Kathryn Greeley’s Kitchen

Kathryn Greeley Designs, Waynesville

A figurative porcelain-tile backsplash engineers the scene in Kathryn Greeley’s wide-open kitchen. Pictured are a vintner, a baker and a cheese maker: they appear as dignified adjutants of Greeley herself, a celebrated entertainer and collector of Flow Blue china (plus many other items in the blue-and-white English Country color scheme).

Aspects of marvelously appointed Chestnut Cottage are featured in the pages of Greeley’s new book, The Collected Tabletop. However, her style is not about the still shot.

“There’s a lot of energy in this kitchen,” she says. “I spend most of my life in here.” Glossy-white ceilings and walls toss light on “wow” pieces — including a wine holder made from rare terracotta drain pipes, a glass-fronted refrigerator and a long prep island/bar topped with deep-stained maple. Lush, dark-blue leather chairs from Greeley’s private label flank the island, making it a charming spot for guests to lounge while their hostess prepares dinner. “I figured if I gave them a comfy place to sit, they’d stay out of my work corridor,” she teases with a throaty laugh.

And, too, her husband, an alumnus of the Big Ten Football Conference, is over 6’6” tall. “You can’t have a rickety bar stool for Wells Greeley to sit on,” declares Kathryn.

Her other passion, gardening, manifests both symbolically and literally in the kitchen. The antique copper kettle on the stove echoes an outdoor boxwood topiary sculpted in the shape of a teapot. And the island is a great space for flower arranging — roses, green Bells of Ireland, and, of course, blue-and-white hydrangeas.