Photography by Spacecrafting/Rob Grosse
In 1995, Missy Finn and her husband walked through a house for sale on St. Paul’s historic Summit Avenue. The home, built in 1926, required work—a lot of it. The pair ultimately walked away, but the house lingered in their minds until 2019, when it was on the market again. This time, they were ready to take the plunge.
“We went through it and we were like, ‘the bones are so great,’” Finn says, noting both her and her husband grew up in the area, surrounded and charmed by historic homes. They began renovating from top to bottom. Finn says she did most of the design work on the house herself, partnering with a father-son builder, but when it came time to tackle the kitchen, she knew she wanted to hire the project out.
Jkath Design Build + Reinvent in Mendota Heights came onto Finn’s radar following a recommendation from her friend and realtor, and she was further sold on the firm when she learned of their in-house cabinetry business, as smart storage solutions within the kitchen’s smaller footprint were a top priority for her.
“We reimagined the layout entirely,” explains Katie Kath, partner and creative director for Jkath Design Build + Reinvent. The team added a bank of adjoined windows, which allow natural light to spill into the room, but also sacrificed upper cabinetry space. A small addition off the kitchen helped to solve the problem, where a new walk-in pantry and powder room now live. The existing powder room was converted into a luxe mudroom.
The final result is a modern, light-filled kitchen where the new and old mingle, where creative storage solutions support daily convenience and rich brass tones contribute a heritage-like quality. The adjoining pantry stands in striking contrast, featuring dark walls and floor-to-ceiling cabinetry with sliding doors and a colorful herringbone marble tiled flooring, inspired by a floor Finn had seen within sketch London, an imaginative dining destination in England’s capital.
The shared passion for detail, design, and craftsmanship not only left Finn and her husband with the home they had long hoped for, but also Kath and her team with a project to remember.
“It was a good milestone project for our team to do what we already know we do well, but to take it up a level by having a super dreamy client who chose us for that craftsmanship,” Kath says. “To be able to jump in with a shared language of the craft, it was like we were finishing each other’s sentences—it felt really exciting.”
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