Some kitchens whisper. Some kitchens politely clear their throat. And then there is Frankie Shaw’s Reath Design kitchen, which walks into the room wearing a golden-yellow coat, vintage shoes, and a wink that says, “Yes, I know exactly what I’m doing.” This newfangled old-fashioned remodel is not another sterile white kitchen trying to win a cleanliness contest. It is warm, witty, highly personal, and layered with enough character to make a plain subway tile blush.
Designed by Frances Merrill of Los Angeles-based Reath Design for actress, writer, and SMILF creator Frankie Shaw and her husband, television writer Zach Strauss, the kitchen sits inside the couple’s 1937 Monterey Colonial home in Franklin Hills, a hillside pocket of Los Feliz in Los Angeles. Before the remodel, the room had white laminate cabinets and a forgettable personality. After Reath Design entered the chat, the kitchen became a rich, golden, period-sensitive space that feels both inherited and freshly invented.
The brilliance of this kitchen remodel is not just its color, although Benjamin Moore’s French Horn deserves its own tiny standing ovation. The real magic is how the room balances contradictions: nostalgic but not dusty, colorful but not chaotic, practical but not boring, theatrical but still perfectly livable. In other words, it is a kitchen that knows how to make toast and make an entrance.
Why This Reath Design Kitchen Feels So Different
Modern kitchen remodeling often follows a predictable script: open the walls, paint everything white, add a waterfall island, and pretend nobody owns a cereal box. Reath Design took the opposite approach. Instead of erasing the home’s age, Frances Merrill leaned into it. The remodel respects the 1937 architecture while giving the space enough modern livability for a creative family that actually uses its rooms.
The phrase “newfangled old-fashioned” fits because the kitchen does not copy the past. It translates it. Tongue-and-groove cabinetry, a skirted sink, old-house colors, vintage-inspired lighting, and decorative details all nod to history, but the composition feels fresh. The result is not a museum kitchen. It is a cinematic kitchen. You can imagine coffee brewing, scripts being discussed, kids wandering through, and someone debating whether a snack counts as dinner. It does. We are not here to judge.
The Color Story: Benjamin Moore French Horn Takes the Lead
The defining move in Frankie Shaw’s kitchen remodel is the muddy golden-yellow paint used across the walls and cabinets. Benjamin Moore describes French Horn 195 as a golden brown reminiscent of antique brass, and that description makes sense here. It is not lemony, neon, or timid. It has depth, age, and a little dramatic bass note.
Painting both the walls and cabinets the same color is a smart small-kitchen strategy. Rather than chopping the room into visual sections, the continuous color wraps the space and makes it feel larger and more intentional. It also creates a cocoon effect, a Reath Design signature. The kitchen does not feel like a box full of cabinets; it feels like a complete atmosphere.
Why Yellow Works in a Kitchen
Yellow can be dangerous territory. Go too bright and the room starts shouting before the coffee is ready. Go too pale and it can look apologetic. French Horn works because it is grounded. Its brown undertone gives it an old-world quality, while its warmth keeps the kitchen cheerful. It feels especially right in a Los Angeles home where natural light shifts dramatically throughout the day.
This is also why color testing matters. A shade that looks charming on a paint chip can become a full-blown banana situation on four walls. Reath Design’s approach is rooted in sampling, editing, and balancing materials until the palette feels lived-in rather than pasted on.
Period-Appropriate Cabinets With Personality
The original white laminate cabinets were replaced with tongue-and-groove cabinetry, a choice that immediately gives the kitchen more architectural credibility. Tongue-and-groove details feel appropriate for an older home because they add texture without fuss. They create shadow lines, depth, and craftsmanship, all of which help the room feel built rather than installed.
Oversized wood drawer knobs add another layer of character. This is the kind of detail that seems small until you imagine the kitchen without it. Hardware is touched every day, so it influences how a room feels in the hand as much as to the eye. Here, the knobs soften the cabinetry and keep the room from becoming too polished. They say, “Yes, this kitchen is designed. No, it does not take itself too seriously.”
A Backsplash That Knows When to Stop
One of the most interesting choices in this kitchen is the single row of Interceramic Wineberry tile used as a backsplash. Instead of covering the walls in a full-height field of tile, Reath Design uses a restrained strip of color. It is practical enough to protect the wall where needed, but visually light enough to let the yellow cabinetry and wallpaper breathe.
This is a useful lesson for anyone planning a kitchen remodel: statement design does not always require more material. Sometimes the strongest move is editing. A single row of deep-toned tile can be more memorable than an entire wall of something expensive and emotionally exhausting.
The Dining Nook: Pattern, Banquette, and Real-Life Comfort
Across from the work zone, the dining area brings in one of the kitchen’s most memorable elements: Klaus Haapaniemi’s Pheasants wallpaper. The botanical pattern gives the room a storybook quality, but the black Naugahyde banquette keeps it from becoming precious. That mix is classic Reath Design: romantic pattern meets durable, slightly unexpected material.
The banquette wraps around the corner, making the dining nook feel intimate and useful. Built-in seating is not just charming; it is efficient. It can turn an awkward corner into the most desirable seat in the house. In this kitchen, the banquette also supports the home’s social rhythm. It creates a place for meals, homework, coffee, conversation, and the very important act of staring into space while pretending to meal plan.
The Curved Breakfast Bar Softens the Room
A curved breakfast bar adds another graceful note. Kitchens are full of hard lines: cabinet boxes, appliance rectangles, tile edges, countertops, and doors. A curve changes the energy immediately. It makes the room feel more human. It also links beautifully to the bullnose detail Reath Design added to the opening between the kitchen and dining area, helping the remodel feel as if it belonged to the house all along.
Vintage Charm: The Skirted Sink and Colored Glass Door
The skirted sink is one of the kitchen’s most old-fashioned gestures, and it is delightful. Sink skirts have a way of making a kitchen feel relaxed, domestic, and a little European. They also hide storage, which is a noble public service. In a room filled with painted cabinetry and pattern, the fabric skirt adds softness and movement.
Another standout detail is the side door with colored glass panels. Replacing clear glass with colored panes is a relatively small intervention, but it transforms a practical door into a design moment. This is where the remodel becomes especially clever: not every upgrade is massive. Some of the best changes are targeted, specific, and full of personality.
Open Shelving Without the Performance Anxiety
Open shelving appears in the kitchen, but it is used with restraint. This matters because open shelves can quickly become a stage for performative bowl ownership. In Frankie Shaw’s kitchen, the shelves allow art, ceramics, and distinctive kitchen pieces to be displayed without taking over the room.
The key is balance. Closed cabinets handle the less photogenic realities of life: mismatched mugs, snack boxes, blender attachments, and whatever lid belongs to that one container. Open shelves carry the visual rhythm. Together, they create a kitchen that feels expressive but still sane.
How the Remodel Fits Current Kitchen Design Trends
Although this kitchen was originally featured before the latest wave of 2026 kitchen trend reports, it feels remarkably current. Recent industry research points toward more personalized kitchens, warmer materials, smarter storage, eat-in layouts, statement lighting, and designs that support real daily life. Frankie Shaw’s Reath Design kitchen checks those boxes without looking like it was designed by a committee of trend forecasters in matching beige vests.
The kitchen is personalized through color and pattern. It supports gathering through the dining nook and banquette. It uses lighting as decoration, not merely illumination. It respects natural warmth instead of defaulting to cold minimalism. Most importantly, it has a strong sense of place. It belongs to this house, these clients, and this creative Los Angeles setting.
What Homeowners Can Learn From Frankie Shaw’s Kitchen Remodel
1. Do Not Automatically Default to White
White kitchens can be beautiful, but they are not the only path to timelessness. A strong color can age well when it relates to the architecture, light, and personality of the home. French Horn works here because it feels connected to old brass, California warmth, and the home’s historic bones.
2. Use Pattern as Architecture
Wallpaper is not merely decoration in this kitchen. It defines the dining zone and gives the eat-in area its own identity. If a kitchen shares space with a breakfast nook or dining corner, pattern can help create emotional rooms within a room.
3. Invest in Touch Points
Drawer knobs, pendant lights, door details, and cabinet finishes may seem secondary, but they shape the daily experience of a kitchen. These are the elements people touch, see, and use constantly. Good hardware is like good punctuation: invisible when it works, annoying when it does not.
4. Let Old Houses Stay a Little Old
The smartest historic remodels do not erase quirks. They refine them. In this kitchen, the new casing, bullnose detail, tongue-and-groove cabinets, and restored window color all help the room feel more authentic. The remodel does not pretend the house was built yesterday, which is a relief because nobody wants a 1937 home with a 2026 identity crisis.
5. Mix Practicality With Whimsy
Durable banquette upholstery, storage-friendly cabinetry, a pantry and coffee area, and functional lighting make the space work. Wallpaper, colored glass, warm yellow paint, and vintage-inspired details make it memorable. The lesson is simple: practical rooms do not have to be dull. Dullness is not a building code.
Design Analysis: Why the Kitchen Feels Cohesive
At first glance, the room includes many ingredients: yellow cabinets, wine-colored tile, a checkerboard rug, botanical wallpaper, black banquette seating, wood knobs, a skirted sink, and colored glass. On paper, that sounds like a lot. In the actual design, it works because every element has a job.
The yellow paint creates continuity. The wallpaper supplies pattern. The black banquette grounds the dining nook. The rug adds graphic contrast. The wineberry tile deepens the palette. Wood details bring warmth. The skirted sink softens the harder surfaces. The colored glass door adds sparkle without demanding the lead role.
This is the difference between layering and clutter. Layering has relationships. Clutter has alibis. Reath Design’s strength is making bold choices feel inevitable, as if the room had been patiently waiting for someone brave enough to understand it.
The Celebrity Home Factor: Personal, Not Showy
Celebrity kitchens often lean toward spectacle: enormous islands, museum-level marble, appliances that look prepared to launch a satellite. Frankie Shaw’s kitchen takes a more intimate route. It is stylish, yes, but not icy. Its luxury is not about square footage or shine. It is about specificity.
That makes sense for Shaw, whose creative work has often been associated with personal storytelling, emotional texture, and messy human truth. The kitchen has a similar spirit. It is not trying to be universally pleasing. It is trying to be alive.
Experience Notes: Living With a Newfangled Old-Fashioned Kitchen
Here is the practical truth about a kitchen like this: it changes how you behave at home. A white box kitchen can make you feel as if you should clean before you cook. A warm, layered, old-fashioned kitchen invites you to start. It forgives a little flour on the counter. It makes a cup of coffee feel like a ritual instead of a caffeine delivery system. It lets the house exhale.
In real remodeling experiences, homeowners often begin by asking for more space, more storage, and more light. Those things matter, of course. But what many people actually want is a kitchen that makes daily routines feel less mechanical. They want a place where breakfast does not feel like a pit stop and dinner does not feel like a production meeting. Frankie Shaw’s Reath Design kitchen offers a useful model because it proves that atmosphere is not a bonus feature. Atmosphere is part of function.
A banquette, for example, is not just seating. It changes the way people gather. Chairs can drift away from a table, but a banquette creates a destination. Kids slide into it. Guests linger there. Someone inevitably claims the corner seat and becomes mildly territorial. That is how homes develop rituals. The same is true of a coffee and pantry area. By giving the coffee routine a defined place, the kitchen supports a daily habit that matters more than we admit before 8 a.m.
Color also affects experience. A golden kitchen feels different in morning light than it does at dusk. During the day, it can feel energetic and sunny. At night, under pendant lighting, it becomes cozy and almost amber. That flexibility is valuable. Many remodels look best at one perfect hour when the photographer arrives. A good kitchen should hold up during school mornings, late-night snacks, holiday cooking, and random Tuesdays when dinner is toast with ambition.
There is also emotional comfort in materials that do not look too fragile. A skirted sink, wood knobs, patterned wallpaper, and darker upholstery all help the room feel usable. Nothing about the space screams, “Please do not touch me.” That matters in a family kitchen. Beautiful design fails when people are afraid to live in it. The best rooms welcome use and gain character from it.
For homeowners inspired by this remodel, the experience lesson is not to copy every element exactly. You do not need French Horn cabinets, pheasant wallpaper, or a colored glass door to get the spirit right. The deeper lesson is to identify what your home is asking for. Maybe it needs warmth. Maybe it needs pattern. Maybe it needs a curved edge, better lighting, or one brave color that makes the cabinets stop looking like they are waiting for a dentist appointment.
Before remodeling, spend time observing how your kitchen behaves. Where does clutter gather? Where do people naturally sit? Which corner feels dead? What color appears in the rest of the house but never made it into the kitchen? Those clues are more useful than any trend list. Reath Design’s work succeeds because it listens: to architecture, to clients, to memory, and to the weird little moments that make a home feel personal.
The big takeaway is that a kitchen can be both designed and relaxed. It can be polished without becoming stiff. It can honor history without dressing up like a theme restaurant. Frankie Shaw’s kitchen is inspiring because it has confidence. It does not ask whether yellow is safe. It asks whether yellow is right. And in this charming, layered, newfangled old-fashioned remodel, the answer is a very cheerful yes.
Conclusion
Frankie Shaw’s Reath Design kitchen is a master class in personality-driven remodeling. Frances Merrill transformed a bland white kitchen into a warm, expressive, period-sensitive space that feels deeply connected to the 1937 Monterey Colonial home. Through golden-yellow cabinetry, tongue-and-groove detailing, botanical wallpaper, a curved breakfast bar, vintage-inspired lighting, a skirted sink, and a cozy banquette, the kitchen becomes more than a functional room. It becomes the emotional center of the home.
For anyone planning a kitchen remodel, this project offers a refreshing reminder: timeless design does not have to mean neutral, predictable, or polite. Sometimes the most lasting spaces are the ones brave enough to show a little color, a little history, and a little humor. In a world full of kitchens trying to look untouched, this one looks loved. That is the real luxury.
