space and storage in the kitchen of the Kensington house they had lived in since 2015. The kitchen was small and awkward, with narrow doors connecting it to a dining room and a sunroom. And a tiny study next to the kitchen was walled off from the rest of the space. “We just called it Eva’s Lego room for years,” says Dan, referring to their now 16-year-old daughter.

The Batlles hired Chevy Chase interior designer Christie Leu to bring the first level of their four-bedroom, 3½-bathroom home into the 21st century. The challenge? Creating a more expansive feel in the kitchen and the rest of the first floor without putting an addition onto the nearly 3,000-square-foot home. “It was all chopped up before, with limited counter space and little storage,” Leu says. “So we started by taking down the wall between the study and the kitchen.”

With the wall down, Leu had more floor space to play with in the kitchen, meaning the study could transform into a breakfast nook and wet bar. For the working part of the kitchen, the Batlles chose cabinets in glazed white oak from Weaver’s Custom Woodworking in Pennsylvania and countertops and backsplashes in a black shade of Dekton, an engineered stone.

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To the right of a new 36-inch GE six-burner induction stove, Leu hid an appliance garage behind a sliding panel in the heat-resistant Dekton backsplash. The range hood was covered in reeded wood, matching the cabinets.

On the west side of the kitchen, a small section of cabinets was installed with a lowered countertop and a cabinet concealing a KitchenAid mixer on a hydraulic lift that slides out and pops up. “That area is basically given over to Eva and her baking,” Ann says.

A rectangular island at the center of the kitchen has a contrasting “Calacatta Valentin” quartz by MSI Surfaces and a base painted in Benjamin Moore’s “Blue Note”—a moody shade evoking the era when the home was built. That same navy paint also coats built-in bookcases in the kitchen and behind the table in the adjoining breakfast room where Eva once assembled Lego.

Leu also widened the doorways from the kitchen to the dining room at the back of the house and a sunporch on the south side of the kitchen. New picture windows were added to the sunporch and breakfast room. “This meant all this light comes in and the entire space now has great sight lines,” Leu says.

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The breakfast nook is equipped with a marble-top, brass-base oval “Nero” table from Crate & Barrel, a built-in banquet upholstered in more shades of blue, and a cone-shaped “Anello” pendant light from Rejuvenation.

1950s Rambler bathroom — The powder room received a glow-up with new wallpaper and a custom vanity. Photo credit: Stacy Zarin Goldberg

Leu also gave a glow-up to the dated, narrow powder room just off the breakfast nook. She wallpapered the room in Rifle Paper’s whimsical green and pink “Peacock” and designed a custom sink vanity with a curved base that flows into a narrow side counter with shelves. “Before, it was literally just a basin sink with no space for towels or anything,” Ann says. “Now it’s so stylish that my friends threaten to hang out just in there.”

The once-frumpy sunporch next to the kitchen morphed into a chic den and TV-watching area with new outsize windows. It’s kitted out for family time with an Ambella sectional sofa covered in navy fabric, a burled wood coffee table, and a vintage chaise re-covered in retro pink.

The whole project was completed in early 2025. “Now we spend all our time in these rooms, like it’s a big apartment,” Dan says. “It’s all more connected and a magnetic place to be.”

This appears in the March/April 2026 issue of Bethesda Magazine.

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Originally published at Bethesdamagazine