Everyone’s a critic

This kitchen was featured in a post about a modern home listing in Portland over on Jetson Green.

At first glance, the abundance of wood finish is great:  it’s warm & provides  good contrast with the stainless appliances.

Look a little closer & things stand out. Like, where can you store anything in that kitchen? 3 wall cabinets, 1 blind corner base cabinet, 1 drawer under the microwave and 1 single door base cabinet?

Granted, there may be more storage outside the edges of the shot.  And sink cabinets don’t count b/c of the amount of sink guts, disposal, & it’s usually the designated garbage and detergent zone in most houses.

Lines & Clearances

What happens when you need items out of the drawer under the microwave and that corner cabinet simultaneously? Or how about getting into the dishwasher when the oven door is open?  That is a busy corner with all the appliances scrunched into it.

As far as lines go, I love the horizontal orientation of the wall tile.  But the variation of vertical vs. horizontal pulls on the cabinets is visually noisy.

The shelf over the window at the sink & the window itself are nice touches. I wonder why the wood banding above the tile on the sink wall does not continue over the tile at the range hood?

WWED? (what would ecomod do)

• continue the wide wood trim above the wall tile along the range side wall, interrupting it at the vent;
• either darken or lighten the wood on the cabinets or on the floor, but not both, to gain some contrast;
• add horizontally oriented wall cabs over the sink for added storage. I’d line them up with the glass doors on the corner wall cabinets to continue that visual line;
• swap the positions of the DW and the single door base cabinet to help unclutter that corner;
• find a way to incorporate more drawers (40% more storage with drawers over doors, kids!).

Steel + Reclaimed Riverwood = Welcome.

I always wanted to design & build my own dining table. I wanted it to be long (76″)  & semi-narrow. That way we could seat a good size group, & the tightness of the table width at 28″ would encourage conversation.

As with all things envisioned, I couldn’t find what I wanted off the shelf, so off I went, to make this.

We started with 2″ square tube steel for the frame. I wanted the legs to poke through & be flush with the top. On top the frame we set a full 2″ solid reclaimed heart pine top.  This thing weighs about 100 pounds. So dance away on it.

That wood was pulled from the Cape Fear River, where it had hung out on the bottom for hundreds of years. It’s really  beautiful – a mix of tight & loose grain, divits & notches.

A few thumbnails from the fabrication adventure (yes that apron is 3 sizes too big for me) and the table’s current natural habitat – in our kitchen.

More Eye Candy for the Kitchen

A couple of things caught my eye last week in the kitchen accessory world. First, Eva Solo has some wonderfully simple utensils. I especially like the magnetimer & fruit peeler. See thumbnails below.

My folks had some hurricane lamps for years on our mantle. They were rarely used. The ones Mom & Dad had were tall & slender, & had a wicker wrapped handle to carry from room to room without burning your hand. Though I wonder about moving these metal & glass guys once lit, they are still just beautiful, & hangable, no less.

Warm it up with wood

Natu has some elegant bowls for fruit & whatnot. I could totally see one of their Fructo-o bowls as a centerpiece on our reclaimed wood dining table.

Another nice Natu fruit bowl is Iradia, and some solid walnut serving bowls. See thumbnails below.

Whether Mother Nature or a Building Sprinkler Goes Awry

We just finished up a kitchen design & installation job for a client whose condo had been flooded.  Twice. By a building sprinkler system.

Contractors doing renovation work in the unit upstairs set off the system by accident both times.  It caused hundreds of gallons of water to come down into my client’s condo.

Untangling the Insurance Knot

As it turned out, her homeowner’s insurance would pay to replace the kitchen.  That was the good news.

The bad news was, it would pay only the depreciated amount of what the kitchen was worth at the time of the flood.  So instead of a $40,000 tag for the original 10 year old kitchen, her total budget was closer to $18,000.

Such is the fine print in a homeowner’s insurance policy, take heed.

EcoMod + IKEA = Another Happy Ending

We put in a new IKEA kitchen for her, same basic footprint as the destroyed one.

Not only was it less cost than the original, but it had more features like soft closures (no more finger pinching or door slamming) and a 25 year warranty, to boot! She also had enough left over to get some new light fixtures she’d been coveting for months.

She is happily back home & delighted to have her life back together.

Did you remodel your own kitchen?

If so, we want to hear about it. Good, bad & ugly.  Some of the most difficult things to convey about kitchen remodeling are

• how much work it is to coordinate multiple trades, repeatedly
• how dusty & dirty it is
• the inconvenience of kitchenless living

So spill it.

Was it easy as pie?  Did you get a divorce because of it? Was it worth the effort & time? Did you save a significant amount of money? Most of all, would you do it again?

Or would you rather gouge your eyes out with a rusty spoon before you do another kitchen remodel yourself?

Unique Kitchen Design Firm EcoModernisn Bridges Gap for Ikea Lovers

If the closest Ikea store is a long drive away, it doesn’t mean an Ikea kitchen is out of reach. Raleigh NC based firm EcoModernism designs & installs Ikea kitchens for people who live as far as 12 hours from an Ikea.

Raleigh, NC, July 13, 2010 –(PR.com)– “There are a lot of steps and parts to putting in a Ready-To-Assemble (RTA) kitchen,” says Becky Shankle. She is the founder & CVO (Chief Visionary Officer) of EcoModernism. “Long distance purchasing just adds another layer of possible complication to the process.”

On the front end, EcoModernism designs the kitchen to the client’s specifications. They review it live with the client via Skype. They then compile, double check, & assist with placing the actual order.

“If we do our job right, all the components for that specific design are correctly listed in the final order,” says Shankle. “We’ve seen people who did not use our design services go back to the store as many as 5 times to straighten out errors & omissions.” That’s a lot of time & money down the drain. And that’s for people living a mere 2 hours & 20 minutes from a store.  >>more….>>

Never say Never

We relinquished and jumped into the fray on Facebook.  We could use some liking & favoriting. *hint, hint*

So there you have it, the Triple Whammy. Facebook. LinkedIn. Twitter. Most of our online activity will be here, twitter & LinkedIn.  Mostly because I’m clueless about Facebook, and as Betty White said,  ”It sounds like a huge waste of time!”.