|
Post by evangeline on Jul 24, 2018 7:13:03 GMT -5
Nan, laughing here. The whole china cabinet thing started because:
1) our 1903 house was inherited in the 1980s by a family who heated it with barrels of burning coal in the basement (they cut holes in the floors for the heat to rise)
2) they traded the china cabinet (which was original to the house) to the neighbors for a canoe
3) said neighbor got sick of the china cabinet and convinced me to buy it back
4) I hated it — it looked awful in the dining room & all my china on display — ??#@%!! Looked like a fleatique.
5) so I had to find somewhere to put it. ;-)
I can’t take credit for the idea. Lots of blogs are obsessed w/Pilar Guzman’s kitchen (Martha Stewart’s chief of design). Google “Pilar Guzman’s kitchen”. Wowza. I thought: maybe I can fake Guzman’s kitchen with my super-big kinda sorta ugly china cabinet! Turns out having all my glassware, spices, etc. handy is a nice thing. PS: I drew all the elevations of the kitchen design to scale so I was pretty sure it was going to look ok. But my dear contractor, my husband, and most of my friends were horrified. I had to promise that if it didn’t look good we’d take it down. Glad we didn’t have to! I didn’t have a plan B for the darn thing.
Ok, I’m taking a little victory lap here.
I’m pleased as punch w/the kitchen (shout out to all the craftspersons who worked on it, especially the Amish cabinetmaker!!) but Chambers people should know that w/all the flash, most people focus on the stove! Have had more compliments on the stove than anything! Lots of kitchen designers looked at my drawings and said the 1950s stove would be out of keeping w/the vintage vibe — but she works! I think its because she is elegant. If she weren’t so elegant, I couldn’t have juxtaposed her with all the stained-glass-dangle-lights-hoo-haw. She makes the kitchen sing, to me.
|
|
|
Post by karitx on Jul 24, 2018 16:23:37 GMT -5
Your kitchen is gorgeous! I love that soapstone and the stained glass window and - of course - the Chambers!
|
|
|
Post by pooka on Jul 25, 2018 2:45:56 GMT -5
It's spectacular!!! I love the vintage vibe without replicating the past. The rich wood tones play nicely with the white background. Your lucky to have the high ceilings to pull off using that china cabinet on the counter & it works. It's that kind of quirky detail that sets your kitchen apart from the pack. The Vent-A-Hood helps make the 50s era Chambers work, but they seem sort of chameleon like. Their subtle styling is timeless making them fit in in any setting, from rustic to ultra modern. Their unique looks transcend eras.
Kudos to your craft people. They've done a great job from what I've seen. All that white is a nice blank slate to showcase the warm woods & touchable rich counter-tops. That's a looks that never goes out of style. Soapstone will never wear out either. It will only gain patina with time. Come back in a hundred years & it'll look better. No other material can say that. Is the sink soapstone too?
The open shelving says casual. The stained glass says elegant. It's a melding of the two that make this kitchen ready for a magazine spread. It seems a cheery room to be in. It'll only get better with time. And you did it your way despite the push back from all around you. Bravo, because you're the one that made it so. It's the many little details like the push button light switches that makes this revamp so praiseworthy. It looks as good close up as it does at a distance.
One specific question about the vintage toaster sitting on the shelf, details please? I have one that looks similar if not the same. Mine's a early 50s General Electric. I shouldn't have bought it, but it's like new & was only $8.
OK, back to you. Take a victor lap. Take two. Job well done in my eyes, but only your eyes matter. After all, it's your kitchen. It should only matter what you want it to be. I was just looking at your pics & realized the china cabinet reminds me of vintage apothecary cabinets you might have seen at a druggist a hundred or more years ago. Is just a cool statement piece, like one perfect tree in the middle of a garden.
|
|
|
Post by evangeline on Jul 25, 2018 7:16:22 GMT -5
Pooka, trust you to notice the little details! :-) Of course you caught that toaster. It’s a Toastmaster — exactly the one my parents had in the kitchen until they replaced it in the ‘80s with a piece of garbage from Kmart. I found it on sale at a vintage store for $25, cord intact, working condition. I was pretty jazzed. ($8 would have been better, but I don’t have your touch.)
The push-button switches were one of the Ridiculously Expensive choices but I’m a lamp junky & I HATE most switches & Rejuvenation offers units with a twist-dimmer button on the bottom. The controls at one door are on-off. By the table they are dimmable. I get a charge out of fooling with the lights.
The Amish carpenter was really great to work with. I ordered several Rev-a-Shelf inserts (pantry racks, etc.) and he was very patient about fitting all the bits together. I expected the final bill to be higher than the bid because of all that, but it was lower because a couple of things turned out to be easier than he thought. Wow.
The sink is soapstone. It was the only choice because I tucked the sink between a corner and the dishwasher and it had to be custom dimensions. It wasn’t all that expensive relative to market products and I love that it doesn’t show every little stain! And I don’t have to use a rack to protect it! DS put his foot down - no farmhouse sink. (WHY? Who can say?). I’m a little sorry about that because the farmhouse setup is more ergonomic, but you know, peace in the valley. (Actually for years I schemed on a big white sink — had one all picked out. Now I wouldn’t go back for all the tea in China. This sink literally requires no care. I hose it out. No more Barkeepers Friend. No more sweating out washing the cast iron. . . .a black stone sink is a weird wonderful joy.)
Chipperhiker, I was told that if I don’t wax every week the stone won’t darken to black. So far I haven’t had to wax after the first week, but I don’t use detergent or soap on the stone, I use microfiber cloths.
Ok, run on. I’m a designer by trade (exterior/garden) so I can gas on about details until the cows come home. I have thought about suppliers but I won’t go into all that, blah blah. Any Commundards thinking about projects — shout out and I’ll gas on some more.
BTW Pinterest was a great resource but the best info I found was films made in the 1930s showing “modern kitchen design.” (YouTube.) Useful (and fun) for thinking about space layout and task-based organization. Kinda sad though. All those efficiency studies to figure out how one woman could do the work of three our four. In some of them the housewife is pretty cheery. In some she is pretty dejected.
|
|
|
Post by pooka on Jul 25, 2018 12:35:22 GMT -5
evangeline, $25 is not bad for a nice vintage toaster. They can cost a whole lot more for a nice one. Actually the GE was $10 now that I think about it at a St. Vincent De Paul thrift store. They have the best prices. My 1939 Sunbeam T-9 toaster was $8 at a junk shop. The only drawback of old toasters is they don't work for thicker or bigger slices of bread. They're designed for the standard sized sandwich slice. I've got a quirky modern Krupp toaster if I've got a bagel or big thick bread to toast.
I'm just cheap. Just as I might want to spend more on things, on a practical note, I'm not flush with cash, so if it ain't cheap, I ain't buying. Sometime you luck out if you're patient. I keep an eagle eye out for things that strike my fancy, & primarily shop at thrift stores. They're my cheap entertainment & source of great bargains. I have a unique sense of style with a penchant for the unusual. Your new kitchen ticks all my boxes. While I not a big fan of that much white, it work in your case. I love more rich colors if possible, but to each his or her own.
I knew you had some training in design when you said "I drew all the elevations of the kitchen design to scale". Only a designer would use those terms. That “Pilar Guzman’s kitchen” is over the top for most everyone but the very rich. As beautiful as it is, it's something you'll only see in the housed of the rich & famous. But we can take design cues on a more human scale for kitchens us regular folks would feel more at home with.
That sink is great, & looks good too. As you said it was the only choice because of your unique size restrictions. It was no more costly than a really good quality sink of another type. I kinda like the farmhouse sinks myself, but they've overdone & overused in recent years more for the look than for practicality. Take it from me, a professional dishwasher, there's no substitute for a big roomy & deep sink for getting the job done. I'm used to a triple well commercial sink at work. When I come home to my little typical home sinks, they're more like a kids play set. Sometime if I've got something big, or I've bought something that need a real good scrubbing, I take it to work where I've got the space in a big deep sink to whale away at it.
We could rattle on endlessly about light switches, drawer pulls & tile trim & the like. There are so many choices that make for a whole. It's a real chore to get them all right for a happy & productive environment. In the end, if you're happy with the results, that's all that matters.
|
|
|
Post by nana on Jul 25, 2018 18:09:24 GMT -5
I would be afraid, I think, to design a kitchen all new from scratch. Unless I had a clear vision, there are just too many decisions and choices. Fear of making the wrong one might leave me unable to make any! I do much better taking what I'm given and tweaking it over the years to suit. Then there's always the cost factor--for us mortals, anyway. When I try to do anything really big, I find that what I really want is way way way out of my league and I have to settle. So I'm with you Pooka--thrift shop and yard sale finds drive most of my home decor!
|
|
|
Post by evangeline on Jul 26, 2018 7:26:21 GMT -5
You’re right, Nana, it’s very intimidating. I’ve been scheming and saving my shekels for 20 years to to do this and I thought it would be fun! And really, it wasn’t! Even though I’m trained to make decisions, it was nerve-wracking knowing that if it wasn’t ok we were going to have to live with it (Toyota budget - no do-overs, no change orders!!!) (Luckily that glass cabinet worked cuz I didn’t have the $ for Plan B).
And there are so so many decisions. Frankly I got sick of it. Just lucky my design partner backed me up all the way. (It was she who talked me out of painting the old laminate countertops. I had the paint mixed up! So I blame her for everything.)
Whole thing’s given me a new respect for our clients, and how they trust us (while they must be privately shaking in their boots. . . ).
I’d be interested to hear from the other Communards about how they designed or rehabbed their kitchens, and how it went.
Mach12 - waiting for pics of that Baker’s Table, the zinc top. Zinc is the coolest.
Stories, anyone?? New thread?
|
|
|
Post by evangeline on Jul 26, 2018 7:32:28 GMT -5
Just browsed through this thread from bye-gone years. Oh, how I’ve repeated myself! (Senior moments sealed in amber, people!)
Shout out to MelissaF for the soapstone info.
|
|
|
Post by mach12 on Jul 26, 2018 10:15:41 GMT -5
Mach12 - waiting for pics of that Baker’s Table, the zinc top. Zinc is the coolest. Things got put on hold but I hope to be back at it soon. Probably after surgery. I haven't forgotten!
|
|