Retro Kitchens - Shageriffic!

Here is a colorful AND modern kitchen! We have a fabulous built in radio along with a built in light off center above the cooktop. As usual, we have pattern, seen in the stripes, in multiple areas, but I hate to think of the cleaning issue over the cooktop. A wonderfully creative white laminate countertop, and the "piece de resistance" (insert your own accent marks) the shag rug! Love those "cathedral" upper door panels too, they were such a staple for elegant kitchens. Enjoy!

 

KBIS 2007 - Cool Woven Copper Kitchen Backsplash

This display just stopped me in my tracks! I love anything woven, textural, hand crafted, and this look gives it all to me. By Frigo, it is woven copper with a fired, burnished finish to get that wonderful rainbow effect.

I'm not sure it's a look to go everywhere, it may be too strong, but at the very least, a great accent. I'm picturing it as the facing for a hood right now. Maybe the back of an island, that comes to me too. So many great places this product can be used.

And the best news is that the maintenance is to simply use warm water to wipe up spills and spots, no special process, cleaners, and so on. Good, right? 

The manner in which it was displayed on the show floor wasn't so great, as the image shows, but look past that and imagine the possibilities!

Your Kitchen Design - Big Box Expectations vs. Reality

Just jumping off from yesterday's minor rant, I now want to talk a little about where some people, even, surprisingly, those who will end up making a significant investment in their kitchen, sometimes begin their search, at a big box store such as Lowes or Home Depot , large lumber yard, or other such "kitchens for the masses" place.

These places are downright dangerous (for the mid to high end, to go to as a starting point.) This, really, is the bottom line. The short design time, and low cost may end up being very expensive in regard to lost design/lifestyle opportunities, that you must now endure, or forever be unaware of.

These types of places begin the process of convincing homeowners who are virgins to kitchen remodeling, in many cases, that a kitchen can be designed, specifically for your needs and desires, in 30-60 minutes. They take the dimensions, plug in the appliances, put in equally sized cabinetry surrounding the appliances, if that, and you're done. Your 12 year old can do that.  They also typically do one plan, which, then, becomes obviously, the plan that they feel is the best for the space, knowing virtually nothing about who you and your family are. People are hired and are put directly on the floor to design and sell kitchens with no experience. This is prevalent, in most cases, if the policy of the company is to completely maximize productivity/sales as a business model.

For mid to high end budgets, which is the audience, once again, I am speaking to here, you must be aware that this first experience will help mold the idea, and possibly firmly position the idea, that kitchen design is just a bunch of cabinets placed around appliances, having one solution. And, that this process, taking such little time, can be done easily, late into the remodeling process. 

There are so many lifestyle issues that need to be discussed, that this meeting alone, for me, often takes 2 hours, just to understand who the people are in front of me. And, just to open up my clients' minds to seeing things a different way and taking time to probe their existing habits, which may just be habits, vs. what they may really want, once they took time to think about it, if asked. Layers of years of habits must be peeled away, visions toward the future must be suggested by the designer and considered by the homeowner, and that takes time.

I actually cannot even begin to go into all the many questions that need to be considered when one designs a kitchen, there are just too many. It has to do with some of these factors:

• how one works now in the kitchen
• how one wants to work
• appliances - what is REALLY needed/wanted?
• doors, openings, and windows...traffic issues as well as quality of life
• dining area - again, quality of life issues relating to lifestyle, ergonomics, design issues
• storage - how much and why?
• the personal layer of oneself, display areas, collections, aesthetic considerations, where and why?
• specific, specialized wants and needs across the board - discovery issues
• cook/family/entertainment design work flow
  
• the architectural elements of the home in general, and surrounding rooms, specifically
• and design ideas and choices, for all of the above
  

These are just some of the issues which are critical to explore in a meaningful way. This is the beginning of what you can get from a good, professional kitchen designer, in the mid to high end budget range. As I do not do kitchens in the low budget range, I cannot speak to the services available in this budget category, but my guess is, if you take time to do your legwork and interview designers, you will find these expanded services in the lower budget range, beyond the big box "outfitters", who design kitchens in 30-60 minutes. Will it be easy to find? Maybe not. But, allow ample time to shop and interview, and you will find a designer who you can work with. The effort and time to do the search up front rests with you and is incredibly worthwhile. After that, you can relax.

IMAGE OF A TYPICAL, THICK, PROJECT FILE OF MINE. LOTS OF THOUGHTS, IDEAS, AND MEETINGS IN THERE. 

It's like a healthy, gourmet meal...even if you are doing a relatively simply prepared meal, the totality of the meal will have components of time for research, time to select quality ingredients, from different specialty purveyors, quality preparation time, and the proper cooking time. Or, you can do fast food take out. Designing a kitchen you will have for 20 years in 30-60 minutes is the equivalent of fast food take out! It will tame your hunger, and also will do bad things to your entire body. Unlike your healthy meal, which will do many things that are beneficial for you.

Or, it's the B&B vs. The Holiday Inn Express. You can fall asleep at both, but which will give you the better experience, or memory? Fortunately, this experience is a short one, vs. a multi decade one for a kitchen.

Am I saying that these companies have no place in the world of kitchen design? Well, mostly, yes. For project/volume work, of course, there is usually one type/style of kitchen. That is what it is. However, as long as there are local, small, firms available to offer expanded design services, this is the route that I strongly recommend going with. Is it impossible to find expanded services in the big box firms noted above? Usually, yes. Lumber yards? Actually, maybe not impossible there.

But, first, before you walk in, you need to be aware that a kitchen truly can be, should be, and in fact, is, much more than cabinets and appliances being fit together in a short period of time. It's the most used room of the home, and yes, the heart of the home! It's where life happens, and is nurtured in many different ways.

Again, the real bottom line here is that your and your family's quality of life will be enhanced every single day, for many years to come, if you do the legwork on the front end to find the firm who will give you service, choices, patience, and ideas.  I'm not saying you'll walk down a rosy path to nirvana, without any problems at all, during your remodeling. I am saying, it's a critical first step to take and concept to understand. It's all about time.

A kitchen should be as individual as you are, and why not? You're not just a number, you are an individual, and there are many firms out there who understand that. Find one!

Designing Your Kitchen - Trying To Beat The Clock!

I got a call from a long time business associate on Monday. He asked if I could come out and look at his kitchen. He has a remodeling crew there now. The shell of the extension is up, and they will break through the wall to the existing house, into the dining room and the kitchen, very soon. I was going somewhere else, in that direction, so I said sure.

He showed me a kitchen design that he had been given from Lowe's. I yawned (to myself) at the uninspiring design work. After my yawn, I started to do what I do, which is to ask a series of lifestyle questions. But, details, lifestyle details. Obviously, the husband and wife had never been asked these types of questions before by their architect or the designer from Lowes. They were genuinely surprised at the questions I was asking them. I moved them, figuratively, into the kitchen bubble, where they looked at these issues for the first time. While the hammers were pounding, literally, in the extension.

The urgency of the meeting, as I saw it, was NOT to point out problem areas of the current kitchen plan from Lowes, but to discuss far more critical, and immediate, issues involving windows and doors and the eating area which was right in the center of two 6' or 8' doorways, one going to the outside, one going to the extension, and, the table with 6 chairs not 10 feet away from the dining room table. The dreaded "table/table" syndrome. 

The doors and windows were ordered that day. We quickly decided the contractor should cancel the order.

So, the meeting went well, I was hired and said I'd do my design work. They told me they needed it done soon, and I said I'd do what I can do. I do have other clients!

This was Monday. Yesterday, Tuesday, I received an email late in the day saying that the contractor needs to know the door/window sizes by Thursday.  

I wrote back, saying that while it may be possible to get it done by Thursday, he has a choice of getting it done with 25% or less of devoted quality time and thought put into it than is typical for me, "filling in the blanks" in a very basic way, OR, to allow the proper time for this expensive, and nearly once-in-a-lifetime project to develop.  A kitchen takes time to plan, a lot more than one thinks it "should" take. I hoped to illustrate that.

I advised him to tell the contractor in a nice way that he, the client, misjudged the time needed for planning purposes and that Thursday would not work. Perhaps the contractor can put his crew on another job when they get done with what they are doing.  

This is a crisis for the clients at this moment. They may end up paying the contractor real money for disrupting his schedule, if he's not willing to work with them. They are only now understanding that a kitchen is not just cabinets that someone punches mindlessly into a computer for 30 minutes at Lowes, but,

• A quality of life for 20 years.
• A design statement connected to the entirety of their home.
• A functional environment that has at least several work flow possibilities which must be explored.
• Perhaps, a once-in-a-lifetime project.
• A space that needs to address numerous lifestyle activities.
• A space that needs to "speak to" other rooms in a intelligent way.
• A space that needs to work with the architectural elements such as doorways and windows.

Here's my message. Truly, it's never too early to hire a kitchen design professional. If you THINK it's just a quick thing to get the cabinets plugged into your plan, you will be doing your family, and your life in the kitchen, and your home, a huge disservice. I cannot overstate that. It's just never too early to get your designer in place. Leave time to interview designers. To find the right designer for this huge undertaking, not to mention expensive, should be given as much time as it needs.

I'm sorry for these people now. Part of their project, including doorways and windows, is up in the air. I have time obligations to other clients. I didn't really realize how strongly I felt about my kitchens. This type of timing issue does not come up too frequently, when one is in the middle of construction, at least not for me. But, it just really bothers me. It needs to be done well, carefully, as dimensioning for locating doors and windows is extremely critical, the lifestyle issues are critical, and so, it must be done right.  And, in my world, that's not done in 30 minutes.

I'm leaving off with a sigh...and a solemn, and slow, shaking of my head, as I hear the drum beat of the hammers in the distance  ;-)

KBIS 2007 - Sub Zero's Inspiring Booth

I've got to say, the Sub-Zero booth at KBIS is one of the, if not THE booth to go to to see inspiring designs. More than inspiring, it is wild, wonderful, fantastic, design. This year does not disappoint. Seeing the Sub-Zero booth just gets the design juices flowing, broadening the possibilites for incorporating appliances into kitchens in a fabulous way. Spotlighting Jamie Drake of Drake Design, New York, NY, here is what Jamie Drake's design is all about, from Sub-Zero:

"Jamie Drake's design stems from the magical mystique of the number seven -- seven deadly sins, Seven Wonders of the World, seven seas. The seven deadly sins is a creation featuring a Wolf rangetop with charbroiler set in a red hot peninsula, paired with a series of Wolf wall ovens and a floor afire with glowing embers. This design creates an appliance-focused environment that is presented to designers in an unexpected way. The other two designs also whimsically invoke the number "seven".

The image is of Jamie Drake, himself. 

 
 

 

Kbis 2007 New Products - Siemens Appliances

Siemens is launching an entire new line of appliances in summer, 2007. This is a stunning and highly functional line of appliances, as I observed at KBIS in Las Vegas last week.  Take a look at images of the new line of appliances, and listen in to the podcast on Siemens. I loved what I saw! More information as it becomes available (hello, UPS, deliver the show press kits please??)

Siemens flikr images from the show floor

And, Siemen's podcast from the show floor: 

Siemen's Podcast