Kitchen
Upper cabinet storage below. With open shelving and windows where our china and glassware storage used to be, lower cabinets need to work much harder and smarter these days. When outfitted like this, it makes it easy. Well, fairly easy — think of it as getting some extra squats into your workout when you need to grab something.
A hidden place for charging. Speaking of counter clutter, personal devices are the worst. And they’re full of germs — not a good mix with surfaces where you prepare food. Charging drawers keep them tucked away, safe from spills and ready for playing podcasts and looking up recipes while you’re working in the kitchen.
Weidmann Remodeling SaveEmail Cookie sheets and cutting boards. These pieces are shallow but hard to find a good spot for. If you don’t have the aforementioned toe-kick drawers, they wind up toppling over pots and pans or getting buried beneath them. A narrow cabinet takes up very little room and can house cutting boards and baking sheets. And check out how well-organized the spices are in the adjacent drawer.
Lighting is key to the mood of the kitchen,” says Stone. “I added lights on top of the overhead cupboards for a lovely warming effect, and everything is controlled at the touch of a button.” For easy use Stone installed a number of settings, including winter evening, daytime and entertaining, so the family can choose the perfect ambience for the occasion.
Madson Design SaveEmail Pot-filling faucet: Not a storage item but rather a time- and back-saving accessory, pot-filler faucets are popular on backsplashes above stovetops because they eliminate multiple trips back and forth to the sink. Installation requires a plumber to install the lines and then a new backsplash (or you can modify an existing backsplash if you have enough leftover tile). To protect the wall from moisture, you need to have a hard-surface backsplash, such as tile or stone. On top of labor and materials for the plumber, the fixture itself can run between $275 and $1,350. James Madson of Madson Design says a standard 4-inch wall thickness is all that’s required for this type of faucet installation. However, if you want to make the faucet an instant water dispenser, a power point would be required as well as dedicated space below the countertop for the tank. As there is no standard height for pot-faucet installation, Madson advises to install the faucet at least a couple of inches higher than the highest kitchen pot. He adds, “Generally speaking, faucets at cooktops add some cost to your kitchen, but where lifting heavy pots full of water from the sink to the cookt...
5. How high should my vent hood be? This one took a while to figure out. Although the fan we chose was powerful, we felt the low end of where our manufacturer suggested placing the hood was too low, and I was wary of placing it on the high side, because I sear meat often. In the end we were able to place it at the maximum height for two reasons: 1. Our fan had a high CFM (cubic feet per minute) number in proportion to our stove’s BTU, and 2. Our vent hood was wider than our range. Chris Riddle of Riddle Construction and Design explains: “In an ideal situation the hood should be 6 inches wider than the size of the cooktop/range for maximum efficiency. Meaning a 30-inch range has a 36-inch-wide hood, a 36-inch range has a 42-inch hood and so forth.”
If you need extra freezing space Our solution came in the form of a pair of freezer drawers in our kitchen island. They aren’t as deep as the drawer on a bottom-mounted freezer-refrigerator unit, but pairing them up means that I have ample space for all of my gallon bags of homemade chicken broth and giant balls of cookie dough.
7. Be mindful. The pantries that inspire me most are never packed to the gills with snacks and canned goods. So as I reorganize, I won’t just toss expired items. Instead, I’ll note what I’ve been purchasing too much of and avoid those things in the future. And when I do come home from the grocery store, I’ll think about not just where I put things away but how they’re put away, taking care to face containers with the labels out and align similar items. Because, yes, some people’s spaces actually do look like the one shown here. And I intend to be one of those people.
KPD InteriorsSave to IdeabookEmail Photo 1. Install a spice shelf. I love my roll-out pantry, but my spices are getting lost in the mix. Because they’re stacked one behind the other, they waste space, and it’s hard to see what I have. To remedy this problem, I’ll install door-mounted spice shelves inside the cabinet where I keep my cookbooks. The trick will be finding a rack that doesn’t require heavy mounting hardware that might poke through to the outside of the cabinet. So while I would absolutely love a wooden rack like this one, I’ll likely need to find one made of wire.
sliding door with a blackboard on it for the pantry
Stairs
The stairs
ArciformSave to IdeabookEmail Photo When it comes to juxtaposing modern and traditional touches, De Wolf recommends adding elements that would have been seen during the time period or are inspired by it. The integrated sink is a modern update on a porcelain sink with a drainboard. The sconce is a reproduction that looks appropriate to the era. Other details that come from the time the home was built (if not necessarily for a Victorian house in the city) include wide-plank chestnut floors and the tongue and groove ceiling.
The clients wanted to bring more of the Victorian era’s Gothic style into the new kitchen, so De Wolf installed this custom window, made by Versatile Wood Products. The smaller stained glass window is an antique that also nods to the Victorian era. In contrast, the stainless steel sink adds a modern touch. Tip: When using an eclectic material palette, De Wolf recommends using each material more than once. “This keeps it from looking like a hodgepodge,” she explains. For instance, the stainless steel on the countertop is echoed in the nickel on the pendant lights, which looks similar. The backsplash has a bluish tint to it, which is picked up in the trim and a bit in the schist countertop. These moves seem minor, but they tie the room together.
The new addition starts to the left of the refrigerator. The posts were a structural necessity, but De Wolf made them an asset, using them to define bays for the expansive pantry. The open shelves were inspired by ones seen in an old-fashioned small-town grocery store; they create a divider between the kitchen and the pantry. Clerestories maintain an open and light feeling. A large piece of steel on the right ties in to the metal brackets and braces used throughout the remodeling project. The plate serves as a magnetic board for schedules and invitations, and the family can write on it.
The custom brackets and braces match the strapping and the galvanized steel plate, complete with brass tacks. There is a pirate ship theme going on in the upstairs part of the new addition, and these pieces create continuity throughout the house. They also add unique details to the kitchen. De Wolf designed the templates for all of the pieces and then had them custom made by a steel fabricator.
The wide door and the transom
Toe kick storage drawers
Toe kick storage drawers
Toe kick storage drawers
Custom. This Shaker-style cabinet door has a centre panel of corrugated metal instead of wood for an industrial and utilitarian look that can stand up to years of abuse.
Thermofoil. These doors are moulded out of MDF, wrapped in a plastic-type coating and then baked under intense heat to create an impervious seal. Durable and cost effective, they come only in solid colours and imitation wood grain.
The Lazy Susan alternative. Blind corner cabinets have a lot of extra space that can be difficult to access. And that Susan, she is lazy. When I think of her, I think of cereal boxes toppling over whenever I give her a spin. A system like this one makes it much easier to grab what you need.
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