From a Hallway Refrigerator to a Kitchen Worth Living In
In New Orleans, what we call the "basement" is really the ground floor — built at grade because you can't dig down in this city. It's often underused space. Laundry rooms. Storage. A refrigerator shoved into a hallway and called a kitchen.
That's exactly what this project started as.
The original "kitchen" on this floor was just a hallway — a refrigerator nook on one side, a small countertop across from it. The family had a real kitchen upstairs, but this ground floor space was doing almost nothing for them. And it had so much potential.
The client is a mental health professional who bakes macarons to unwind. She needed a kitchen that could actually keep up with her — one with a commercial convection oven, a serious stand mixer, and enough counter space to run a full baking operation. She also wanted a space where her family could gather, her kids could hang out, guests felt welcome, and everything connected beautifully to life by the pool.
So we built it from scratch.
A kitchen designed around how she actually bakes
The first decision was placement. We moved everything to the window wall overlooking the pool and added a pass-through window — so she can hand food outside without ever leaving the kitchen. The island is oversized on purpose. It seats the family, handles a full baking operation, and fits the kind of stand mixer that means business.
But the detail I'm most proud of? The macaron closet.
Macarons have to rest and dry before they go into the oven. Humidity is the enemy — and in New Orleans, humidity is everywhere. We couldn't dehumidify the entire open floor, so we created a dedicated closet with an in-wall dehumidifier where she slides her trays in to dry. It's a small space. It solves a very specific problem. And it exists because we actually listened to how this woman works.
That's what good design is.
The rest of the floor tells the same story
We took the old hallway kitchen apart completely and reassigned every inch with intention.
Where the countertop was → a proper wine closet with full storage, glassware, and a lock on the door. Because she's a serious wine enthusiast with teenagers at home.
Where the refrigerator nook was → storage for pots and pans and the start of the mudroom, with cubbies for shoes and hooks for bags at the garage entrance.
Across the hallway → a snack closet for the kids. Shallow, open, easy to see at a glance. No digging through cabinets.
The pool bathroom got blue wallpaper with swimmers — a quiet nod to what's right outside the door.
Two additional rooms round out the floor — one guest, one storage — on a level that went from a forgotten hallway to a fully functioning second life for this family.
This kitchen was featured in New Orleans Homes, Spring 2026
Val Spaces is a full-service interior design studio in New Orleans specializing in large-scale renovations that work for how your family actually lives. Let's talk.
Photography: Anna Maddison Davis