Original Airdate: Aug. 17, 2002

Host:
Anna Bocci

Designer:
Lauren Lake

Carpenters:
Andrew Dan-Jumbo
Leslie Segrete

Catherine is a seventh-grade teacher from Norwich, Ct. She is married to Pete, a lieutenant in the Navy who works on a nuclear submarine. They met each other at a swing dance class and have been partners ever since. Pete works a lot of long hours and sometimes has to spend nights or months away on the sub. Between his long Navy hours and his many hours spent working on the rest of the house, Catherine doesn't have the heart to ask Pete to work on the kitchen. They do a lot of entertaining there and are members of a dinner party club that meets every month.

We enlisted Lauren Lake to transform Catherine and Pete's '70s-era kitchen into a bright and bold new space. Lauren decided to play off the colored glass bottles and brightly colored Fiesta Ware that are now hidden in the cabinets, and bring them out into the open by replacing some cabinet doors with glass panels and creating a display shelf. Catherine and Lauren use cobalt, bright white, yellow and red to bring the room together and make it a more open space. For the windows they've decided to take some inexpensive sailcloth and make billowing Roman shades. Lauren even found a way to use vintage Navy posters to create fun new placemats.

Our host, Anna Bocci, is all for our salute to the Navy, but she's somewhat concerned we won't have enough time to complete all of our projects. When you take into account that over 60 cabinet doors and drawers need to be primed and painted and the countertops removed and replaced, 48 hours doesn't seem so long. Our carpenters, Andrew and Leslie, have their hands full! And don't forget how hard it is to hide things from a submarine lieutenant … Will he sink our design ship before we even set sail? Watch and find out.