Kitchen - nearly done!
Written by julio on December 18th, 2006While there are still some trim and backsplash details to finish up, the overall kitchen is done. Since we got everthing cleaned up for our Christmas party, we figured we’d better grab a shot while we could!
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7
AM
WOW! Your kitchen is stunning! Beautiful job! Where did you get your cabinets?
7
AM
Hi! Thank you so much! It’s getting there! We still need to tile the backsplashes and install the chair rail, but we can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel - yay!
Believe it or not, our cabinets came from Lowe’s. I desperately wanted flush-mounted inset doors and was completely in love with Crown Point cabinetry. (Who isn’t, right?) But when I emailed them my specs for our kitchen remodel, their price quote was nearly equal to the amount we’d set aside for remodeling our ENTIRE house, so that was out.
The next company we strongly considered was Fashionable Enclosures. They have lovely cabinets and their prices are really reasonable, even for inset doors. (http://fashionableenclosures.com/index.html
But again, we also needed a new bathroom, refinished floors, an entirely new second story, exterior work, etc. etc. etc. and I just couldn’t make the budget bend to my will. So I had to give up on the inset door idea. Sigh!
Ultimately, we ended up going with Schuler cabinets from Lowe’s.
http://www.schulercabinetry.com/
Schuler is a company based here in Oregon. They account for only about 5% of Lowe’s cabinet sales because they are their higher-end, semi-custom brand and they are a lot more expensive than their other brands, but they seem much sturdier too. And since they are semi-custom, they have a lot of odd sizes the larger brands don’t have, which is helpful in an old bungalow kitchen where you’re trying to squeeze a lot into a teeny space.
(I believe Home Depot carries them too. In some markets, they also go by another name -it might be Medallion.)
Anyway, the doors felt solid and the hinges and drawer hardware are really smooth - the drawers glide like a dream. We had them leave a couple of doors without panels so I could insert art glass which matches our light fixtures. (The cabinet company charged $90 per panel for their glass, which wasn’t even that nice. I went to a local stained glass supply store and they cut both panels for me for $23.)
We passed on the Schuler hardware and chose our own (from Emtek) to customize the cabinets a bit and make them look more at home here.
They make a Prairie style door in quartersawn oak that we we really liked, but ultimately, we decided to go with that door style in cherry with a mahogany stain instead because the woodwoork in our house is so dark, the oak looked washed out next to it.
I didn’t get my inset doors, but I’m overall I’m still very happy. I think we still managed to respect the style of the house while not completely blowing our budget, which allowed us to also tackle the scary pink bathroom!!!
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3
PM
You two did a great job on the kitchen, especially considering the budget constraints. We are still in the planning stage of building a new bungalow and have already discovered how expensive a kitchen can become if you are not careful.
By the way, I noticed that the photos of your kitchen have corrected perspective. Are one or both of you photographers?
5
AM
I’m not a professional photographer but would probably qualify as a serious amateur. I actually did not correct the perspective in these photos, but I took care to make sure that the camera was perfectly level. With a wide angle lens, things will start looking really crazy with even a slight amount of camera tilt. I also used a lens distortion correction to get rid of the slight barrel distortion that my lens adds. I also shot in RAW format to make it easier to color correct the shot after the fact. Our lighting is tricky (CFL bulbs through mica glass), so it takes effort to get accurate color in the photos. Thanks!
9
AM
Hello!
I absolutely adore the graded colors you used in the kitchen! How did you achieve that? Is it paint? Wallpaper?
9
AM
Hi Rachel,
I think it’s just an optical illusion. The glass in the light fixtures is a caramel swirled art glass that takes on kind of a golden glow at night. At the top of the room, the light is filtered through that glass and it casts sort of shadow, but the light fixtures are open at the bottom, so I think the lower part of the room gets more “normal” light, if that makes sense at all. We used a satin-finish interior paint by Miller Paint. The color is Fog Buoy. It’s actually a very grayish blue - kind of dull almost, but the golden glow of the light fixtures gives it more depth. We’ve been very happy with it. Now if we could just make a decision on the tile for our backsplashes!
9
AM
Awwe! I was so hoping it was a brand of wallpaper perhaps. While the powerfully masculine striped wallpaper in the Bungalow is very period, we will be looking to slowly but surely re-wallpaper each room. I really love the color gradient look that is so popular now in furnishings but haven’t been able to find that sort of subtle shift in wallpaper colorings. The hunt will continue!! Great work on you kitchen!
9
PM
Oooh - if you ever win the lottery and are interested in period wallpaper for your bunaglow, check out http://www.bradbury.com. Ooh-la-la!
As for painting techniques, I bet you could acheive the type of effect your are talking about by doing a translucent color wash over a solid-colored base. If you painted your walls a solid color and then applied a translucent wall glaze at the top of your wall and used a cloth to to pull the glaze straight down the wall until it pretty much disappeared, you’d achieve a gradient effect. You’d just want to drag it straight down the wall -no swirling or anything like that. You’d probably want to mix in some extender to increase the drying time (and give you a chance to fix any mistakes) and you’d definitely want to experiment on some posterboard to perfect your technique before trying it on your walls, but I think it would be an easy enough faux-finishing effect to achieve. McCloskey makes a pretty well-known and widely available translucent color glaze. Blue Pearl makes really beautiful metallic glazes. (I’ve been very pleased with the quality of their products.) And there are even a few “natural” low-VOC glazes made by companies like Aglaia and earthBorn.
(Sorry for being such a paint geek - I’m an interior designer/architectural color consultant and I have a bad habit of blathering on and on about paint!)
Good luck with your bunaglow, Rachel!
19
PM
WOW! Fabulous!
You will notice that I have not bragged about my kitchen at all…understand..there is a reason for that… :/
20
PM
WONDERFUL JOB! Your kitchen is beautiful. Whowouldathunk? Lowes? *jody makes a note in her remodeling tip handbook* If you ever go to sell that place, I’m sure you will definitely get your money back!
26
PM
Your kitchen looks great. My wife and I are trying to decide between Schuler and custom cabinets, which are way more expensive. However, I found one blog where a writer complained about Schuler, saying the cabinets were poorly packaged for shipment and arrived damaged. He also complained some of the wood had split and overally the quality was not as expected, given the price. Did you have any similar problems? We really like the Schuler cabinets and would like to go with them but if we’re going to run into problems perhaps it would better to go with the more expensive custom built line.
26
PM
Jack,
Thanks! We did not have any problems at all with our cabinets, and they still look/work great after 2 years of daily use. Compared to the other options we had at the “big box” stores, we’ve never regretted our choice.
However, we live in the same state (Oregon) they are made, so they were delivered by the manufacturer’s truck. Perhaps the other blogger lived further away, requiring the use of an independent shipper, which can be a crap shoot. I wouldn’t shy away from them because of one person’s bad experience. Hope this helps…
26
PM
Jack -
You may also want to check out Fashionable Enclosures - that was our other front-runner. Really lovely cabinets and reasonably-priced. They were a little more expensive than Schuler, but far less expensive that the quotes we got for custom-cabinetry. http://fashionableenclosures.com/
27
PM
We seem to have similar tastes. We chose the same cabinets, but the Medallion version, as well as the same crown moulding on the cabinets and the walls. We are going with a little more “retro” feeling by choosing hex tile countertops and old-style appliances.
Your kitchen will serve as inspiration for me to keep going and reach the end of this project!
17
PM
Beautiful work, guys. I’m wondering, are those concrete counters? I couldn’t seem to find where you talk about how you picked your countertop materials. (A decision we’re embroiled in right now!)
I’m also in Portland. Our bungalow was in decent shape when we bought it, but we’re finally doing the kitchen and bathroom now. It’s quite an undertaking!
17
PM
Hi Scholle,
The counters are Slatescape: http://www.americanfibercement.com/slatescape.html
Slatescape is a cement-based product but mixed with some kind of resin rather than water - it’s resistant to the cracks that cement countertops are prone to, and also much less heavy. Cement countertops are so heavy they often require that you reinforce your floor joists to help carry the extra weight.
Slatescape is produced in large sheets that can be cut to fit any shape. The sheets are eight feet long, so unless you have a really long stretch of countertop, you don’t really have to worry about seams.
We leaned heavily towards soapstone initially, but ultimately went with Slatescape in part because it seemed a little more environmentally friendly and in part because because it can be cut to fit any shape and our kitchen walls weren’t completely square/straight/plumb. It seemed like a good compromise - it gave us a look similar to soapstone, but with benefits we couldn’t get from soapstone.
Locally, Slatescape is available through Environmental Building Supply in Southeast Portland. If you want to see some in person, the counter tops in the World Cup Coffee and Tea shop on the ground floor of the Ecotrust building in the Pearl District are slatescape (in the pale gray color) and the countertops in the wine bar on the ground floor of the Gregory building (also in the Pearl) are also Slatescape, but in the dark charcoal color we used in our kitchen.
I’ve found that maintenance on the countertops is a bit more of a pain than I’d anticipated, but overall, we’ve been fairly happy with them. Once nice thing about them is that if they end up getting really trashed over the years, they can be sanded down, re-oiled and given a second life, much like wood floors.
If I can answer any other questions about them, I’m happy to. I’m also happy to discuss the other options we considered and why, ultimately, we decided against them.
4
AM
Hi,
Congratulations on your renovations. From the pictures, everything looks fantastic.
One question, the crown molding that is in your kitchen is exactly what I am looking for. Unfortunately, places like lowe’s or home depot do not carry this type of trim. Would you be able to direct me to a place? Many thanks!
4
AM
Hi Michael.
Thanks! We still have some tiling to do, but the kitchen is functional, which is great.
We purchased our crown molding from McCoy Millwork. They are based here in Portland, Oregon, but they will ship anywhere. Their selection is really wonderful:
http://www.mccoymillwork.com/