Kitchen remodel: week 52

[Jenise]

Yes, that's right, it's been a whole year since we moved ourselves and the furrballs into our bedroom and the demolition began downstairs. A very. Very. Long. Year. And we're not done yet. Cabinet molding isn't in, floor molding isn't in, there's a tile backsplash to come that's going to double the wow factor, the dining room table can't come back in yet and I'm not even halfway done unpacking, but the final pantry piece finally went in and we basically have a fully operational kitchen.

While downstairs just now making a cup of coffee, the sun came out so I decided to shoot some pix to show you where we're at and some of the things I love about what we've done. Eventually there WILL be official After shots taken, and I didn't spiff up in advance so excuse my mess, but hey, come on in, have a cup of joe and look around. I'm going to have to upload the pics, then while I'm looking at them myself comment, so if all you see is pix wait until I put The End or something at the bottom to indicate I'm done before commenting.

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This really doesn't show so well in daylight as it does at night, or from the front walk when people come through the gate after dark, but this art glass piece is my kitchen sink overhead light. It's called 'betrothed', and it's six individual hand blown pieces entertwined into three couples. Outside, you see the spiral staircase to the rooftop deck. The staircase was existing, but the window here is brand new (part of the entire east side of the house that had to be torn down and replaced), and we moved the staircase over six feet so that it didn't block the window.

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I wouldn't want the experience, but I sure would love to have this kitchen! Beatiful job, Jenise.

[Jenise]

Oh drat!!! I'm getting SQL errors on my additional edits, so I'll have to add my comments in another post.

So:

Picture #2: to the right of the kitchen sink is the fridge wall, and here you see the edge of that and the doorless opening to my 6x13 pantry. All the pantry racking is industrial metal shelving, but facing the opening is this cabinet and appliance bar. That is, behind the chain mail curtain is the new permanent home of the Kitchen Aid mixer, toaster oven, coffee maker, meat slicer, Cuisinart, and the like.

Picture #3: I have too many knives. This is my prep station. The entire counter is actually 13 feet long, but the other 3' of that is the wine cooler and wine service area to both the kitchen and the den, and ten of it is my basic work area of which 5' is end grain maple butcher block. I have my own rinse sink there, an extra large bar sink which I worried endlessly would be too small but which turns out to be just right, with disposal. Behind the prep space you see the part of the 10 foot long, 8" wide raised serving counter that was the most difficult part of this entire project to build, taking almost three months because each detail had to be fabbed and installed before the next trade could figure out how best to do his piece. The counter is supported by five two inch square granite pillars into which we drilled rebar keels for steadiness and which are separated by one inch thickness of glass so that light passes through. The serving counter granite matches the fancy granite on the other side where there's seating for five guests, but we customized it further with a hand-chiseled edge for a live rock look. I have a great water view and can hang out with guests while I work. Oh, and there are telltale signs that when we're not looking, the serving counter doubles as a cat walk.

Picture #4: TASK LIGHTS! I've never had task lights before. Just three of these guys light up the prep station.

Picture #5: POT RACK! I've never had a pot rack before either. This one I bought from an importer whose business is here in my little no-name town. They bring in pieces, photograph them for their catalog out of which they resale to higher end retailers like Williams Sonoma and the like--everything from glassware to pasta machines to marble patio sets--then once a yearish they hold a sale to dump all the 'models'. So this one retailed for around $350 and I bought it for $50 at the point when our kitchen hadn't even been designed yet. I stuck it in the garage and figured maybe we'll be able to use it and maybe we won't, and then forgot about it until after the peninsula was added to the overall design and unwittingly created the perfect spot for it. And no sooner was it up than I decided that instead of skillets I'd rather hang all my considerable collection of strainers and stuff up there--china caps are harder to store than 4 qt saucepans. I can't tell you how thrilling it is to need a colander or a little strainger and have it hanging right there. And I love the look. This shot also gives you some idea of the difficult we had lighting the space equally--half the kitchen has a 9' ceiling, the other half, the part we took back from the old closet/wetbar/breakfast nook, is 18'.

Picture #6: See, I told you everything was a mess, but here you see straight into the dining room and that's what really makes this whole thing work. The stove is the heart of the kitchen and now the kitchen, effectively moved over ten feet from where it was, is now the heart of the house. The open entrance you see here used to be a wall, and the old entrance was just left of where the prep sink is, via a wet bar and breakfast bar we demolished. You could not see one from the other, making the kitchen a small, dark remote hole. Now the two spaces relate, they make sense. And the peninsula has turned out to be as indispensable as I thought it would be. If you look to the lower left, you see open shelving--all my wood and stainless mixing and salad bowls--things I hardly make a meal without using--are there at my fingertips, and they look cool too.

Picture #7: okay, here's a view of the kitchen sink. I know, big deal it's just a sink, but I have to laugh at my husband who admitted to me the other day that he had privately thought my 39" Franke sink (left basin 21", right basin 15") was franke-ly, ahem, some kind of overkill. Well now he loves it, really LOVES it, so much so that the other night he even referred to it as HIS sink. The space works as well as we hoped it would: two people can work in there side by side (was not the case in the old dark hole), or he has the whole space to himself while I'm in the other part of the kitchen dealing with leftovers and cleaning up the cooking area.

Picture #8: No discussion of Things I Love About My New Kitchen would be complete without a shout-out to the genius who invented the side by side double trash pull-out. These are under the sink in the prep area, and one's for general trash while we use the other bin to collect recycling.

Anyway, we're nearly done. 'Bout time, isn't it?

Now THAT'S a kitchen! Good on you, Jenise!

Here's to making many memorable meals in the new digs >clink<

JuliaB

Oooooooooo!

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

What a kick ass foodie haven!

That is gonna be AWESOME to play around in, Jenise. I'm insanely jealous of that butcher block counter top.

Lol - you really think 78 is too many knives?

Oh - I'm also pathetically envious of your stove. Dammit.

Congratulations, and best of luck for one day finally using the thing!

I'm impressed!

One year of hell. Many years of cooking bliss.

Looks like you ended up with a hell of a kitchen, Jenise! Congrats on finally getting to the point that you can post these photos.

Oh Jenise, it is fabulous. I'm so happy for you guys.

Some of my favorite features are:
The chain curtain adjacent to your pantry shelving to garage appliances. So very cool.
The glass "panel" underneath your serving counter letting the light shine through. Brilliant!
The open shelving for your mixing and salad bowls. What a great idea--wish I had that.
Tell us about the backsplash behind the stove. What is the material? (I think I remember you talking about it in a previous post, but can't remember...) Gorgeous.
Is your faucet one of those that you can touch with your forearm to have it go on and off?

Thanks for sharing. Can't wait to see the official "glamour shots."

Splendiferous!!! What can I say other than "Mazal Tov"!!!!

Best
Rogov

P.S. And now what about a wine cellar?

[Jenise]

The chain curtain adjacent to your pantry shelving to garage appliances. So very cool.
The glass "panel" underneath your serving counter letting the light shine through. Brilliant!
The open shelving for your mixing and salad bowls. What a great idea--wish I had that.

I'm glad you singled those out, because I'm so proud of these features. I have to give the architect credit for where the kitchen is--I had not intended to do any demolition, but leave the kitchen just where it was (in the back corner, part of which is now pantry). Once he mentioned pulling the kitchen into the center, though, I knew we couldn't do it any other way. But the look, the unique design elements, the materials--these are all my ideas, my vision. And I myself found the materials and then the talented people to help me figure out how to make it work. The curtain--the only chain mail I'd ever seen in my life until the box of what I'd ordered showed up on my doorstep was on a knight at the Tower of London. Via the internet I found a company in Massachusetts to make it for me, complete with grommets, and until the curtain arrived in the mail neither me nor my craftsmen had any idea how we were going to hang it. In fact, only then did we truly discover what we were getting into--each panel weighs about 15 pounds! You should have seen the "Oh s#it!" look on my face when I picked up that box.

Fortunately, I had already found my secret weapon, I just didn't know yet that they could solve every problem in the universe. It's an outfit called Lynden Sheet Metal. They ran the big honking gas line in for the new stove, they converted my fireplace over to gas burning, they built the vent stack for the stove, they made the backsplash you asked about, and they custom fabbed the rod and the brackets that hold that curtain up. They've got one more piece to do for me, the backside of the wall behind the prep sink--you see an unfinished wall in that picture. It's going to be sheathed in corrugated metal, hung vertically to pick up the lines in the glass under the serving counter--half of the outside of my house is covered with it. I used that same glass in the transom windows on either side of the front door and (horizontally, just for fun) in that window you see on the dining room wall.

Anyway, the backsplash: it's just stainless steel. But one day back in the early design phase when I was out driving around in the cow pastures of Lynden (it's a very small Dutch farming community) I drove past Lynden Sheet Metal. My thoughts literally went, "Metal? I like metal. I wonder what they can do." I was already thinking ahead to the vent stack and wondering if I could find someone to do something unique for me--I sure didn't want what Viking would sell me (for a totally insane price, I might add). I pulled in the driveway and went inside to ask. And I ended up in someone's office and saw this little 10" strip of metal someone had been grinding on with a 4" disc and got all excited, "This looks like fish scales. Can you make me a big piece?" They said yes and I looked no further. So much of this was just pure chance and opportunity of place. The headline could read: California-mid-Century-modern-architecture-junkie with bold ideas wants new kitchen, mines local talent. I don't know what it is about milking cows and growing raspberries, but somehow the process of doing both those things has resulted in a town full of clever, industrious people who can do/make/fix just about anything. 95% of the people I employed on this project are Lyndenites.

Jenise, this is just very very beautiful and such high quality (but you know that). You must be incredibly thrilled when you come down in the morning and see what you've created (amongst having pangs for what you know isn't done yet). Wow! It's not easy to last a whole year, and then be on tenderhooks waiting to see if your vision is going to turn out the way you'd hoped in the meantime. And it's so impressive of what you've made from what sounds like had been a very difficult space to conceptualize and mold. I am waiting with baited breath to see the finished kitchen. Absolute congratulations and cheers, Bonnie

[Jenise]

Lol - you really think 78 is too many knives?

Just a little! But it's my husband's fault--I didn't buy a single one of them for myself.

[Jenise]

Jenise, this is just very very beautiful and such high quality (but you know that).

One friend who hadn't been here during the entire period of construction dropped by last week, and was just mindblown by what we'd done. He commented, "Sure glad Mary doesn't have your taste," meaning expensive. Which started a whole conversation about how, appliances aside, on a percentage basis this really didn't cost much more at all than just moderate quality and conventional design would have.

But yes, thanks for appreciating how difficult the space was. On the one hand, I had the luxury of square footage, but on the other the lack of walls was as big an obstacle as it was an opportunity. I've said before that the kitchen isn't so much a room as a space between spaces. And yes re coming down the stairs, in fact, the kitchen is open to and visible from the top of the stairs. That vantage point has been one of the most interesting from which to view the changes over the past year. I've taken pictures from that spot throughout. Maybe I'll load some up.

That vantage point has been one of the most interesting from which to view the changes over the past year. I've taken pictures from that spot throughout. Maybe I'll load some up.

Please do. I'd love to see the birds'-eye view.

Spectacular Jenise ! I had a pretty good idea from all your previous posts but wasn't quite sure how the big sink area separated from the cook area would work.
Now I get it and totally understand how and why it works. I think that was a real design leap that makes total sense seeing how everything else fits together.
You did a great job and will remember mostly the fun stuff you did to have what you wanted. The next 52 WILL be better .

Fabulous looking kitchen. Everything you make there will be perfect, you have earned it. We would have divorced, had a nervous breakdown, I would have killed the general contractor, or worse. I think you should be put up for sainthood.

You measured your sink basins?

Lol - you really think 78 is too many knives?

Just a little! But it's my husband's fault--I didn't buy a single one of them for myself.

And to think - all you need is five.

And to think - all you need is five.

paring, slicer (ham or bread?), large chef's, small chef's, cleaver?

WOW Jenise...it is so amazing!! I can't believe those aren't even the finished pics yet. I love your light fixtures...they are just incredible. I can't wait to see it finished.

[Jenise]

Lol - you really think 78 is too many knives?

Just a little! But it's my husband's fault--I didn't buy a single one of them for myself.

And to think - all you need is five.

I could happily get by with three of the big ones--but I have four or five paring knives and can't imagine parting with a one. It's not uncommon for multiples of them to get used in the making of one meal. Don't ask me how, they just do.

[Jenise]

You measured your sink basins?

Of course: when you design, procure and build your own you're intimate with these details. And since I selected a 39" width sink where 32" is the standard cut-out, those numbers got discussed a lot.

You measured your sink basins?

Tut tut, Chef, you haven't been paying attention. We've discussed the sink in great detail - in fact, Jenise, thank you for sharing, it feels like we've all been part of this kitchen process with you! And the results are truly stunning, girlfriend, good for you and Bob!

Celia

[Jenise]

WOW Jenise...it is so amazing!! I can't believe those aren't even the finished pics yet. I love your light fixtures...they are just incredible. I can't wait to see it finished.

Thanks for the compliment on the lights--you have no idea how I sweated over those and whether or not mixing three fixtures as different as the ones I chose would work. I'd have gone the chicken route and at least matched two IF I could have found two from the same series or grouping that worked in two of the three locations. But alas, that wasn't possible, so I went to the other extreme.