When you buy an old house, you will have to remodel the kitchen. Old houses never have enough storage space. Bachelors don’t cook. Wrong, wrong, and wrong—at least at Sconehenge, David Berman’s 1910 Shingle Style house in Plymouth, Mass.

Sometimes, what is retained is as important as what is renovated or added. Small things and the right details in a cottage renovation can bring back the joy.

View a small collection of old-house built-in pieces.

Facing tilted porch piers and baby-blue woodwork, a smitten owner brings the Arts & Crafts aesthetic to a 1921 bungalow in Seattle.

An otherwise all-white room gets boundless energy grounded by a colored floor.

Ideas from every era for old-house kitchen shelving.

Equip the kitchen’s prep area with classics past and present.

To replace nondescript space in an old house, an architect designs a hard-working “modern Craftsman” kitchen for a friend who has strong ideas about design and function.

A McKim, Mead & White house gets some thoughtful kitchen and bath updates.

Barnes Vanze Architects designs a real cook's kitchen for a Mid-Atlantic Mediterranean.

A keen regard for period details by a Seattle homeowner resulted in this kitchen design.

Remaking the kitchen in a 1912 English Arts & Crafts house.

The Portland family wanted to live someday on Lake Oswego. When they stumbled upon a 1927 shingled cottage with Arts & Crafts stonework, it felt like home.

The real-estate agent apologized for the old kitchen, but the new owners totally got it.