Eclectic Mix

When Ana Marie Cox—Washington editor of Radar magazine and creator of the Wonkette Web site—and husband Chris Lehmann bought their 1920s house in DC’s Brightwood, the first order of business was to overhaul the kitchen. Lehmann, a senior editor at Congressional Quarterly, does most of the cooking, but Cox had a few requests of her own for Alexandria architect Benjamin Ames and interior designer Marnie Kenney. Several walls were removed to incorporate two closets and a mudroom and to connect the kitchen to the breakfast room, study, and dining room. Doing so made room for Cox’s priorities, a combined TV and computer terminal and a second sink.

To keep the project affordable, Ames says, “we mixed it up with custom and off-the-shelf pieces”—such as Ikea cabinets and Calacatta-marble countertops. The marble can stain, but Lehmann takes that in stride as “part of the happy squalor of making and eating food.”

Cox chose the tiles for the floor and backsplash. “Green is Ana’s favorite color, so the palette was rather nonnegotiable,” says Lehmann. Kenney found stainless-steel open shelves—not visible in these photos—at a medical-supply store. “I am Ana’s polar opposite when it comes to domestic order,” says Lehmann, “so we wanted a versatile and open main shelving area to accommodate the pots and pans that saw the heaviest rotation.”

Says Ames: “It’s a nice eclectic mix of modern details and warm, almost Craftsman-style details.”