Filling Up the Nooks and Crannies

Today we had both our Amish and our "English" wood workers working in the house.

Joe Yoder was at the house bright and early with the command center, master bath drawers, and laundry cubbies.

The big news of the day was the command center. Well, the bottom of it anyway. The plan for this area, just off the kitchen, is have a place to organize all the papers and whatnot that go with running the home: bills, mail, binders, frequently used office supplies, lists, meal plans, our son's art supplies, family calendar, etc. Niels has his own traditional office off the foyer with a door so he can work from home when needed. But this area is for me...and likely our son as he gets older and starts doing homework.

The base is installed. The dry erase background is just leaning on the top for now. I'm hoping that the boards are magnetic as well, but I forgot to bring a magnet to test it. The only change I would have made is to have the pulls smaller. They were made to match the kitchen pulls, which are also a bit on the large side, but it was my own fault for not catching that earlier. Not a big deal in the grand scheme of things though.

We tried to think out how we'll use the space and plan the drawers and cabinets accordingly. One thing I wanted to make sure I had space for was the shredded, so we had this pull out made for it, with a plug in behind the drawer.

The countertop will be the same quartz as the kitchen, which will be templated next week. Once the counter is on, Joe will come back to install the cabinets on both ends, the dry erase boards, and the upper shelves and cubbies.

This is the part that goes over the cabinets. It's upside down here. The cubbies will be just over the dry erase boards, and then there are two open shelves for cookbooks, binders, and favorite books.

There are two tall cabinets for each end of the desk. My son is just shy of 40" tall, so that gives an idea of how tall they are. These will be used for all the home office things I want out of sight.

The guys were sweeping up dust clouds as I took this last picture, which gives the kitchen overview with the start of the command center added, as well as a peek at the mudroom lockers. You can also see that the front panel of the outer island has been installed. 

Meanwhile, upstairs in the master bath, Joe installed our drawers and shelves. Once upon a time and many blueprints ago, our linen closet was inside the water closet. Fortunately, we caught that in time, and decided to make the closet opening across from the vanity. The challenge is that the space is pretty narrow, as seen in this photo from this summer.

We decided the best way to make use of the space was to use deep drawers. We have a lot of room in our closet (neither of us are big clothes hoarders) and a large linen closet down the hall, so these drawers will be used mostly for extra shampoo, conditioner, body wash, TP, and other essentials. The shelves we be a nice display space.

This photo, taken from the tub, shows how well the drawers match the stock vanity we had installed earlier in the week.

We are getting the smaller pulls on these drawers.

Unfortunately, not everything went so smoothly. Niels discovered the first oops last night as we double checked the dimensions of our new double oven. We got a fantastic deal on a Jenn Air 30" double oven that had all three of the features that had been on my "keep on dreamin'" list: dehydrator function, proofing function, and a probe for temperature monitoring.

The oops is that the new oven is ever-so-slightly larger than the old one, and the cabinet is just a hair too tight.

Joe took it well and is confident that we can make an adjustment.

The second oops wasn't totally unexpected, but disappointing nonetheless. When the laundry cabinets were installed, we noticed that they didn't line up exactly with the lines of the floor. Turns out the change in our stock cabinets changed the width of the cabinet, so the laundry cubbies that Joe made are just a little too long. I apologized profusely. Joe shrugged his shoulders and said, "These things happen." I did get a quick peek at the cubbies as they made their way back to Joe's shop to be resized.

After Joe left, I moved on to Chris' work. I think we're all on the same page for the fireplace trim above the mantle, so I expect that'll be done in the next few days. The niche bench, on the other hand, is ready to be stained. I am so happy with how this "oops" turned out. I love the built-in nature of a very practical feature.

Close up of the bench:

He also finished up the vanity top, just in time for us to find the right sink to go on top!

Bathroom Vanities and Laundry Room Cabinetry In

A few quick pictures of our newly-installed vanities and laundry room.

Powder Room

In-Law Bath. The linen closet is from the Merrillat Classic line. Our trim carpenter will be custom building the vanity and drawers.

Master Bathroom

D's Bathroom

Laundry Room

In other news, the niche re-do has started. Originally, we had a ornamental niche, which looked nice, but we weren't sure what to do with it.

The more we thought about it, the more we realized that what we really needed in that space was a bench for guests to remove their shoes. Unfortunately, we were unable to find any benches narrow enough to work with the tight radius of the door. After brainstorming a bit with our GC and trim guy, we decided to drop the base of the niche to turn it into bench. 

Here's a post about our inspiration for the niche bench.

We also visited Lighting By Design to pick up some special bulbs for Niels' European light fixture, and ended up ordering our standard lights. We'll be putting either larger or small versions of this light in the mudroom, pantry, master closet, laundry room and upstairs hallway.

Build - Day 159 - Kitchen being installed

After years of planning, months of shopping around and weeks of looking forward (and following) the build process of our new Amish-build custom kitchen last week they were finally being installed. On Wednesday-morning our kitchen builder, Joe Yoder of Yoder Cabinet started installing the cabinets and by that evening all the main kitchen cabinets have been installed.

We choose maple wood, in a shaker-style, in espresso with metal pulls, full extension, soft-close, dove-tail drawer boxes and a few custom items such as an oil/wine cubby cabinet, two tip-out drawers and a recycling -center. Our cabinet maker used all Blum hinges. The result is truely stunning and pretty much exactly what we've been looking for.

A couple of items still need to be done:

• Comand Center; coming in 2 weeks
• Baking Center; coming with the countertops
• Clean-up island cover; goes on after minor electrical changes

My wife has made two comprehensive posts, one just prior to this one here on the blog and one on one of the most popular online building forums GardenWeb - Kitchen Section. Links will open in a new window. You can also find two overview shots at the end of this post as well.

After seeing his work we've had various requests of people on Joe Yoder's contact info. He does Kitchens, Baths, Furniture, Fireplace mantels, etc... Basically, whatever you need made. You can contact him at:

Joe Yoder Cabinet

7690 Hoy Road

Fredrickburg, OH 44627

P: (330) 763-0269

F: (330) 695-2126

In two days the non-kitchen cabinets will be installed as well. Next up will be the flooring, plumbing (installing toilets, faucets, etc...) and painting. Looking at an early February move-in.

Kitchen cabinets installed!!!

Today was a very exciting day for us. We went back to the house--which is a bit more of a drive now that we're settled in our apartment--to the mostly finished installation of our kitchen cabinets! It's not completely done because there are a few electrical issues that need to be addressed before the front panel of the outer island goes on, and the marble top baking center will be added in a few weeks with the rest of the countertop, but other than that, our kitchen cabinets are installed!

As a little background, I love to cook so the kitchen was a top priority to me. Since I live with a brain injury, we put a lot of thought into using as much universal design as we can afford. The floors will be cork for greater sound proofing, which means my son will finally be able to have playdates. (Hardwood floors are terrible for my headaches. So happy to be rid of them!). We'll have extra wide halls, rockers instead of light switches, levers and pulls instead of knobs, a raised dishwasher, lots of drawers for base cabinets, touch activiated faucets, etc. We tend toward function over form, but really wanted an accessible kitchen that was more transitional/modern than nursing home!

This was our rendering as of several months ago. We've made a few changes.The command center in the nook is a little different, with open shelves on top, and doing away with the desk extension on the left. We've also added arches over the command center and wall by the frig into the mudroom. The pantry door will be espresso framed with frosted glass. This view is from the dinette.

Rendering:

Reality:
I see that I need to go back and get a better shot. The first picture is from December 15, the second picture is from the 14th. The legs on the first picture show approximately where the open lowed baking center will be.

Here's the view from the great room. The big change here is that we took down the wall with open shelves to take advantage of all the fantastic natural light from the dinette.

Rendering:

Reality:

This view is from the command center, looking into the dinette and great room. Again, the only change is the wall with the open shelves is gone.

Rendering:

Reality:

 

And now for a little detail.

The cabinet are solid maple shaker style with espresso stain. They look almost black, but they are really a rich brown. This is pretty color-accurate. 

 All of the drawers are full extension, including these super wide drawers by the baking center. 

All the drawers and cabinets are soft close with Blumotion, another way to reduce noise in the house.

Joe Yoder did a fabulous job. We are so impressed with his quality. The dovetails are perfectly smooth.

The shelves are perfectly smooth and lined up with the frames.

Hardware. We chose pulls over knobs for ease of use as we age in place.

Molding:

Frig surround. We chose to keep the top open rather than put doors on because I'm only 5'4" and have never used a cabinet above my frig. Instead, I'l have two baskets, one for our first aid kit and one with our cleaning supplies (out of the reach of our toddler). 

Next to the frig is a stack of drawers. We made the second drawer a bread drawer because I love to make bread, and Niels love to eat bread! (He can go through a loaf every day or so!)

Continuing left is the cooktop, with three big drawers underneath it. The top drawer is a shallow one, which I"ll use for spices and wooden spoons. The other two drawers and nice and deep for pots and pans.

Next up is a row of cubbies for my cooking oils and wines. This was my cabinet maker's idea for the space instead of a dead space filler. I love it!

On either side of the cooktop we have upper cabinets with frosted glass. They're still a bit dusty.

One thing I really appreciated is the way the glass is sealed. In our last kitchen, our glass cabinets rattled whenever you closed them. Between the soft close and the seal, it's nice and quiet!

In the corner, we have a lazy susan.

I didn't take a good picture, but here is (part of) the corner cabinet above the lazy susan:

 Next to the lazy susan is the microwave drawer with deep drawer underneath. There's also a cabinet above the counter.

Next to the microwave is the double oven, which is a nice height for me, that is, lower than a typical double oven. This allowed room for racks above it for storing cookie trays and cutting boards. There's also a small drawer below for my bread pans.

Next to the wall ovens is a bank of drawers that I'll use for all my baking things. The drawers turned up a lot wider that I had imagined, so there's a good chance that I may use a drawer for our board games or our son's toys. The top of the counter will be the new home for my brand new Kitchen Aid mixer. I've wanted one forever, and Niels found a killer deal on Black Friday. Instead of the full wall with open shelves we originally planned, it'll be a half wall into the dinette. We needed the half wall for the Kitchen Aid's outlet.

Next to the bank of drawers will be my open lowered baking center. We designed it to accommodate a wheelchair, if needed.  But we can always use it for kneading dough and rolling out cookies--which I'll now be able to do without standing on my tippy toes! And, there's room for our son (and a friend) to help! We were planning to put the same quartz on the baking center as the rest of the counter, with a piece of marble on my wishlist for someday. An unexpected surprise is that when we looked at remnants for the bathroom vanities, we found a slab of carrara marble that was just the size we needed.

The inner island will be my prep island. Here's a view of it from the cooktop side. From the left, there's the recycling center, in the middle is an adjustable shelf that once again makes clever use of some dead space. I'll use this space for paper towels and wipes. On the right will be the prep sink with a tip out drawer and cabinet below.

This is the other side of the prep island. There are two banks of drawers where we'll keep most of our dishes, and then rest of the recycling center. You can see the built in dividers for utensils and silverware in the top drawers.

View of the utensil drawer:

This is our touch-activated recycling center. It uses Blumotion. It is a much improved version of the idea I got at Ikea about a year ago.

Here's the inside of the recycling center. The two bins on the bottom are for trash and glass/plastic recycling. The top drawer will hold two baskets, one for paper recycling and one for odd recycling, like light bulbs and batteries. We wanted to make it really easy for family and friends to recycle by having everything in one place.

This is the Blum servodrive that opens the recycling center with a gentle push.

Finally, this is the entertainment/clean-up island. From the right, there's a bank of drawers, single bowl sink cabinet and dishwasher. We raised it a little bit to make it easier to unload.

Both sinks have Rev-a-shelf tip out drawers for my gramma's scrubbies.

This is the outside of the entertainment island. We'll have three bar stools here.

The panel for the outside island isn't installed yet because there are a few electrical tweaks that need to happen first. 

The command center should be installed in a few weeks, and the pantry furniture will be moved in after painted.

I can't wait to get cooking!