Before & After: Budget Birch Cabinetry Looks Impossibly Luxe in This Detroit Kitchen
Photo by: Gerard Belevender
Two years ago, Bo Shepherd received a message that seemed more like a prediction. As the co-owner and head of design at Woodward Throwbacks, a Detroit-based studio, she’d posted a completed home remodel on Instagram, and a follower named Shaina’s comment stood out: “She told me she wanted us to design her kitchen someday, once she bought a house,” Shepherd remembers. All she needed was a little time.
Upon purchasing a 1920s property in Detroit’s University District neighborhood a few years later, that fan of Shepherd’s work became a client after all. The house had been flipped, its interim owners stripping it of old details and giving it a bland once-over, and Shaina and her husband wanted Shepherd’s help restoring some of the original warmth in the kitchen. “Since so many details had been stripped away, we were essentially starting from a blank slate, which gave us the freedom to rebuild character with real intention,” Shepherd says. Here’s how she and her team at Woodward Throwbacks pulled it off, focusing on budget-conscious upgrades and salvaged accents.
