Problem Solving
I Gotcha Covered
Even though I’m sure you figured we’d just grow to love the look of our crazy exposed hood (“oooh, it’s so unfinished chic”) we were ready to get this hood-covering train in motion. Oh and as for the height of the range hood, we just followed the manufacturer’s recommendations (the JennAir website offered a range and we went right in the middle of that range at 34″ above the counter).
As for the hood cover, the first thing we did was use photoshop to mock up two different options to figure out what we thought would look best. This was our original thought, since it looks most like a lot of the hoods in our inspiration pictures. The squares on the front are supposed to be panels we’d make using trim.
But it looked a bit top-heavy to us, so we tried this version instead:
We liked that much better, so I took some measurements and drew up a “technical” drawing of the plan. I roughly sketched the hood to scale (using some graph paper under this white sheet) with pen and then used a thicker marker to design the cover around it.
And in the other corner you can see where I started to figure out what sort of wood I would need to actually build this thing. I’m not going to even try to explain what this means now, since it will become clearer as you see the actual cover come together. But just know my goals with this thing were to:
- Make it sturdy (and use moisture/steam/grease resistant plywood so it would last)
- Make it as light as possible (I didn’t need worry about another heavy thing falling off of the wall)
- Make it pretty
When I returned from the store with some plywood panels and 1 x 2″ boards in hand, I got right to building. I was going to build from the bottom up so I started off by building a frame and cutting some plywood panels to size:
The frame is basically three pieces of 1 x 2″ screwed together in a U-shape using my Kreg Jig. To attach it to the wall, I made a couple more holes with my jig so that I could screw it tightly to the wood plank that we used to mount the hood (see, I told you that weird overhang would make sense!).
It looked a little something like this. Note that it’s not touching the actual hood at all, so our cover will essentially float around the entire thing (our high-efficiency range hood should have no issue directing moisture/steam up into the hood and up the vent, and our wood surround should stand up to everyday use like many wood hood surrounds built by various cabinetmakers and handymen/handywomen). We’ve heard from a ton of folks in blogland who have built or hired out wood covers since revealing our crush on them and we’re happy to report that everyone seems to have had a great experience with them (no moisture or steam issues with the wood around the hood). It actually makes sense since non-covered range hoods usually have wood cabinets against either side of them and they don’t typically have issues with those sort of things either.
Note: these pics were taken before we realized we should use metal foil tape and not duct tape for those vent joints, but we’ve since swapped it out and will share those pics in another update post about other things we have to share, like how we patched our giant honking ceiling holes, etc).
With the frame in place I started nailing the thin plywood panels in place.
Here’s what it looked like with the first three sides done.
Remember the reason that there’s a small gap around the outside is to leave room for us to reach the control buttons on the front of the hood. There’s enough room for our fingers to slip in, without being a totally garish amount of space.
And if you’re Sherry’s height (or me slightly ducking) you can even see the buttons so you don’t have to wonder what you’re pressing (to see any buttons on the underside of a hood you usually have to duck a bit to see them, so we like that ours are just as accessible, albeit slyly hidden).
To add the next “tier” to our cover, I had to build a slightly smaller version of the previous 1 x 2″ frame. Since this would be the one against which the sloped part of the cover would sit, I ran it through my table saw at an angle to make it easier for the angled piece of plywood to lay against it. I didn’t measure or anything to make the angle perfect – it was just an educated guess since I figured anything would be an improvement over it meeting the original square edge.
Here it is attached to the upper portion of the hood.
Even though the next set of plywood panels would sit just fine on the top edge of the previous set, I did add a small piece of 1 x 2″ to give me a place to secure them with a nail. And yes, I gave it another guesstimated angled cut to help that sloped piece sit better.
This picture should help make more sense out of this. See the sloped plywood panel in place?
The next two sides would be on only non-rectangular pieces of plywood. Since this angle had to be exact, I held the piece in place so I could mark the exact line that I had to cut.
Then I ran them through my table saw to get these fun little quadrilaterals. Wow, I don’t think I’ve used that term since Mrs. Miller’s 9th grade geometry glass. That’s the class where I decided I should wear my glasses during tests because they would help me feel smarter (even though I just needed them to read the blackboard). Nerd alert.
Anyways, here are those two panels attached on the sides. It’s starting to look like something, no? Of course it’s still very clunky and unfinished looking without trim, but we’ll get there in a minute…
For the third and final tier, we had to cover the vent pipe with the section I affectionately called “the chimney.” First I cut my tiniest 1 x 2″ frame to date. Ain’t he cute?
And then I screwed him straight into the ceiling (hitting nice firm wood that I knew would hold it nice and snug – you never want to drill up into nothing- that hollow feeling is the worst). The only problem was that I hadn’t accounted for how gargantuan the hole was for that vent pipe. Guess we’ve got more patching to do (Sherry’s my spackling queen). And we’ll eventually be installing crown molding around all of this too, so it’ll look nice and polished in the end.
Here’s the chimney covered with the plywood panel, essentially completing the major construction phase of this project.
So here’s what it looked like at that point. Hood is sufficiently covered. We still have access to the buttons. It’s plenty secure and we’re happy with the shape of it. It’s just looking a smidge unfinished. Okay, maybe more than a smidge.
This is where trim comes in. And I’m telling you, it’s one of those “details make the difference” things. I decided to make the trimming portion on this fairly easy on myself. In keeping with the theme of “make it light weight” I decided to use some super lightweight plywood. And to minimize nail holes (and having to hammer against the cover) I opted to glue everything in place. This method should definitely hold up to heat and moisture and all other kitchen loveliness (grease!) – especially once it’s primed and painted with the same super durable Benjamin Moore Advance paint that we used on our cabinets – so we’ll keep you posted.
We also ditched the idea of doing panels across the front and sides (as shown in our original renderings) because we kinda liked the clean look better (and worried smaller boxy panels might not jive with our existing cabinets). It also made my job a bit faster, meaning I had the first row of trim cut and glued into place in no time.
I did like working with the LiquidNails because it gave you a bit of play for the first 10 minutes (hence the tape above to stop it from moving when playtime was over). But I ran out about halfway through (it was an old tube leftover from something else) so I started using this leftover tube of Loctite instead… and kinda wished I had used it from the start. I wasn’t able to wiggle things into place as much (I had to peel it off and restick it instead) but things really stayed in place – meaning no more green tape was needed.
The top portion of trim took me a bit longer (especially because I ran out of wood and had to run out for more in the middle of everything), but by the end of the day I had it looking like this:
The angled cuts on the side took a bit of time too. We opted not to put trim on the chimney part because it’s not really supposed to be a “decorative” part of the hood. Plus there weren’t any open seams between the plywood or anything that needed “finishing.” Once we patch that ugly ceiling hole and add crown molding around the entire top of that wall (and hood) we think it’ll look swankypants indeed.
It’s not 100% perfect. For one, it needs to be primed and painted (we’ll do that when we prime and paint the open shelves we’re about to build) and it needs some caulk in a few places just to make it 100% seamless. But I’m just proud that I accomplished my three goals. It’s sturdy and durable. It’s lightweight. And it looks pretty (if I do say so myself).
Now of course it doesn’t have some of the bells and whistles that a professional hood might have, but once it’s primed and painted it should perform just as well as a painted cabinet would next to or above a hood. And it certainly was cheaper than the $3 – 4K price tag we saw some places (check out this post to see a price that had Sherry spitting liquid at her laptop). In the end it cost me about $90 to complete, mainly because I didn’t realize how much wood/trim I’d need. So I think that brings our total for the hood up to $150 (since the hood itself was $60 thanks to craigslist). Wait, that doesn’t include brackets/wood to hang it, so make that around $175. Still not bad considering we paid $250 for our last kitchen’s stainless steel hood (and it wasn’t an industrial strength JennAir one like the beauty we scored this time).
Even though it’s still a big, tan-colored box on the wall – I did take some “after” photos of the kitchen for ya. Mainly because with book photoshoots starting in our house this week I wasn’t sure of the next time our kitchen would look this clean again. It’s definitely still looking pretty raw in there (we need crown molding, shelves, a ton of color that Sherry can’t wait to add with art and accessories, new floors, an installed dishwasher, a light over the sink, etc) but we’re getting there.
As much as it’s kinda weird for us to see something hanging from this wall that’s been empty for two months, we do like that we’re starting to break up the sea of tile a bit. In some ways it just draws your eye more to that wall so you can stand there drooling. Not that we do that. Much.
It mainly just makes us eager to get that thing painted, get the ceiling patches sanded and painted, and get those open shelves hung. Sounds like a good project to talk about next, eh?
In the meantime, let’s talk about range hoods. Ever built one? If not, I never had either until a few days ago, so you never know what you might find yourself doing down the road…
Leave a comment
Yearbook Pictures
We’re working on hanging our new pendant lights so we’ll be back to share those pics in the morning. In the meantime, let’s talk about something people ask about all the time: photo storage. Ever since seeing Katie Bower’s family photo book two summers ago, we’ve been drinking the photo book Kool-Aid – starting with our very first Family “Yearbook” that we made last summer (you can read about that here). And now that another year has wrapped up, well, let’s just say this arrived last week:
It’s one big glossy photo book stuffed to the gills with all of our family photos from 2011. Except the perk is that while it has around 600 photos, it’s only about a half-inch thick. Which is awesome for storage purposes (way less cumbersome than thick overstuffed photo albums that only hold 100-200 pics each). We ordered it through MyPublisher and thanks to a promotion they were running for free extra pages, we got to max out their page limit (100) and pay nothing extra. The discount (which has ended since we received our book – but they tend to pop up pretty frequently) actually saved us $79! And we’d easily pay $44.99 to print all those pics (not to mention having to buy a bunch of albums to put them in) so a photo book can actually end up being quite the deal. And no, they didn’t pay/perk us to write this, we just like our photo books. Haha.
We did our last “yearbook” way after the fact (like mid-2011), so it took a bit of backtracking to organize all of the photos. But for 2011 we planned ahead and kept all of our photos in one iPhoto album (which automatically kept them in chronological order for us), which is why it only took a couple of weeks into the new year to actually get this one done. So let’s take a quick look through all one hundred pages… just kidding. We’ll just take a peek at some of the highlights – like our opening page that we edited to include some text to summarize some of the, well, highlights from the past year. We think we’ll love looking back on it (and having a summary of the whole year on one page).
We also tried to group big events, holidays, and milestones – like the several spreads of Clara’s 1st birthday party. Check out how dark our kitchen was in the bottom left corner!
We also used the preset page designs to give some really special photos the layouts they deserved, like the ones Katie B. snapped when we visited the Bowers in June.
And since it’s not hard for these albums to turn into a Clara-fest, we paid special attention to making sure Burger got plenty of love as well. He even scored a few dedicated pages throughout (every album needs a good Burger-montage or three).
We also thought it was fun to put all of the photos we took for our Blogiversary “Day In The Life” post into the yearbook in order. That way in 15 years we can look back and sort of remember what a normal day was like way back when…
We nearly ran out of pages by the time we got to Christmas (darn 100 page limit!) but managed to make room. Heck, we even squeezed in a collage of a bunch of our holiday card outtakes. Yeah, we’re kind of into our kiddos.
So since we’re on a family yearbook high – especially now that our collection is two albums strong! – we’re already excited to make the 2012 version.
But because that’s not possible yet (unless we want it to be 3 pages long) we’re thinking that we may try to organize our old digital photos and make one or two books that’ll hold all of the photos from 2005 (when we met) to 2008 (right before our 2009 album picks up). Maybe we’ll work on those books once a certain manuscript is in the can.
Oh yeah, and here’s our favorite photo bomber again, just trying to get in on the action.
Anyone else making photo books or albums to document the past year? Or any other event or period of time? We’d love to hear other systems people have for organizing and displaying their family photos.
Channeling My Favorite TV Serial Killer
Things are getting pretty Dexter around here in preparation for our wall opening. Because when walls come down, dust comes out, and therefore protective plastic must go up! So to set the mood I’ve intentionally left these photos kinda dark and eerie. I’m nothing if not theme-y.
Oh and since I affectionately call myself Captain Safety (much like Sherry wishes $herdog would catch on), it bears mentioning that old homes can have lead paint, and therefore call for extra precautions (especially if you have little ones and pets around), so you can find more info on that here. We followed those directions and had our walls checked for lead (it’s the thing to do before work begins so you know what you’re dealing with) and ours came back negative. Which was really surprising to us until we read that homes from 1960-1978 only have a 24% chance of having it, so the odds were actually with us. Definitely one of those better safe than sorry things though, and the government takes it pretty seriously if you don’t follow lead-safe practices. So do what you’re told or Dexter Morgan might come for you…
Anyway, it was nice to know that we didn’t have lead to worry about, but we still knew from experience that there would be a heckova lot of dust all over everything if we didn’t seal things off. We used this method for construction dust control many a time in our first house when we were demo-ing, so we got to work sealing off the work area in both rooms with giant plastic drop cloths that are taped on all sides (while leaving a sliver of access in the existing doorways for folks to pass through while working).
We decided to line the sides of those “walk-through-here” slivers with painter’s tape so it’s easy to see where to step through so you’re not standing there flinging the curtain around for ten minutes to find the opening.
Oh and as for who will be here through the chaos, Clara, Burger, and I will stay at my sister’s house for the day, but Sherry’s staying home to answer questions, tend the blog, and stand behind the plastic sheeting with her eyes bugging out with joy as the wall comes a tumblin’ down.
Also on the dust-control subject, we plan to close all of our air vents in the demo area and then cover them with plastic (like we did here) so no nasty dust will find its way into our ventilation system only to be sprayed out the next time it’s turned on (we’ll keep it off during the job since it should be a one-day thing and our house should maintain it’s temperature pretty well during the day). But as for the vent you see below…
… that will actually be where the peninsula meets the half-wall. So we had an hvac pro come out and ensure that losing that vent (and one on the other side) wouldn’t compromise our system. Then with his blessing I went under the crawl space and disconnected and capped ‘em (so the vent you see isn’t connected to anything anymore). We actually did that in our first house for our kitchen remodel as well.
Oh and don’t worry, my Dexter channeling stopped at putting up the protective plastic sheeting. Well that and taking this creepy photo.
Okay and maybe this just happens to be my new ringtone. But I swear that’s it. Nothing else Dexter-y happening around here. Promise.
I kind of feel like a bad a$$ when my phone rings now. And of course Sherry’s jealous (in case you’re wondering, this is her current ring tone – and she dances like the Jersey girl that she is every time it rings). But back to the wall-opening excitement coursing through our veins. Needless to say we’re doing that is-it-tomorrow-yet thing over here. Can’t wait to share pics of our progress as we go.
Dabbling In Demo
We knew pretty early on in our appliance shopping that we’d need an oddly tiny fridge to fit into the existing fridge hole that we had going on in our kitchen (yes, fridge hole is a technical term).
And after some searching we realized we were probably more likely to discover the Loch Ness Monster than a perfectly sized fridge (preferably in stainless with side by side doors, since we loved that so much in our first kitchen – but we were flexible). So we slowly came around to the idea of removing the built-in box around the fridge to free things up a lot more when it came to dimensions. That way we could cut off the hollow unused top of the upper cabinet and rehang it higher to allow for a taller fridge – and then rebuild the sides at the new depth so the new fridge would look more flush/custom.
See, even if we kept the built-in side and cabinet exactly as they were and somehow found a small enough fridge to slide in, we’d have to rebuild the side panel for a more flush look (we didn’t like that the old fridge stuck out about 6″ beyond the side panel and the hinges on top were visible). Plus we always thought the beam looked funny jammed into the side of the cabinet like that – so we weren’t sure what we had planned, but it probably would require some minor beam surgery. We figured we’d just play it by ear and adapt our plan as we went. You know, the usual method around here.
So removing the side panel and cabinet above the fridge was our official dive into the pool of kitchen demo (although we’re planning to work with / adapt many of the existing cabinets so we won’t be gutting the place or anything). Step one of our side panel/fridge cabinet surgery? Removing everything from the cabinets. To be safe, we removed everything from the cabinet next to it as well (since we thought it might have to come down in the process). Clara was of little help, unless of course our project was “putting toy pigs on the step stool.”
With cabinets emptied, it was time for the bean to go off to bed. As she snuggled up to her stuffed giraffe and drifted off to dreamland, we were having fun rolling the fridge out of its little cubby so we could steal a peek behind the scenes. Besides revealing a weird electrical cord to nowhere (already called the electrician, we’ll keep ya posted), by standing where the fridge usually sat and looking up we were able to determine that the cabinet was attached only at the sides and top – not the back. And that the weird beam actually appeared to go all the way through the cabinet. Who knew?
It also revealed an order form from back when the cabinet was installed… in November of 1982. So yeah, I’m only eight months older than this kitchen. The cabinet company is called QuakerMaid, which some research revealed is a pretty nice custom cabinet maker. So we’re glad we’re working with these cabinets since they’re a nice standard size and still in pretty good shape considering they’re almost thirty years old (our first kitchen‘s cabinets were original to our 50′s house, so they weren’t even big enough to house standard dinner plates). Note: That’s not our address below, it’s the old cabinet maker’s location, which is no longer in use.
But enough about our little kitchen artifact. Back to the whole cabinet removal thing.
Detaching it from the cabinet beside it was easy. We found some long screws drilled through the tall cabinet into the fridge cabinet. So we zzzzzzip zzzzzzip zzzzziped ‘em loose and half expected the cabinet to come crashing down on us (John was supporting it from beneath, just in case). But it wasn’t that easy. Nothing ever is, right? That’s ok, we love a challenge.
At that point it became clear that it was that one solitary floor-to-ceiling side panel on the left side of the fridge (as you face it) that was now keeping the entire cabinet afloat. And since it was built into the floor and ran all the way up to the ceiling, after a few attempts at salvaging it by popping it off (there were no exposed screws or places to really grasp it well since it was so flush on all sides) we decided to go the barbaric route and just slice right through the darn thing. This way we could keep as large of a panel as possible (instead of sledgehammering and splintering it to death) in case we need some extra matching cabinet wood down the line for future alterations. Thank you jig saw!
Oh but first we put the three long screws back in through the cabinet on the right to keep everything from falling down. Miraculously it worked. John and I took turns (power tools = our jam) each putting one long cut through the side panel… and it basically swung free.
Then it was as simple as re-removing those three screws from the cabinet next to the fridge that were solely supporting it (while John stood under the cabinet to make sure it didn’t come crashing down). The kicker? Clara slept through some of the loudest drilling and sawing of all time. Seriously, it was amazing. Love that girl.
And it revealed that the beam did in fact go all the way through (we always figured it was added after the cabinets and just stopped short where it hit the front of that cab).
Seeing the full beam basically confirmed our inclination to not make the altered cabinets go all the way to the ceiling. Don’t get us wrong, we love the visual height and extra storage gained by taking cabinets to the ceiling. But we just can’t bring ourselves to cut off the beam again (it looked so weird ramming into the cabinet – and it actually has to stay since it covers a marred ceiling where two old rooms used to meet). Plus the other built-ins like the pantry on the other side of the room aren’t ceiling height either – and we’re definitely keeping them. So we actually think that once we get everything painted and looking right again our decision will return some much needed balance to the entire room. Of course we’re planning to add some trim to the top of all the cabinets to polish everything off, sort of like this kitchen:
But ours currently looks like this:
A mystery wire, some unpainted ugliness, and – the best part – room for a taller fridge.
But just as our dream fridge was getting taller, we started wondering if that was enough. And when our wheels get spinning it can be a dangerous thing. See, we got to contemplating a more major fridge move (it still looks kind of crammed into that corner to us). But our new fridge location idea involves a lot more drilling/lifting/general labor. And we were way too tired. Maybe tomorrow. Pics and more details as soon as we (hopefully) get ‘er done!
Pssst- Check out one of the sweetest night-stand-to-play-kitchen conversions I’ve ever seen over on BabyCenter. So creative!
Bad News For Banquette Fans
For all those wondering when the heck we’ll tackle that kitchen banquette idea that we mentioned a few weeks ago (here and here), well… probably never. Cue the frowny face emoticons.
Here’s the deal. After getting lots of positive feedback on the idea a few weeks ago (over 1,400 comments total!), Sherry and I were certain your collective enthusiasm would push us from “we think this is a good idea” to “this is definitely a good idea.” And it nearly did. But parts of us still questioned the whole commitment-factor when it came to actually doing it (we definitely described it as a half baked idea when we shared it). We worried if it’d really be the most practical solution (would it be a pain to scoot in and out of?) and if it’d really make the most of the space (we couldn’t figure out the right balance of big-enough seats while still maintaining flow around it to keep it from feeling cramped).
So one evening we decided there was a reason that we were stuck in Hesitation City: it just wasn’t The One. So we did what we always do when we get stuck. We went back to the drawing board to see if we could come up with something else that we ended up liking better. We made a few quick sketches of the floorplan, asked ourselves “what are we not thinking of???” and just started sketching ideas – no matter how good or bad our guts told us they were. Kinda like those DON’T THINK, JUST DRAW exercises that they teach you to access your subconscious or something. Of course some of them completely blocked the doorway to the dining room (fail!) and nearly all of them were completely out of scale (so things were too big or too far over) but it definitely got the ol’ wheels turning again…
We tried returning to some version of table in the middle (top left) and even modification to the banquette (top right, bottom left). But somewhere in that mess we had one of those “Ah-ha moments” that ol’ what’s-her-name used to talk about on the TV (this is a joke for my Oprah-loving wife). So allow us to introduce the banquette’s successor: the peninsula! Cue the confused emoticons.
Let’s explain. First, here’s our CURRENT floating-table-in-the-kitchen-and-larger-table-in-the-dining-room arrangement (courtesy of my rough Google Sketch-Up drawing):
Now for the doorway opened, cabinets painted, counters replaced, floor slightly discolored (not intentionally) and (of course) peninsula’d version:
Woo hoo. Before we go any further, we should warn you: we’re 100% sold. The above depiction of it is probably not going to make a believer out of everyone, but from taping it out in the space and moving around it “in person” for a while we giddily came to the following conclusion: it’s The One! So no worries if it’s not your jam or you love Mr. Banquette (he was a lovable guy – and there are always gonna be people who would do things differently if this were their house) but we’re definitely going for it. And we can’t wait to get started.
As for why we didn’t come up with the peninsula idea sooner, we were so stuck on the fact that a peninsula coming off of the cabinetry that we already have would actually hit (or come very very close to hitting) the fridge on the other side of the room. So it wasn’t until we came up with the idea of adding a base cabinet to the right of the cabinetry that we already have to space the peninsula further away (a smidge towards the fireplace) for better flow and even more counter space.
Speaking of counter space, when it comes to executing this whole thing, we’re basically planning to add some base cabinetry (and counters) near the opening itself to create a counter-height peninsula. Which accomplishes a lot, actually:
- It adds additional work surface & cabinet storage to the kitchen side of the room (so it’s easy-access)
- It helps extend and better define the kitchen space without blocking flow or feeling too heavy
- It creates a casual eating space, keeping it distinct from the dining room table, which is just steps away for larger groups and more formal gatherings
- We can most likely seat four people at the peninsula (it’s flexible, so ignore the three chunky chairs shown)
- It can be used as a buffet to set out food (or to seat additional guests) when we have parties
- It can be used for homework, laptop browsing, and general hanging out by the kiddo(s) as they grow
- It even makes sense of our very off-center fireplace by creating a small casual living space that we’ll use as a little “chill corner” of sorts (the peninsula doesn’t block the fireplace, which our banquette friend did from most angles)
That last perk (centering the fireplace) was a nice surprise, since it’s something we’ve struggled with a lot (it’s just in such an odd place, practically shoved in the corner of the room). But you can see from this virtual view through the future doorway how it almost makes the fireplace placement seem intentional (picture it with a nice round mirror above it to balance that doorway next to it). Oh happy day.
We just love that we’ll get to see the fireplace from the dining room (it won’t be blocked by a heavy banquette) and if overflow guests sit at the peninsula, they won’t have their backs to the people seated in the dining room (which would have happened with the banquette).
For those who don’t do well with renderings (or are still scratching your heads), here are some pics we snapped to give you a better idea of how it’ll work in the real world. We moved some existing furniture around to mimic the placement (the table represents the peninsula) and have lived with it for the last week-ish to make sure it actually makes sense. Placements aren’t totally exact, but pretty darn close to what we’re thinking. Here’s the view from the laundry room. Ignore the broken pendant light in the far back (it finally crapped out on us). Instead look, there’s that fireplace nicely framed!
We also traced out the future opening (again, not exact) to show how that’ll work too. We’re thinking there will be a little half-wall (i.e. knee wall) where the peninsula meets the open doorway…
… like we showed in this rendering:
We considered a narrower doorway (where the peninsula doesn’t hang over into the opening) but we think this wider version makes it feel much more open and lets in more light, so it’s the current winner. And of course as previously mentioned, we love how balanced the fireplace and doorway look through the cutout.
Admittedly it took us a little while to figure out what to do with the space in front of the fireplace. It was our biggest hurdle in getting on board with this idea, actually. But after we brought in a placeholder chair, ottoman, rug, and light we realized it was actually completely awesome. There have been approximately 14 hours of reading-with-Clara from that chair in the last week or so. We’re even toying with the addition of some sort of tall built-in bookshelf behind the chair to balance the tall cabinets on the other side of the doorway. Not sure yet, but we’ll keep you posted.
We’ve already discovered it’s a great spot for Clara to play while we’re getting stuff done in the kitchen (since we can’t see her if she’s in the living room, but it’s easy enough to peek over the peninsula to check on her if she’s in the kitchen on the rug).
Sherry’s already making plans for how she’ll relax in front of a fire (we’re contemplating one of those convincing modern-looking electric inserts that Candice Olsen uses – possibly even a double sided one if we can eventually open the back of the fireplace into the living room as planned).
Meanwhile I’m dreaming of a little TV mounted above the mantle so I can watch the news during our morning breakfast routine (Sherry is rolling her eyes as I type this- so we’ll have to see where we land on that). Either way, can you tell we’re getting more than a little excited about this set up? Yup, it’s The One.
The peninsula will also give us 3-ish base cabinets worth of deep functional storage, unlike the largely decorative storage (open 12″ bookshelves) that the banquette would’ve provided. Plus a nice wide 3′ x 5.5′ work surface for prep, serving, eating, and homework is FAR more functional than what we would’ve gained from a distant island or a narrow banquette located a lot further away. And we’re probably gonna use the new counterspace as an excuse to change the countertops in the whole kitchen. We’ve never loved our existing granite color (it has a few pitted/stained parts too), so it seems silly to actually buy more for the new peninsula (we’ve debated a mismatched look, which we like for an island, but for a peninsula it seems like it would look most like it has “always been there” with the same counter to keep things seamless). Of course we plan to craigslist the existing granite and put that money towards whatever we’ll use for the new material (not gonna lie, we’re already talking about DIYing concrete counters).
Oh and for anyone debating a peninsula, we’ve learned that the pros recommend 42″ of walking space between the peninsula and whatever’s on the other side (in our case it’s the fridge, which we hope will sink back a foot or so when we replace it with something that’s counter-depth). So that’s how we arrived at our peninsula length.
In fact, flow through the room is almost better because there’s one straight pathway through the room, whereas the old table (and the once planned banquette) made us walk in a slight circle. Hoorah for ten less steps a day. Haha.
So now that we’re unequivocally sold and geeky-excited about our new plan, it’s just going to come down to working out the logistics. Namely how to find/build perfectly-sized cabinets that match our old ones without breaking the bank. And finally hire a licensed contractor and get the permits needed to bust out that load bearing wall of ours. But that’s a story for another post. Another ten posts, probably…
Update: You can check out the new “cozy corner” behind the future peninsula in action (on video!) over on Young House Life.
Another update: Lots of people are sweetly suggesting some sort of bookcase or built-in feature on the side of the cabinets that face the dining room (instead of a knee-wall) but we’re unsure if that’ll be too much since there are already built-ins in the dining room that are just a few feet away. We’ll keep you posted as we go though! Who knows where we’ll end up…
Psst: Tomorrow I’m going to post my thoughts on trying Google Sketch-Up for the first time (and how it compares to two other 3D rendering tools I’ve used). So stay tuned for that if you’ve got any questions about how I made the 3D graphics for this post.
