Modern kitchens seem to be getting colder.
Our increasingly sophisticated tastes are partly to blame, of course.
Cool-to-the-touch slab-granite counters, stainless steel, commercial-grade appliances and ceramic tile floors and backsplashes seem to be the norm.
But something special is at work in Mike Conner and Diane Jochimsen’s new kitchen in rural Arlington.
Despite many of the aforementioned amenities, their kitchen is so warm it seems to glow.
They’ve tempered the influence of modern convenience and style with earthy, warm materials and strategically placed and specially selected woods.
“We do a lot of entertaining,” Jochimsen, 59, said. “People tell us this place is calming.”
Madrona boards, cut in a diagonal pattern, create a cozy bar area on their granite island.
“It goes from reds to greens to roses,” Conner, 66, said of the colorful wood, taken from a broad-leaf evergreen and a native to the Northwest.
Their cabinets are made with a clear-grain hickory that’s neither knotty nor rustic, but multicolored and sleek, setting a tranquil tone for the bigger space.
On the other side of their expandable wooden dining table, a large slab of salvaged pine creates a window seat.
Warmth comes quite literally from a small pellet stove next to the dining table. Quiet Step laminate flooring absorbs sound and the impact of their footsteps.
Throughout the home, completed in April, fir and cedar add to the contemporary lodge feel, a look the couple came up with together.
“We’re really fortunate,” Jochimsen said. “We like the same things.”
Conner and Jochimsen’s concept for the space started with a single favorite find.
It was an artsy glass sink with an iridescent glow that caught their eye before their house plans were even ready.
Their kitchen designer, Chandra Sadro, who was working for Emerald Design of Everett at the time, advised them against it.
“I had to warm up to that sink. They loved it and they really opened my eyes and made me step back and go, ‘It could work,’” said Sadro, who runs her own business now, Sadro Design Studio. “Every once in a while even designers will have knee-jerk reactions. It is so different. You really have to look at things in context.”
Today the sink, nestled into their island, adds a certain elegance along with oil-rubbed bronze fixtures.
Other elements throughout the space echo the iridescent hues of the sink, including small glass accent tiles mixed in among the tumbled tiles of the backsplash.
Over the stove, two ceramic pieces by an Arlington-area artist serve as works of art and visual accents.
Each tile feature many elements of the outdoors — sword fern, cattails, alder, cedar and vine maple foliage — with an added metallic sparkle.
It’s a nod to the couple’s love of nature.
They met, after all, through the Everett branch of the Mountaineers. Since acquiring their 7-acre property, they’ve planted more than 3,000 trees with guidance from a forest stewardship class.
“We’ve doing our part to be green,” Jochimsen said. “I came from a farm in Wisconsin. I always wanted to go back out into the country.”
Conner and Jochimsen, married 10 years now, started their rural homestead with a 660-square-foot studio in 2003. That building now serves as an office for Jochimsen, a certified financial planner.
Conner, a retired electrician, had always wanted a spacious, social kitchen.
When it came time to build their main home, they devoted a large part of the 1,700-square-foot space to the endeavor.
“We make a good team,” Jochimsen said. “I tell him an idea and he picks it up. We work well together.”
Reporter Sarah Jackson: 425-339-3037, e-mail sjackson@heraldnet.com.
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