Fewer things make my day & let me know I’m good at what I do than notes from my clients. I just got this completely unsolicited email today from a great couple  up in Vermont:

How’s business? All’s well here – we love our kitchen more & more every day, so grateful to you for pushing for us to extend it instead of living with the tiny space we had before.

…we totally love it – we keep throwing parties & you wouldn’t believe the compliments we get on it. We’ll have to invite you guys to one when you finally make it up here ;)

Seriously – does it get any better than that? I think not!

This modern kitchen features two sleek pendant lights and recessed lighting selectively placed throughout the room. The pale blue cupboards give the kitchen a cheerful atmosphere

Rows of recessed lights ensure that the matte royal blue cupboards do not overwhelm this kitchen. The steel gray pendant light shades add a rustic twist.

A subtle hint of blue provides a beautiful accent color in this chic white and gray kitchen.  The blue refrigerator is a cool, unexpected touch.

Pastel green and blue make such a lovely color combination in this Spring-inspired kitchen. Track lighting offers direct lighting to kitchen task areas.

The cool pale blue color of this cozy kitchen really helps make the room feel more spacious. A clever bar at the window makes use of every area of the room.

A chandelier may not be the first choice for kitchen lighting, but when paired with recessed lights, this room is positively sparkling. The deep blue counter tops are sophisticated against the all-white room.

Simple, open shelving with a charming shade of turquoise has such a beautiful effect on this kitchen. Plenty of natural light streams in through the window and keeps the room bright and sunny.

Under-cabinet-lighting is the perfect solution to small kitchens with small windows. The soft blue colors is lovely against the cream colored walls. Images 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8

I hope you found these kitchens inspiring and found a lighting solution for your own kitchen! Let us know in the comments! And be sure to stop by Arcadian Lighting for the perfect lighting fixture for your home here!

I absolutely love the simplicity of this line of concrete planters, shelf hooks & other assorted goodies from ATStuart, of Obelisk.

One of my clients shared this XKCD strip with me at our pre-construction meeting yesterday.  I thought it was not only hilarious, but fitting, looking back at when they made all their design choices with us!

There’s a really great ideabook over on Houzz about kitchen countertops. It covers how countertop templates are made & installed, and the options for materials that can be used for one.

Lots of good tidbits of info, like lowering a chopping surface for extra leverage:

Another great tip Kenny recommends for sealing not only wood countertops but also paper based materials like Paperstone and Richlite is a soapstone & wood sealer product from RealMilkPaint.com. It’s made with food-grade walnut oil & carnuba wax flakes, & has no solvents (no VOC’s!).

Why is it called a ‘Counter’?

One thing I’ve been trying to find with not much luck so far, is more information about the history of countertops. I’ve read different things, like

“In medieval times, horizontal boards were used in markets to do business on (i.e. count the money) and that term-counter- was applied to any such surfaces used for practical purposes.”

and this, from memory, that I now can’t find anywhere:

“Countertops started at fabric trade shops & had grids on them to measure out (count) yardage.”

I’d love to know the origin of the term if anyone has more info on that, feel free to share!

You read it right: Vermont.  4 hours one way to the Boston store, and in need of help designing their Ikea kitchen, these folks reached out to me about a year ago, & we were able to help them out from here in NC.

We went through several concepts & weighed the pros & cons of each.  Then we settled on one that stole some space from an oversized existing mudroom to make a livable, practical, beautiful kitchen.

Here’s the rough floor plan we ended up with from the last concept in the table. We converted the existing mudroom into the kitchen space, & stole space from the existing deck for the new, smaller mudroom. We included an option to expand the deck in the future.

Things that were important to them:

• maximize natural lighting via South & East windows
• mud room is a must-have in the NE winters
• minimal division between kitchen & dining
• European sized refrigerator – they grow their own, eat fresh & compost, so cool storage requirements were small
• maintaining look & feel of an older home in a historic area

Before	After

Yet another awesome tip from one of my clients with excellent taste. Thanks, LB!