I was retired at the time. 4 months of 8-10 hour days to build it. I'm now once again a work-a-day grunt. So, no time. And I have a bad joint in my right thumb that only has a certain number of rotations left; need to save them for the operating room....sadly.
I know what you are going through. The place I live in now I bought when I was 21. Back then it was 1800 square feet of junk that had been left empty for 6 years. It is now 4500+ square feet of perfection built by my hands throughout my 20's and 30's. Now I am 42 and getting ready to move to get into the best school district for my daughter. I will never be able to recreate what is in this house. I will never be able to do it because I will never again be 20 years old. But the place I am moving to is really nice and has a lot of style, I just see it with a few of my finishing touches and it will be unique. Time to set up the scaffolding and get to work.
when I was on vacation last year and rented a home I loved the fact the kitchen was acutally 2 smaller kitches connected. It allowed 2 people to move around independent of one another preparing different things for many people or utilize 1/2 the kitchen when preping for fewer. Every since that experience my next kitchen will be based on the same conceptual model.
Uro.......Do you have a small room off the kitchen that you do not use much? If so, building a Butlers Pantry adds a very classy touch to the kitchen.
Which reminds me of the coolest kitchen feature I saw this year. Open two wide floor to ceiling cabinet door that look like they are cabinets and BOOM a little hidden 10x10 pantry room with shelves. I thought that was about the neatest thing I had seen in a while.
A home we almost purchased in Austin last year had a Butler's Pantry, 6 x 12'. It had a dual sink, plate and glassware cabinets, linen drawers, wine fridge, beverage fridge, prep area with a knife block and an in-wall fridge. That had a lot of 'knock-out' factor for the house.
Not sure if anybody mentioned this cause I didn't read the whole thread, but how about a plumbed-in Espresso machine?
feed the patients the same rare coffee beans the monkeys eat then retrieve the beans from urine samples.
Yep. Luckily we've never used ours but we bought a small one just for the kitchen some years ago. Our first idea was to install it in the cabinet next to the stove. Then I figured if there is in fact a fire it will most likely be on the stove so I installed the extinguisher on the opposite side of the kitchen. Sounds dumb but make sure everyone in the house knows it's there. Best thing we did in our kitchen remodel was remove the island. We had plenty of counter and storage space already and haven't missed it a bit. People turned up their nose when I told them what I was doing but everyone who has seen it since loves it. The room is much larger and can fit far more people in it now. I really wanted to install a small prep sink in the counter by the fridge but wifey preferred to have the extra counter space there instead. We also installed cabinet pull bar handles on the side of the end cabinets of the counter to hang the dishrags on. A couple matching s-hooks can hang the pot holders as well. The mounting screws go in through the backside of the cabinet so make sure you have access. Very clean, very simple and very functional. Since they're cabinet handles different finishes are available as well. We actually found ours at Ikea. Several friends have copied that as well and they all love it. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Our current primary residence almost burned last year from an oil fire. My wife is a lot younger than me and has not had to deal with an oil fire in the past. She tried to put it out with water and then I heard the scream. I ran down and grabbed the salt (large container) and it was empty. That is when I panicked. I finally got it out with flour. For this reason I have put a halon system in the new house we are moving into soon.
You don't want to mess with Cocobolo is you can help it. It looks great but its a real nightmare to work with. I had a couple hundred bf of it and ended up using it to accent against curly maple for a closet. The dust that comes off can be highly irritable to many people. It's oily and chews through any sort of work tools that you have. It can't be hand planed as it'll chip like crazy and it doesn't take most finishes due to oil. Outside of its pure natural beauty - stay away from it unless you know what you're doing with it. . . .
Very true. There is a local guy here who made furniture from cocobolo for years but he passed away. I suspect it was from using the wood to build furniture with.
Items we have in our new kitchen -Two dishwashers. Very convenient eventhough I don't do the dishes -prep sink on island. I end up using the prep sink and wife uses the main sink. -Have a separate bar area that is convenient. Put a small refrigerator for drinks/ice/etc. I don't like going to the main fridge for drinks but thats just me. I also don't like fridge/freezers with built-in ice machines. -We stayed away from built-in coffee machines. They keep changing and getting better so we went with a standalone (Jura Capresso). The built-ins don't save that much space (Miele, Dacor, etc) -Sub Zero's rock. -Get powerful waste disposal units. They are great to use as you don't care about clogging your sinks -We have central vac. It's great to use. We got the most powerful ones and its like having a shopvac anywhere. The floor sweep thing - not so much. Sometimes you'd rather just suck it up than sweep it across the floor to the outlet and then suck it down. Especially the kitchen when a lot of things that get dropped are "moist/wet" -Granite is probably still the best material for today that looks current and withstands moderate amounts of abuse. The best material is lava rock, but its very very expensive but its essentially the perfect counter top material as its impervious to cold/heat, etching/stains and just about indestructible. Again - pricing is not for the faint of heart. -Pantry is great. You can store whatever you want and not have the wife on your back in the kitchen. . . -Remote exhaust makes things much quieter in the kitchen. -Make sure you have a thermostat near the kitchen area. The kitchen area tends to be more extreme than the rest of the house with the amount of people present along with any cooking going on. You don't want the thermostat a room away where its nice and cool there but 90* in the kitchen because cooking is going on. -Blumotion slides are great for drawers. Not good for cabinet doors or for double door drawer slides.
You are correct regarding this wood. I got a nasty infection from a fairly large sliver (about 1/16th thick x about a half inch deep!!") a few years ago. When I work with this wood, I simply watch what I am doing, wear a good 3M respirator for cutting and sanding and do a fairly detailed cleaning of the floor and table saw when done. It IS wonderful wood to work with. For the chipping you mentioned, it will primarily do that if you are plaining at any 'against the grain' angle of 20% or more, but with the grain, it plains well, as the grain is so darn tight! For finishing, I use tongue oil, but only after a final sand with about 200G paper. The tongue oil penetrates VERY well and the more it's rubbed into the wood, the higher the luster that is produced. Not a wood for somebody that does not have the time to properly work with it, as Padauk or Zebra Wood is almost as nice, but when cabinets, table, etc. are made with this, it's stone-cold beautiful!
When I was a kid, my father and his finally had enough money to move into a bigger place. They found an 1,100-square-foot apartment on the second floor of a private house (first floor was a dentist's office). It was palatial - I'd never seen anything so big. The kitchen was, by far, the biggest room in the house. So big, in fact, that half of it became our dining room (and the dining room was turned into a den). The kitchen had a built-in barbeque complete with chimney-like vent. My father was sold on it. For the first 13 years of my life, I never saw him within 10 feet of a stove - when we moved into this apartment, he was stuck to the grill. London broil for dinner at least once a week; he grilled everything. He loved it. I think it's a fantastic idea. Granite counter tops seems like a no-brainer, which is why I guess no one's suggested it. Outside of that, I'm spent on ideas. The only time I go into the kitchen is to go into the backyard.
small scale: integrated indoor fresh herb garden with built in watering and drainage (will need a sunny window of course) larger scale: small attached greenhouse area with all herbs and vegetables raised up to be at counter height (rather than having bending over) conversely, if you're a carnivore... an integrated in-counter cage/slaughterhouse for small edible animals. very fresh meat. ok, I was joking with that last one but it had to be said. my vegetarian gf is going to kill me.
Here is a piece I made from Paduk, which I said above is a very nice wood to work with. Just thought I'd show it off! Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
