I no longer remember the revision number on my kitchen design. When I first started reading this forum, I wondered about people posting design after design. I never thought I would do more than two or three. Well, I tweaked it so many times, I lost count. But I am getting closer. Close enough that I want to order cabinets within the next month. So does my contractor. If I was sure of everything, I would be more excited. This is nail bitting time! Any general comments on the design are very welcomed. (Pictures of the kitchen as it is can be found here: http://acrosstherubricon.blogspot.com/2010/02/kitchen-as-it-is.html) Layout: Three of the four walls of the room: The stove wall. I wanted all the appliances that could be off the countertop to be sort of built in. The 15 inch box will house the microwave. Design: I am thrilled to finally arrive at this version with the shelves along part of one wall and turning the corner. What are anyone’s experiences with this much shelving? Any negatives? I figure that this is a very cheap part of my design and I could always put in cabinets later. The windows are not going to change and I’ve designed cabinets/shelve units over and over and know my options.) I was thinking of painting the shelves the Creekside Green, the wall they are on is Soft Fern. I am insecure on the long, china cabinet-like cabinet on the other end of the sink wall. Any thoughts? I need some sort of appliance garage (I hate that term) and that is the 18” cabinet underneath. Anyone have pictures of something like this. Color, Color, Color: I still teeter between white or wood! When will it stop??! The floors are newly refinished oak, blond with nice wood graining. Three walls are Benjamin Moore’s Soft Fern; the fourth wall is Creekside Green. The molding and trim on the whole first floor is Martha Stewart’s Glass of Milk. My question is whether I should try to match the Milk color for the cabinets or go with a clear maple. The style will be a shaker door with slab drawers. Soft Fern: wall color for three walls in kitchen. Creekside Green: color of accent wall in kitchen. Right now, this is the back door wall but it could be the sink wall since plaster walls will be coming down and sheet rock going up before cabinets go in. Shelving could be painted this color. Glass of Milk: wood work on first floor, including kitchen is painted this color. I am not sure whether the cabinets should be the off white of Glass of Milk or a clear maple. Today, I am leaning towards the maple. This is the formica for the countertops. Lighting: I have been dreaming of great lighting in a kitchen for a long time. The lighting I have now is awful -- a central light in the middle of the room attached to the ceiling fan and a very small light over the sink. The shadows and glare compete for dominance. Ok, I can see what I am doing, but really I want good light. I also dreamed about under cabinet lighting but as I’ve switched to a wall of shelves, I don’t know if that is an option. I need some suggestions for overall lighting, task lighting, and something pretty for mood. This is the school house pendant light that I'l like to use in front of the windows. Missing Element: One of things I wanted to have in the new kitchen was a place that my daughter could eat her breakfast. No matter how organized I try to be, in the mornings before school, she is eating in the dining room and I am rushing around the kitchen getting her lunch ready. There is no room in the kitchen as it is now designed for a table and I don’t see any way to rearrange cabinets and appliances to fit one in without sacrificing a lot of storage space which I also cannot do without. I was wondering whether a hinged table right behind the door to the back hall would be possible. The dining room has a simple chair rail, so a similar rail in the kitchen on one wall would not be out of place. I was thinking (very vaguely at this point) that a small table behind the door and two collapsable stools hung on the part of the wall near the frig. Whadda’ ya’ think? Any ideas about this or about any other place that an eating space might be carved out? And I’d love to see any pictures of a hinged table that is snuck into a space. Finally, these are two inspiration photos: I do like the white cabinets and the green walls and shelves, but I am not sure whether to commit to white cabinets. Help! And this was the original picture I cut out of a paint book and hung by my stove three years ago. I still like the feeling of the colors and textures.

Fiddling with design

I have shown the house plan to two kitchen designers and one sorely disappointed me and the other did a very adequate design with very little individual flare. And so, a few days ago, I took matters into my own hands and traced and "designed." I ran the sketches by my architect today to check for obvious mistakes. She didn't see any but she will put my design on her computer to see if the measurements check out. I think it is pretty close to what I want even though it has taken me a long time to come to this decision.

I didn't get these plans until February 23. These are the first plans that the kitchen design at Pro build sent me. It too him a long time to get the plans to me and they are amazingly underwhelming. He did not use any of my ideas and frankly, this is the kitchen that I do not want. I am going to send him the list and see what he comes up with. Or, I guess it is time to find another designer.

A list of things not included in Jeff's original drawing.

1. pull out garbage and re-cycle bin

2. shelves on wall 1 to the left of stove

3. use as many drawers for lower cabinets as possible

4. open shelves for microwave and toaster oven with drawers underneath

5. metal exhaust hood over stove

6. temporary shelving around old standard sized fridge (space for french door fridge)

7. one or two double hung 3 over 1 windows over sink that are counter height

8. "slot" in lower cabinets for a step stool

9. a cook book shelf

I would also like to maximize counter space.

The double pantry looks too monolithic and at the same time fussy with four doors. Could there be two wider single- door pantries with a small coffee station in the middle.

Apart from my rather off dream (which I am not sure how it got on this blog) I have been quiet about renovations.

Finally, I am looking at cabinets and working with a kitchen designer. I hope to post a first design next week or so but I wanted to remember and record my first (and pretty easy) choices.

The was built in 1929, has lots of arches (Almost 1500 sq ft through out the house on two floors), and all the woodwork is painted white. The whole first floor is painted a grey/green which I will probably repeat (I wanted a deeper color than what is one my walls now, but that will come later). It is easy on the eyes and very calming for me. The floors are wood and will be stained a dark brown and refinished when the kitchen is redone. I decided to go with white (Pearl is the color) cabinets and chose Omega Cabinets, their semi-custom Dynasty line, with Marion inset doors and slab drawers.

Basic door

Pearl is my color choice

Here are pearl cabinets with a dark floor and dark green counter top which generally gives the feeling of what I am going after. The soapstone would be black with green veins.

Corian color that I like. I am looking only at light Corian shades because I hear the dark is hard to keep clean. Of course, if I can go with soap stone, it will be dark.

I plan to use a lot of bottom draws and wonder a bit about the look of slab drawers. I wanted to use soap stone but also looked a corian as an alternative.

I wanted to write about this dream as soon as Julia left for school. I read Tracy's comment from yesterday first and then felt a chill. There is much more in this life than we understand.

First, the dream.

I was in an apartment with David and Cheshire. Not one we ever lived in. Julia may have been there too although she was not active in the dream. It was a small apartment -- there is actually a dream apartment that I sometimes dream about, this was not the one, but it bore some resemblances. (And now, I am remembering that I've had a lot of place dreams lately. I don't retain them in the morning, but hotel rooms, apartments, lofts, houses. I can remember many of them this minute. Place?).

In the dream, David was breaking up with me. He would not tell me why and Cheshire blamed me. I was pretty convinced that I was totally at fault, that I was a wicked and inadequate person. I had many of these dreams as a child and when I was very young I would ask my mother if I could come into bed with her. She was never in favor of that request.

Anyway, I was considering packing up but then I realized that everything in this small apartment was David's and I wondered what had happened to my stuff. It was a relative short dream and I woke up quickly with that awful unloved and uncared for feeling. When David was alive I would ask him to hold me and we would sleep like that for the rest of the night. When I woke up from this dream, I remembered that as somehow took great comfort from the idea. When the alarm went off, I woke up still with the feeling that David would have held me and made my heard feel whole again.

And so, Tracy, in a strange round about way, the dream did exactly as you wished. And this morning, I have a bit of peace.

I had to tell AH that we cannot work with them. The "not less than" estimates are too much for us. In the meantime, last week, we interviewed an architect that we liked and found a contractor that I think we will work with. Amazingly, the architect charges a lower design fee than our AH designer. Of course, she is running a very small business and we get the benefit that she has no overhead. She also seems to get my aesthetic. I am not saying that AH didn't, but she did very quickly, including recognizing that my back hall was inspired by Susanka. I am hoping that she can come up with a more pleasing design. These days we are thinking about staying within the footprint of the house -- we flop back and forth on this. Today, we seem to agree. The challenge is still how to fit the bathroom in and we'll see how our architect does on this one.

This is a journey all right.

First estimates

Last Thursday, Mike, money arm of AH, emailed their initial bids on our project. Oy is the most appropriate title for this entry. Strangely, the estimates did not include some of what we have clearly communicated, and the range of estimates started with a version that we have absolutely no interest in -- like linoleum floor in the kitchen and cheap countertops. I also don't know if they are including new windows and all the built ins we want. So . . . .

House renovation without touching the "garden room" will be not less than $85,000. If we can't incorporate the "garden room", I have no interest in this project!

House renovation, including "garden room" and the stoop out back will be not less than $125,000.

Addition and renovation will be not less than $168,000.

This does not include appliances which will be between $10-20,000, and no allowance for furniture (I was giving myself $10,000), and then I planned to keep a bit in reserve ($20,000) just in case. Way beyond the chunk of money that we contemplated spending.

Initial designs by Associated Housewrights

This is the house as it is.

Here, we have a bathroom, the kitchen is reduced but we have a penensula and the garden room is incorporated into the house.

Here we have an addition but it is not my favorite. I don't like the really big mud room.

This is my favorite . . . . but . . . . now we see what a preliminary budget will look like.

Our designer is Matt Speer. He sent us 13 pages of designs a few days ago. Today, we met and eliminated all but three. He then sent us updates which I'll try to post here.

I wrote this for the Kitchen forum at Gardenweb.com. I am hoping some comments and critique. There are a lot of BTDT folks there.

Our house was built in 1929 and we have lived in it for three years. We have found it charming and inviting but we need to make better use of the first floor. We want to take out walls, reconfigure rooms, and possibly put on an addition. The addition part depends completely on the cost.

Remodel goals:

• A great cooking kitchen that two very bossy people can work in at the same time
• new appliances, new cabinets, new countertop, new floor for the kitchen
• an island or pennsula for breakfast seating and home work doing
• a powder room (toilet and sink)
• some storage on the first floor (right now, there is no closet or storage space)
• a more flexible living room and dining room by taking out walls
• putting in a wall of bookcases/storage units
• incorporating the “3-season” porch into the dining room (As it is uninsulated and unheated it is hardly a one season room in wisconsin)

Our family:

At home right now, we are two adults and a nine year old daughter. We adults are both cooks. We love to cook, eat, entertain, and fool around in the kitchen. We have never had a wonderful kitchen and we so badly want one. I am sure our daughter will join us in the kitchen in a few years. Right now, we have a white board set up for her in the kitchen so she can draw while we cook.

The way the house it set up, we eat all of our meals in the dining room. We would continue to eat evening meals there, but would really like a counter and stools for weekday breakfast time.

Our daughter, Julia, is on the autism spectrum and she is in an intensive therapy program that brings therapists to our house 25 hours a week. We also love company and our house can have extra people dropping by at any time. This house has been kind of cramped for the dinner parties we like to throw and that is why flexibility is so important. If we can extend a table into the living room or the garden room, we can party!

Kitchen and Appliances:

We want a 36” range, preferably with two ovens, a dishwasher, a bottom freezer-french-door-refrigerator. We are looking at darker brown (A&C) cabinets with inset doors and lots of drawers on the bottom. I expect the appliances will be stainless with an “industrial” looking hood over the stove. I don’t want an appliance garage, but we have to have some place to put all the stuff we use.

We would give up the addition because of budget, and without the addition, we will have to give up increasing out counter space and storage (closet and other) space. Everything else is essential.

Someone's favorites

Frig: Whirlpool Gold, Whirlpool ,Samsung and Kenmore GE Profile,Frigidaire Pro and Kenmore Elite can by real nice if you can upgrade to upper mid class. Sears Outlet can be a real find here as well as your other appliances.

Dishwasher: Whirlpool Gold,Whirlpool and Kenmore. Range: GE, Frigidaire,Kenmore. (Not anything made by Whirlpool) GE Profile,Frigidaire Pro and Kenmore Elite can by real nice if you can upgrade to upper mid class. Sears Outlet can be a real find here as well as your other appliances.

Stove

NXR DRGB3001

30" Pro-Style Gas Range with 4 Sealed Burners, Heavy Duty Cast-Iron Grates, 4.2 cu. ft. Convection Oven, Manual Clean, 16,500 BTU Infrared Broiler, Extra Large Oven Window and Towel-Bar Handle$2299

Another dishwasher

Miele Inspira II Series G2142SC

Full Console Dishwasher with 6 Wash Programs, 5 Temperatures, 14 Place Setting, CleanAir Drying System, Double Waterproof System, PC Update Function, Touchtronic Controls, Cutlery Tray and Q1 Acoustics
About $1250