Haydn, being a yacht manufacturer, does have teak in stock in limited quantities. He had built teak cupboards for our motorhome that we knew how to finish.
Our final decision was to make them out of Hickory, with small Walnut accent squares in the corners of the doors. He would also build an octagon-shaped eating table at the end of the island in teak. The finishing strip for the counters would be teak because it’s impervious to water and if it gets damaged, marks and scratches sand out.
I tried to get an account at a kitchen supply store for hinges, knobs and sliders, but their minimum order was far beyond what we would need.
We used White Melamine for the bases. It’s important to order enough Melamine to ensure the colour of the white remains constant for the entire construction. There is quite a variance in the colour white. If you think of melamine as having a dye lot, you will understand why you need to make all the bases with the same dye lot.
He built all the bases at the shop. It took several trips to get them all home.
He started at the edge of the wall backing on to the Master Bathroom and worked his way counterclockwise to the edge of the dining room sliding door. The Closet cabinet is the full 6’6” height of the cabinets. It has one permanent upper horizontal shelf that gives it stability and storage for buckets, tall cleaning supplies, paper towels, etc. It’s 20 1/2" deep x 30” wide. He installed the on/off switch, a receptacle, a central vacuum cleaner outlet and put the bracket for hanging the hose on the inside of the cabinet. The hose reaches everywhere in the house except the Master bedroom, which doesn’t require as frequent vacuuming as other more heavily travelled and frequently used rooms. Opposite the vacuum hose, he put in a 1' wide storage cabinet with two shelves for smaller bottles, cleaning supplies, whisks, dusting wands, extra pads for the floor polisher and miscellaneous other equipment. The vacuum hose curls on the bracket with the power head standing upright & remains hooked to the hose. There is lots of room for mops, brooms and swifters. All I need to do when I use the vacuum is take the power head out, remove the hose from the bracket, and turn the switch on. I looked forward to having such a convenient vacuuming system. The other outlet is in the hallway, opposite the laundry area. The Master bedroom only needs to be vacuumed every other week. We had placed a sweep-in type outlet (the technical or tradename is vac pans) opposite the garage door, because that’s where we come in on a daily basis. I keep a broom in the closet on the landing so I don’t have to bring the power head down the stairs. Normally, the stairs are just swept and any dirt is swept into the automatic vac pan. There’s an additional vacuum outlet in the garage.
Next to the large closet is the pantry. The face of it is on a 45 degree angle. Haydn made the pantry like a bookcase. It’s also 6’6” high x 30” wide x 20 1/2" deep at one end, narrowing to 8 1/2" at the other end. One permanent shelf is in the middle at 3’3”. The rest of the pantry is made up of melamine shelves, supported by shelf pins in drilled holes. The bottom storage area has two shelves, with the top having four. We should have put roll out shelves in the pantry, rather than the fixed shelves, but that can be added later. There is more than enough storage in the pantry for anything I would need to put there. The roll out shelves would just be a convenience.
The wall now cuts back from the edge of the pantry and accommodates bases the rest of the cabinets for the kitchen all the same depth. Here is the first bank of drawers, 22” wide. The finished height with the counters will be 35”. I did manage to convince Haydn that I needed the bottom cupboards to be reduced in height because of my 5’1” height, but I agreed to the cupboards being only 1” shorter than standard cupboards, because Haydn is much taller at 5’11”.
There were no bottom cabinets needed for 5' because that's where the upright freezer and the 100% fridge are located. We tried our best not to have corners in the kitchen cabinets, but it just isn’t possible. Had we placed the refrigerator closer to the corner, we would need access into the cabinet that abutted up to it, so it is best to have a cabinet that’s wide enough to put a bi-fold door on to get into the corners. That L-shaped cabinet butts up to the refrigerator and ends at the cabinet for the sink.
The next cabinet was very problematic for me. It was the cabinet that houses the kitchen sink. Because the window opposite the sink is a deep bay window, I couldn’t reach across to get to the two window openers and certainly couldn’t reach to the back of the fixed window unless part of it was cut back. It does narrow the horizontal opening under the sink to being only 17” wide with the two 8” 45 degree angled pieces at each side that aren’t accessible. Haydn studied that dilemma for the longest time before he came up with that solution. It did make that base cupboard difficult to build. It was now much too late for him to trade me in for a wife that had longer arms. :-)
The opening for the built-in dishwasher butted the angled cabinet.
The second set of 4 drawers was next at 17” wide with one of them being a larger drawer at the bottom possibly for bread.
The final cabinet that butts up to the sliding glass door is another angled 45o base cabinet. It's 19” wide x 33” high x 24” wide at one end, narrowing down to 12” next to the door.
Hadyn elected to put up the three wall cabinets before starting to assemble the island cabinets. To the left of the sink is an upper cabinet that has 3 shelves for dishes, glassware and cups.
Because of the bay window, there wasn’t any room to put an upper cabinet to the right of the sink. That worked out very well, because there is just enough room to put two upper cabinets butting up to the refrigerator.
The cabinet beside the upright freezer housed the microwave oven with a short upper cabinet storage above with one shelf.
It took an entire week of Haydn getting home early and working ‘til approximately 11:00 o’clock every night to put the uppers and lowers in place.
Assembly of the Kitchen Island:
More angled cupboards had to be put in place to the right of the slide-in oven in order for there to be enough room for the door of the dish washing machine to be fully extended. It’s kinda hard to describe: first piece is 7” wide, next to it would be an opening that requires a bi-fold type door on a piano hinge. Its 10” across on a 45 degree angle. Then there's a cupboard for pots and pans in the end of the island that’s 17” wide. Another 10” 45 degree angle piece to match the other angle (or it would look unbalanced and wouldn’t be pleasing to the eye). The final piece to that base island cabinet is a straight piece 7” wide.
The slide-in oven needed only a small cabinet to have a piece at the back of the oven that encloses it. It’s 30”. It has shelves for cups accessible from the dining room side.
To the left of the slide-in oven is my dream mixing area. It’s 30” wide x 30” high with a finished surface with the countertop installed of 32” in height. I had never had a custom-sized mixing area in any of the other houses we’ve built.
Let me explain the dynamics of being vertically challenged. Suppose you wanted to mash some potatoes. When the counters are too high, you can’t exert enough downward pressure without standing on your tip toes or moving the bowl to a location that is lower down, such as putting it in the sink. If you’re short and try to mix potatoes on a counter that is too high, just the simple act of mixing places the wrists at an awkward angle. If you have to beat with your wrists in that position, your arms get tired very, very quickly. Not more than 30 seconds and you’ll feel your arms tiring. In order to convince Haydn I really needed that mixing area at that height, I asked him to squat down to my height. Then I handed him a bowl with whole potatoes in it, gave him the potato masher and said, “Okay, now feel what it’s like just for that simple task” He didn’t believe me ‘til he actually tried it. Within 45 seconds, he said, “I now see why you need them that low.” He didn’t give me any more hassle and just built the cupboards to that height. Now I don’t have to put bowls in the sink—-I can just use that area like a person with normal height without getting tired. If you have really strong arms, you might not feel the pressure on your arms ‘til you try mixing something that takes longer like whipping cream. I now use that area whenever I’m making bread or other tasks that require my wrists to be at the optimal angle. I can’t rave enough about the height of this mixing area...lived all my life ‘til I was more than 60 years old to have an area that is at the right height for my size. Someone taller than me has now used that area and finds the lower height convenient for them too. So perhaps 36” isn’t the proper height for anyone? I don’t know, just know that 36” is far too high for me.
The finished surface of the mixing area is Maple. Maple is the traditional source that breadboards are made from--it's a very dense hardwood.
Under the mixing area are three drawers for mixing bowls, flour and the ubiquitous junk drawer that everyone has in their kitchen.
Next to the mixing area is a narrow 6” cupboard with three shelves that houses only spice-sized bottles. I have an extra shelf mounted on the wall above the dishwasher. It's for extra tall spice bottles in glass containers with fancy lids.
The final base cabinet is angled to accommodate the octangon-shaped teak surface that goes above it. I won’t describe it because a picture is much better than words.
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Above the slide-in range, Haydn installed the custom Hickory ventilation hood he had designed and built. Inside, it has a updraft vent that hooks up to a duct that goes to the top of the roof--steam and heat is driven up it and exits outside. It's powered by a fan within the duct. It also has a fluorescent light. To finish the underside off, we had been lucky enough to find a pot rack in a kitchen store that was very well designed. It was made out of wood with a stainless steel grid. The large hooks were stainless--just had to buy an extra six hooks.
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The countertops are made from large, dark green, 18" square, porcelain tiles. When we picked up the tiles, we had the supplier cut two of them with his special water wheel because they would be needed beside the sink where it’s cut back. I had taken a template of the area where they would be installed and left it with the professional to cut. We figured if those two tiles were cut professionally, they wouldn’t crack from the constant use. They charged us $25.00 for cutting those two tiles. In less than two years, both of those tiles started to have hairline cracks in them. Now the cracks have widened enough to make them visible. I do have to be careful that I don’t cut in those areas, because germs build up in cracks. There is no point to just having another two pieces cut, because they were cut correctly the first time. There just isn’t enough surface area for the porcelain tiles not to crack again. So we either have to find another material that will fit in that small area around the sink or replace the entire tile in the kitchen. We possibly wouldn’t have to replace the porcelain tile on the island if we could find something that would co-ordinate perfectly with whatever new surface we put on the cupboards that face the backyard and butt up to the refrigerator.
I hadn’t wanted to use conventional Formica countertop material—it doesn’t stand up to high heat and it scratches over time. I also rejected Corian counters for the same reason. Copper and stainless steel is impervious to heat. I could live with copper, but it discolours. Stainless steel also would work, but it’s too modern for my kitchen. That leaves only expensive, thick, heavy, granite at approximately $150/foot installed—-I’m still saving my pennies to be able to afford that. We would have to pay someone to install granite because we’re not capable of installing that material ourselves. Thar, you see we do know our limitations, Carpeting AND Granite are beyond our abilities! :-) I understand Granite isn’t perfect…it’s a porous material and some spills can leak into the surface if it’s not sealed on a regular basis.
Perhaps what we’ll do is go to Corian, taking a piece of our porcelain tile with us and see what ideas they come up with to match the porcelain tile or co-ordinate with it. The porcelain tile is perfect—it stands up to high heat, is extremely easy to maintain, always has a lovely shine and isn't a porous material, but we just can’t use it in a small part of the counter. If the area was kept to a minimum, I do believe I could avoid putting a hot pot where the Corian would be installed.
Another option that I just thought of is to replace the tiles around the sink with teak. I’ll mention that to Haydn and see if there is a way to just cut that area out and put teak in its place. Teak is thick and wouldn’t be at the same level unless the 1” piece of plywood that the 1/4" tile was glued onto was removed. Hey...that just might work! The teak would match the surface of the eating area and wouldn’t be obtrusive. It would also provide me with a surface that would stand up to cutting all around the sink. You can put hot pots on teak. If it does stain, it can be sanded out. That is a job Haydn would be able to do ... just don’t know when and if he’d be willing to do it! :) I would gladly pay someone else to do it, but I highly doubt that he’d allow a tradesman to come into this house that he's built with such love, precision and attention to detail, and start messing with his creation. :) I can live with the cracked procelain tiles as long as he can ... so there’s no rush.
Update: (This comment added 2007...a gentleman came into the shop late June, with samples of very thin granite, that we possibly will use to replace all the porcelin tiles. We'd have to see that thin granite in place on a kitchen counter before ripping all the porceline ones off.)
All that remains now is to install the cork flooring. I’ll leave that for another chapter.
You’ll have to excuse me if some of the pictures of our completed kitchen cupboards show the cork flooring. I don’t believe I have any pictures of the cupboards in progress before the flooring was laid.
My special mixing area isn't shown on the photographs, but it's between the slide-in stove and the eating area where the stools are.
