Western Living Magazine
Protected: How the right windows can help create your dream bathroom
5 Designer Looks That Show How Sliding Glass Doors Can Elevate a Space
8 Beautifully Curated, Art-Filled Homes
A Taste of Taiwan: TikTok’s Tiffy Chen Shares Her Fave Childhood Taiwanese Dishes
Recipe: Traditional Taiwanese Chow Mein (Gu Zao Wei Chao Mian)
Recipe: Fried Shallots
A Relaxing Getaway to San Juan Island: Wine, Alpacas and Farm-Fresh Finds
Black Creek’s Sauna Retreat Is the Ultimate Rural Escape
Local Getaway Idea: Kingfisher’s Healing Caves Redefine Wellness and Escape
The Secret Ingredient to Creating the Perfect Kitchen: Bosch
Everything You Need to Know About the New Livingspace Outdoor Store
New and Noteworthy: 11 Homeware Picks to Refresh Your Space in 2025
Designers of the Year Frequently Asked Questions
Enter Western Living’s 2025 Designers of the Year Awards
Over 50% Sold! Grab Your Tickets to Our Western Living Design 25 Party Now
Designer Marianna Tomlenovich’s own kitchen, built for entertaining, pasta-making and the occasional wine spill, combines striking stone finishes with practical elegance.
Designer Marianna Tomlenovich starts every project in the kitchen, and when the time came to design the heart of her own home in Coquitlam, B.C., she knew the space had to be ready for entertaining guests, rolling out scratch-made pasta and handling the occasional wine spill. “We wanted it to be bulletproof,” she says with a laugh. So, the founder of Tomlenovich Design opted to use a striking Calacatta Viola marble for the kitchen’s backsplash, and a hardier Cristallo quartzite for the countertops. (While marble is beautiful, she explains, it can scratch and stain over time.) And because it was her own space, there was room for experimentation. “As designers, we always want to push the envelope—I had to do something we’ve never done before,” she says. The marble perimeter was born: a simple but dramatic frame around the hood fan area. It’s an extra hit of that gorgeous stone, and a wow-worthy focal point of the kitchen… almost as irresistible as fresh pasta.
All About the View
Because Tomlenovich has an open-concept kitchen and dining area, she chose integrated appliances and an all-oak look for the cabinetry, including the handles. “We wanted it to look like furniture, so when you’re sitting at the dining table, it doesn’t feel like your typical kitchen,” she says.
Concrete Plan
Besides the marble and quartzite, there’s a third sneaky material that adds a subtle, natural quality to the kitchen: microconcrete. It covers the hood fan, and the dining table (a thrifty outlet find by Tomlenovich) was refinished in it to hide existing flaws.
Are you over 18 years of age?