French glass doors to the new deck fill the kitchen with natural light. The space is chic and modern with white cabinets, white quartz countertops, and herringbone backsplash tiles. The large island provides seating for the whole family.
New glass front cabinets house Katie’s collection of vintage glass dishes. The blue ones are from the ’60s and they’re called Capri glass. Those rosacea are depression glass.
Hilary Levine, Post-Dispatch
Wirths has kept all of the original woodwork and door frames she could, but she “reflected” the traditional style by painting the walls white and dark gray throughout the main floor.
Hilary Levine, Post-Dispatch
The spacious new deck off the kitchen is a favorite place to relax and entertain. Previously, the house only had a small rickety staircase that led to the backyard.
Hilary Levine, Post-Dispatch
Katie says this gorgeous 8-inch hexagonal tile from Spain proves that you can make a statement even in a small space. Its shade of blue helped dictate other design choices throughout the main floor.
Hilary Levine, Post-Dispatch
The new kitchen and dining room opens onto the original living room. During the renovations, Wirths revealed a pair of small stained glass windows in the living room that were enclosed in a wall. Katie’s father made new glass inserts for them with a tulip pattern. A new blue section from Crate & Barrel matches antique tables from Future Antiques.
Hilary Levine, Post-Dispatch
When they purchased the house, Katie and Jonathan moved into the smaller of the two bedrooms on the main floor where they planned to convert the original master into a new kitchen.
Hilary Levine, Post-Dispatch
Once the kitchen was moved, Wirths wasn’t sure what to do with the tiny space she was taking up at the back of the house. After working remotely throughout the pandemic, they decided it would make a good office space for Jonathan, providing some privacy and a small window for natural light. The framed drawings above the desk are by two different professors that Katie and Jonathan studied under their supervision at the University of Kansas, where they met at architecture school and photographed scenes from the campus.
Hilary Levine, Post-Dispatch
By Amy Burger Special for Post-Dispatch
It often takes a strong vision to see the potential in an older home with an imperfect design. For Jonathan and Katie Wirth, having degrees in architecture allowed them to imagine what their 1928 Kirkwood home might have been like. Katie noticed the house, located in the Corona Park neighborhood, listed online in early 2015, but it quickly fell out of favor. market. It was re-listed in April of that year, and she quickly contacted her real estate agent.
Katie and Jonathan Wirth remodeled the first floor of their old home in Kirkwood to reflect a more modern use of the space. Hilary Levine video
“What I like about this neighborhood is that it is so close to the high school and the park. I was very impressed with it because the original homes in this neighborhood all have a storybook charm,” says Katie.
What wasn’t charming was the house’s old and specific design. The kitchen was small and closed, tucked away in the back of the house. When Katie went to look into it with her two young daughters, their agent shook her head and said he would never work with them.
‘I said, ‘Well, he must work because I want to live in this place;’ This home is the right price, and it’s the right square for us. I came home and started drawing. …that was the night when I came up with the idea of dismantling the largest bedroom and turning it into a kitchen,” Katie recalls.
After Jonathan came back with her to look at the house, he said, “Okay, show me those drawings.” Through the architect’s eye, he was able to see how it might work and told Katie they had to do it.
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