It’s done and it’s fabulous!
And it went way smoother than I expected.
Come, I’ll give you a tour and then I’ll tell you all about the amazing designers and
builders who made my new kitchen a reality.
The white kitchen seems to be the standard these days, but it’s just not my thing.
I love wood, particularly walnut.
Of course, you can’t have all walnut in a kitchen that’s not all that large and
has an entire wall of cabinets.
And yes, all these cabinets are absolutely necessary because I don’t have a separate
pantry.
So what we decided to do was to make all the bottom cabinets walnut and to make all the
other cabinets white.
For the walnut, we went with flat panel doors to keep things modern.
But for white, we felt that flat doors would be a tad too modern, so we went with shaker
doors.
I was concerned about the corners of traditional shaker doors that have a 90 degree bevel.
They look a tad too austere to me and possibly hard to clean, so I chose the doors with a
softer angle.
For some reason, most kitchen cabinets in the US are framed.
In other words, they have a frame on the front and the doors attach to the frame, not to
the walls.
In theory, that gives you a more durable construction, but you’ll lose some storage space especially
in the drawers.
My previous cabinets were frameless and I decided to go with frameless again.
I feel that they look more modern and give me more storage space.
The counters are the standard polished granite.
It’s the most used part of my kitchen and practicality was more important to me than
looks.
I am used to putting hot stuff directly on my counter without trivets, and granite is
the only surface that deals with it well.
Some quartzite does too, but quartzite turned out to be a very tricky material.
Some of it is closer to granite and some is closer to marble.
It can be very pretty, but it’s a risk, and a very expensive risk.
And quartz was out of the question because it doesn’t tolerate heat.
I also ruled out honed granite.
It’s a hot thing right now because it’s not shiny and gives you a more contemporary
look, but it can stain.
Since there were so many practical concerns, I didn’t expect that the counter would be
my favorite part of the kitchen.
But it is!
It turned out absolutely beautiful.
Granite is known for being speckly and not all that pretty, but every piece of granite
is different, and if you look long enough, you can find something really beautiful.
It took me 3 trips, but it was all worth it because I found this beauty.
It was love at first sight.
The moment I saw the slab, I knew this was my counter.
Since the counter is a little busy, we had to go with a very simple backsplash.
But these two walnut floating shelves bring some interest to this otherwise boring white
wall.
We couldn’t add more lights to the ceiling because of air conditioning and hood ducts
that are stuck in a very tight space.
But we put in much nicer brighter lights and added under cabinet lighting.
Boy is it nice.
How did I live without it all these years?
It is so wonderful to have my favorite working spot between the sink and the stove lit up
nicely.
The dishwasher is new because our counters are finally the standard height and we no
longer need an extra short dishwasher.
Now we can have a third rack for silverware that I am greatly enjoying.
The handle is nice too.
We chose a dishwasher with a handle because it’s a great place to hang up dish towels
to dry them out.
The microwave was a pain in the ass.
We used to have a built-in microwave right here in the 12 inch deep cabinets.
Turns out in the last 20 years built-in microwaves have gotten bigger.
These days they are only made for 25 inch cabinets.
We don’t have any upper cabinets that are that deep and we can’t put it above the
stove, so we ended up getting a regular microwave that is sitting in 16 inch deep cabinets without
being built-in.
I was a little worried about how that would look, but it turned out fine.
The stove, the fridge, and the hood are the same.
If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.
That was the tour and now let’s talk about the people that made it happen.
This was the first construction project in our life that went perfectly smoothly.
If you are in my neck of the woods, listen up because I am about to reveal the best kept
secrets of interior design and construction in Boston.
Our contractor was Todd Russell.
I’ve never seen this level of craftsmanship, communication, timeliness, and risk management
from any contractor.
When Todd told me it would take 5-6 weeks, I was very skeptical.
I am used to projects taking 3 times as long as originally quoted, but it really only took
6 weeks.
I was just getting comfy in my laundry room, and it was time to move back into my kitchen.
Our cabinet designer was Scott Blake from Koopman Kitchen and Bath Center.
He found a solution to every problem we threw at him.
His patience and attention to detail was unbelievable.
Now, let’s talk about aesthetics.
That’s not my strong suit.
I have no idea what counters go with what tile and how to coordinate two different cabinet
styles and make it all work together.
That was all my wonderful interior designer Kim Macumber.
Some interior designers are great at creating their idea of a perfect kitchen, but Kim created
my idea of a perfect kitchen and that’s a big difference.
I am still a little giddy and smile every time I walk into this space.
The beautiful walnut shelves were custom made for me by Zack Hardoon from Cannon Hill Woodworking
in Boston.
Zack has built us some absolutely stunning pieces of furniture, like my maple work table,
and our walnut dining room table.
Isn’t that a beauty!
Beautiful wooden things are my weakness.
It’s a good thing I don’t like expensive jewelry because I more than compensate for
it with my taste in furniture.
And last but not least, I want to thank my dear husband Jason, who was there for me every
step of this very long process.
The info for everyone is in the description below and if you are ever in the Boston area,
you can come to class and see my kitchen in person.