Beck/Allen Cabinetry and Homes by Higginbotham both helped transform the kitchen from a tricky space to the Schmidts’ favorite room in the house.
THE HOME TEAM Written by Jessen O’Brien / Photography by Alise O’Brien
For nearly 30 years, ADJ Interiors has made it a policy to embrace projects of all sizes and budgets. “You just never know where things will lead,” says April Jensen, CEO and founder of ADJ Interiors. Case in point: in 2017 ADJ Interiors started working on a kitchen for homeowners Renée and Bill Schmidt. That job turned into a gut renovation and designing not just the kitchen but also most of the first and second floors -- followed by the home’s lower level. In fact, it’s not over yet; Renée and Bill are currently working with April and Meagan Cooperman, an interior designer at ADJ Interiors, on phase three: the master suite, an outdoor living area, and an addition off of the existing breakfast and hearth room. The project started small in part because, as Renée puts it, “I didn’t really have much interest until I started working with April and Meagan. I’ve worked with other designers and they never quite got my vision or they didn’t listen to me. April and Meagan listened to everything. They understood my style even though I didn’t know how to put it into words and presented things that I would have picked out if I had the resources or knew where to find them.” Ensuring that clients feel heard is a major part of April’s design philosophy. “I’m 100 percent motivated by smart interior design that functions and serves its users in the way that they 12 slmag.net
need it to, not the way that I think it should,” April says. “My team comes to every project with nothing in mind other than establishing with the client what they need, what their priorities are, and what their dream is, not ours.” Coming into a project without a defined style or preconceptions about the space is challenging, but the hard work pays off in interiors that truly reflect the people who inhabit them. If, that is, the designers communicate well with their clients and work together as a team, two skills at which the designers at ADJ Interiors excel. “We have had such phenomenal, open lines of communication with April and Meagan. It’s truly refreshing. They are extremely responsive to us,” Bill says. “And they’re just a joy to work with. If I know we have a meeting with April and Meagan, that’s actually a really fun time for us!” At first, the brief was simple. The Schmidts had purchased a new home and they wanted to give it a minor refresh before moving in. They especially wanted to see what could be done about the kitchen, which had a tricky layout (to start with, the refrigerator and freezer were on opposite walls) and one big aesthetic issue: a large hood that hung over the central island, spanning about 55 inches across and blocking both the view and the light.
