rmkitchen's Kitchen

rmkitchen's Finished Kitchen



Contact: rmkitchen (My Page)
Posted on Fri, Aug 8, 08
Link to kitchen photos: http://s231.photobucket.com/albums/ee158/rmkitchen/kitchen/finished%20kitchen/

Details:

Cabinets:

Appliances:

Hardware:

Lighting:

Countertop & backsplash:

Paint:

Floors:

Construction:

Kitchen designer


Our kitchen is approximately 13’w x 21'l (not completely true, as only one side is 21' long; the other wall is 11 1/2'). Our ceiling is 9’ high (the upper cabinets are 47 ½" high with crown moulding running from the top of the cabinets up to the ceiling).

Things we love
or, what we did right
-Sans doute moving the opening into the dining room down the wall so as to make a U-shape kitchen was the smartest thing we did. It has increased the function / made better the ergonomics tremendously!

-Full Marble Backsplash. It's gorgeous and I LOVE getting to see my true love, the marble, from many different vistas. If we'd had the marble as just our countertop the only time I would've seen it is when I was working on that counter. Now I can see it when sitting in the breakfast nook, when walking into the family room. It is absolutely the star of our kitchen!

-Large, single bowl, apron front sink. Having all that continuous room for washing large pots / pans / baking dishes is so incredible! I love how the apron front eliminates any lower back pain– not far to reach into the sink. We also have no splashing, as opposed to what we had with a shallower, drop-in sink.

-Raised dishwasher. It just makes sense! I know many love their dishdrawers but as we run a full or nearly-full dishwasher nightly, it would not have made sense for us to have dishdrawers.

-Side-opening wall oven. I was on the fence a long time on this one: that oven set (the Gaggenau 30" double wall ovens) was really expensive, but oh how we love the side-opening mechanism! It just makes so much sense.

-Foot pedal trash. Hands full of broccoli remnants + foot pedal trash = genius.

-Magnetic chalkboards – my children adore them! My older son (four years-old) loves drawing his robots and writing; my younger son (two years-old) loves standing and "coloring." We love being able to keep our timer and grocery list in a central and easy-to-locate spot.

-Full freezer and full refrigerator: we wonder how we lived before with combined units. It sounds insane, but for our vegetarian family with little children we are absolutely utilizing these separate units to their fullest.

-Polished nickel hardware: it’s beautiful. It’s just beautiful, and it takes a lot of work to get them looking icky / dirty; plus, I have to say they are a breeze to clean (when they do get icky)!

-Integrated Dishdrain: we had it carved into the marble on the right side of our sink (our dishrack sits atop it), and we LOVE not having a puddling countertop. We love not having a wet dishtowel or a rubber mat.

-Flatware and Dish Drawers right next to the dishwasher. Unloading the dishwasher requires just the slightest turn of the hips – it’s an ergonomic dream!

-Getting our puppy one month to the day after the remodel started (and three months before it ended). It was such hard work – miserably hard, puppy-training and living amidst chaos (as we were doing nearly the whole house). But man-oh-man am I glad we did it all at once! I am so grateful to have had all the ick and dreck at once. (She’s a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel and we swear she’s part-cat: v. gentle, smart, affectionate. She’s never ever growled / been angry with our two little children, and our youngest is not the gentlest. He loves the puppy, but his love can be a bit rough. Cavaliers are also known for loving cats, and our youngest cat is the puppy’s best friend. They adore each other. But the puppy really really loves the children.)

-Not fighting. In our normal lives my husband I occasionally bicker – we’re married and we’re both strong, opinionated people. But for some strange (and miraculous) reason, we never had a fight during the entire remodel; we got along splendidly and truly were a team. Well, maybe not a team: I was definitely The Chief, but he was 100% on board and totally supportive. I wish I knew why that was because I’d like to bottle it!

Things we don’t love
or, things we’d do differently
(There are only two things we absolutely wish we’d done differently, things which we notice [and which irk us] on a daily basis. I’ll list those two first.)
#1 thing which drives us crazy
-Think about where countertop accoutrements (inc. countertop appliances) would live when planning light switches. I had one undercab light switch put, I thought, in an inconspicuous spot near the corner. I absolutely should have figured out where I’d be putting our toaster because, as it happens, the toaster now blocks the light switch. We’ve tried moving the toaster around but that’s just the spot where it makes sense. But yet it doesn’t make sense because it blocks the light switch. This is already frustrating and totally stupid on my part!

#2 thing which drives us crazy
-Pantry pull-outs. HATE them! Maybe hate is too strong a word (not really), but we realize now we would have been so much happier with standard shelves, not even roll-out shelves! (although those are divine) We have the pantry units from Rev-A-Shelf and find a) they are "adjustable" in name only, b) they don’t hold as much as you’d think, and c) a space-waster. If we’d had shelves we could have stacked cans or seen at one glance all our dry-goods. As it is, we have to pull out three separate units and honestly, we think it’s crap. Never again!

(These other things are things which we’d do differently in the future but which aren’t frustrating us daily.)
-Broom Pull-out isn’t deep enough to hold our stick vac. We’d told our cabinetmaker it needed to be 6" deep, so the pull-out door is 6" deep, but the way he built the support for the steel pegboard eats up an inch, so the interior usable space is only 5" deep … and not enough to hold our stick vac.

-24" deep lower cabinets. Too shallow! We didn’t realize until too late (as in, unpacking into this kitchen) that our penultimate kitchen had 32" deep lowers. What a difference! In all fairness to myself (as in, trying to make myself feel better), given the tight quarters of this kitchen we could not have afforded even 30" deep lowers; well, we could have, but then we would have lost our island which we are really enjoying. Next kitchen will be really different!

-Symmetry. I don’t know if it’s just for symmetry’s sake or for my husband’s, but flanking either side of the cooktop are spice pull-outs. Granted, he’s got them both filled to the gills with his goodies, but I could really use those 6" in my stack of baking supply drawers. Given the particulars of the layout of our kitchen the symmetry there would not have mattered.

-Having our microwave built-in. My husband was adamant he did NOT want a built-in microwave (the kind which have the trim-kits, I mean), so we found the Sharp over-the-counter microwave. Turns out there was some sort of "miscommunication" with the GC (so I guess I’m responsible). The "problem" is that the drywall behind the microwave wasn’t removed and reframed so as to accommodate the 1.5" the microwave juts out past its surrounding cabinetry. It’s already not bothering me so much, but when I do think about it I think "I wish we’d been clearer." Hopefully I’ll learn to live with it because I just don’t want to pay for the work!

-Double Ovens. We’ve always (well, in the US) had double ovens and I love to bake, so I never thought of a single oven. But so far, I’ve only been using one oven and as we’re the strictest of vegetarians it’s not as if we’ll ever have a turkey in one and pie in the other. I think how differently the space (& money) could have been utilized …. Who knows?

Features:
Air Switch
Apron Sink
Baking Center
Blumotion
Broom Closet
CabinetsWall >36"high
Cutting Board Storage
Dishwaster:Elevated
Drainboard
Drawer Dividers
Filtered Water Faucet
Frameless Cabinets
Full Extension Drawers
Glass Doors
Custom Hood
Instant Hot Water
Island without Seating
Knife Drawer
Lazy Susan
LightingRecessed
LightingUnder Cabinet
NeverMT
Pegged Plate Organizer
Plug inside Cabinet
Pullout Pantry
Rollout Trays
Sink >30"wide
Soap Dispenser
Spice Storage
Trash Foot Pedal
Trash Pullout
TV
UCFrig
Water Filter
full marble slab backsplash

- posted by starpooh @ 6:38 AM
Comments:
This kitchen is supremely beautiful! And thank you for your complete list of resources and fixtures.
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : October 29, 2009 at 12:28 PM
 
I absolutely LOVE your kitchen!!! I'm getting ready to renovate my own kitchen and I'm stuck on countertops! My heart tells me marble, but everyone else tells me anything OTHER than marble! How have yours held up? What do you disinfect them with? Do you have any stains yet? Would you still recommend them? Any input would be GREATLY appreciated!
P.S. I have 4 boys and a VERY busy house!
# posted by Anonymous kcurry : January 24, 2010 at 9:46 AM
 

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