future simple passive: kitchen

Showing posts with label kitchen. Show all posts

5 Jun 2015

Kitchen Island love

WOW! Our kitchen continues to draw attention, featuring on thekitchn.com (for more of my posts see A sustainable kitchen, kitchen progression, kitchen installation, kitchen reveal). It's the moveable island that is the star of the show today.

Once Sam, from Sustainable Kitchens, and I had the initial design and layout sorted out, I was able to start thinking about the details of 'what and where'. I imagined using the kitchen and where I would ideally like to store things and how I would use the space.

The island quickly got identified as the 'prep' area. So all mixing bowls, sieves, weighing scales, measuring jugs, lemon juicer, etc. would be stored here. Sam pointed out that we would be able to have storage on both sides of the island. I had been very keen on the idea of a breakfast cupboard, where all breakfast foodstuffs, cereals & jams/marmite/honey could be stored conveniently close to the dining table (mornings are busy enough!). This meant that I could use the other cupboard for vegetable storage. I wanted it to be dark but also ventilated so Sam suggested cutting vents into the doors- the design of these was left until as late as possible so that we could relate it to other design choices in the rest of the house.

The island still in the workshop waiting for the stainless steel wrapping.

We looked at baskets and got a little sidetracked by metal/wire industrial style trays, but in the end I really liked Sam's idea of just making the slatted drawers from ply like the rest of the carcass of the kitchen. This was the first time Sustainable Kitchens had been asked to make this feature and they made two drawers with dividers to give me 4 different areas. This has been really was useful esp in the autumn/winter when we have squash, celeriac, beetroot, jerusalem artichokes and so on.

9 Mar 2015

Kitchen installation

Sustainable Kitchens were ready and waiting to install the kitchen. Charlie O'B (so identified due to the extraordinary amount of Charlies we have had on this project!) arrived and set to work. The units had all been made in the workshop but the countertop had to be measured and templated onsite. Only then would we have the exact dimensions needed to fabricate the stainless steel countertop.

Charlie was supposed to have had the place to himself but with the plumbers and electricians busy with other jobs and trying to squeeze us in where they could, it meant that everyone was on site at once. It was very noisy and busy and meant that everyone had to do a little more jiggling and juggling to not be other's way. NOT ideal, but there was a lot of jolly camaraderie.

It took only three days to install the units and then it was immediately covered in board to protect it while all the other trades continued.

By now we were in the first week of August, and had been planning to move in at the end of this month!!! Doubts were beginning to seed... My presence on site was really limited due to the fact that we were full swing in the middle of school summer holidays and site was really not safe to bring the children to visit.

A few weeks later the steel was ready and Joseph came along with Charlie to install. This was far from a straightforward task. But Sustainable Kitchens handled it with a cool and professional head.

Steel, unlike wood, is an unforgiving material. Wood can be planed and eased to fit like a glove. I had also asked for an experimental aspect which concerned the edge detailing- normally the steel wraps around the ply base so that you see a metal edge (we have since discovered why, as it hides a multitude of sins). I had asked for the edge to be exposed so that the steel just looked like another layer in the ply. I wanted the lighter feel that this would give to the metal countertop.

This meant that the front edges had align perfectly or be cut/sanded so that they would be. It also meant that the bonding of the metal to the ply base had to be perfect as the edge would expose any gaps in adhesion. This aspect would normally be disguised by the wrapped edge.

A bit of head-scratching but Charlie figured it out calmly and with a smile, always up for a challenge with my experimental kitchen design! The wires you can see in the wall are the for the LED lights which have been recessed into the Dinesen Douglas shelf which wraps around the kitchen. The moveable island was finished in the workshop and wrapped in the wobble-sanded steel. It was kept out of the way and delivered the day we moved in. It is so beautiful. I'll share finished photos soon.

5 Jun 2014

A sustainable kitchen!

I really wanted to stay true to the ethos of a sustainable build and try to get a kitchen that would be solidly made from sustainable materials and would last decades.

As always I was searching high and low to find the solution where I can get outstanding design, excellent function and affordable prices. A friend highly recommended the company who had built her beautiful kitchen - Sustainable Kitchens who are based in Bristol. I gave them a call & went to visit their showroom. I couldn't have asked for a more perfect match.

The showroom is ever so gorgeous, and when you get to touch and feel a kitchen which has been so beautifully crafted you realise that anything else will be a massive compromise.

Dimitri and I both enjoy cooking, in fact our lives revolve around it. I had initially decided that with a limited budget I would spend on the appliances and save on the carcass. However when I started to reflect on this I realised that this wasn't right. Appliances are easier to change and upgrade. The carcass and cabinets though are a much bigger deal, they are here to stay. This firm really do care about sustainable principles and put their ideals into action. I was really excited about the possibility of working together.

Sam, Partner & Designer of Sustainable Kitchens, and I started with their classic Shaker Design- the one I had seen and loved in their showroom. Sam drew it all up on the computer and sent me visualisation images. It was beautiful, simple and elegant but I just couldn't get that excited feeling. It took me a couple of weeks to realise that I wanted something a bit different. This was a while ago and I hadn't yet finalised my limited materials palate for the internal finishes. It was through this process that I realised that I really wanted a birch ply finish throughout the house. Once the material had been chosen then that influenced the design of the cabinetry a lot. I was interested in being able to see the edge of the ply and all those layers.

We've been refining, changing, playing with the kitchen design and we finally nearly there! As it is all bespoke the choices are unlimited. It has been a really creative and satisfying process. We've interrogated numerous possibilities at almost every stage -

Layout. Door design. Door material. Handles. Drawer design. Countertop materials (the biggest issue I reckon!). Countertop heights. Plinths. Upstands. Upper level cabinets/shelves. Sinks. Extractors. Appliances. Lighting. Power sockets.

Sam has been ever so patient, enthusiastic & supportive at every stage. He has calmly interpreted my random whims of fancy.

You get a sneaky peak of the kitchen in the photo above. We've designed a moveable island, so we were looking at castors.

This is so exciting, it's going to be so beautiful!

24 Oct 2013

Kitchen distraction

In my previously mentioned manic state, powerless to do anything of real value which would speed up the start of work on site, I decided that I would begin to tackle the kitchen design. Charlie had told me that there would be plenty of time to tackle this later, but I needed to be doing something rather than nothing.

Picture please a small yapping dog that you watch chasing its tail, going round and round in circles - that was me!
I asked for A3 paper floor plans from CLD and got myself an kitchen design appointment at IKEA. It seemed like the best place to start as they got a Which Report Best Buy award. They are also the kitchen used in practically every feature I read of architects building their own homes i.e. people with high design ideals but small budget. Using the cabinets and then getting your own high end worktop seems to be the thing to do.

Modern Kitchen by Toronto Architects & Designers blackLAB architects inc.

I was delighted because at the moment IKEA in Bristol are offering free kitchen design appointments, so there was nothing to lose. I emerged 4.5hrs later exhausted, despondent and with very little to show for myself. The guys who i worked with seemed nice enough, but other than just read out the prompts provided by the kitchen planning programme they weren't much use on the design front - don't know what i was expecting really. The brochures they produce can be very inspiring and creative but you don't get those designers instore! The computer programme needs a huge kick up the rear, it is painfully slow. We tried out a number of radically different kitchen plans but I haven't found the right layout yet. On the plus side I found out that I can fit my kitchen using the simple applad kitchen and all their highest end appliances (which i am very unlikely to use but useful to price against) for less than £5K! I can see the big attraction now.

IKEA FAKTUM/APPLÅD KITCHEN

I think that if at all possible I really don't want an off-the-shelf fitted kitchen (famous last words!). No offence to everyone out there, but i'm hoping we can do something more original. A big part of the concept of this building is sustainability. Fitted kitchens inevitably get ripped out after 10yrs as they become dated and unfashionable. My builder hit the nail on the head when he said in his recent TV debut "This never goes out of fashion because it was never in fashion!". I love it!

I'm afraid the whole high gloss thing leaves me cold. I had one of those kitchens before (rented flat) and I was forever rubbing out the fingerprints. Also the top glossy layer had started to blister and peel and i had to go around colouring in the gaps with a permanent marker.

Kitchen showrooms don't get me excited, just bemused. There is just too much shiny perfection i think. The thing that gets me excited is how the space will work on a practical level - everyone who knows us knows how central food and cooking is to our life. So the first thing to address is simply what is going to go where. This is where I do want perfection. How will I use the space and make it work best for us? The final look can come later, for me it is a secondary consideration - although i do want it to look amazing!

Charlie has reassured me that he will make sure I have an amazing kitchen. So the endorphins can flow again as I release that stress and pressure, deep breaths once again. But I am going to start seriously looking at what appliances we want - the choices seem overwhelming...

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