My customers had toured all the usual kitchen
firms and formed the opinion that they could only achieve
what they wanted through having the kitchen custom made.
Ordinarily a customer will make his/her/their
decisions in a showroom, and in due course the kitchen
is fitted. In this instance there was considerable debate as
to the basic form of the kitchen then, as the work
progressed there were a number of additions and
alterations. It was a pleasing piece of work to undertake
and my customers now have exactly the kitchen that they
wanted.
Photo above: The fridge and
dishwasher are below the counter to the right of the "oven
tower".
At the risk of stating the obvious, this is a truly hand
made kitchen. Ordinarily, kitchens are made on a
modular system using sophisticated computer
driven machines. Everything is exact and true but
necessarily, there will be a limited number of cupboard
sizes with a finite variety of door types and finishes. To the
customer with specific ideas or requirements (awkward shaped
kitchen for example) it quickly becomes apparent that
the modular system is unable accommodate any kind of
deviation from what is in the warehouse. Nevertheless the
product is invariably presented and sold as
a customer friendly custom built kitchen.
The existing kitchen had units around the walls and a
fairly large floor space that was unused. There are two doors
on two walls
and access to the conservatory on the third of the
four walls.
I redesigned the kitchen to be a more user
friendly working environment that uses the space much more
efficiently. In short, the "work triangle" has been employed
so that fridge, hob/oven and sink are all placed relatively
close to one another.
Photos 1 & 2 below:
Below you see stacks of the two principle materials used
in the construction of the kitchen. Kiln dried English oak delivered as rough sawn boards. The melamine faced boards all
cut and labelled ready for making into cabinets.
The cabinets are made
from 18mm melamine faced MDF. All edging, doors, drawers etc
are made from English oak finished with two coats of Danish
Oil. .
Photos 3 & 4 below:
The peninsular unit (see below) in the early stages. In
the right hand photo you can see a thin strip of oak affixed
to the MDF. This known as "lipping". Lipping is
applied whenever the edge of the MDF is likely to be seen.
As you look at the following photographs you will see no
exposed melamine/MDF. You will see only oak or spray
painted panels. There are no plastic veneers or edging
strips here!
Photos 5 & 6 below:
After much discussion about the the end of the
"peninsular unit", it was agreed that curved doors on this
unit would, likely as not, get broken off by folks passing
by. It was therefore decided that tambour doors would
be the answer. Here you see the doors under
construction .
Photo 6 above left: The double wall cabinet under
construction. You can see the oak
"lipping" and a door frame under construction.
Photo 7 above right : All hinges are stainless steel butt
hinges with stainless screws. Such hinges are at first
glance rather unsophisticated; they do not self
close, they do not hold a door open and they are not modern
in appearance. However, as stainless hinges, they will never
ever corrode or mark, they do allow a door to open back upon
itself, they do not sag and they are very strong.
As a design statement they are timeless, classical
modern if
you will.
Incidentally such hinges take ages to fit,
one tiny mistake is fatal in that it will be very obvious.
These two factors are the principle reason why you
will never find such hinges in the stores or
catalogues of the cheapest or, frequently even, the most
expensive of proprietary kitchen unit manufacturers.
Photos 8,9 and 10 below:
The units had to be made
strong enough to support the weight of 30mm granite
worktops. You can see the tambour doors at the
end of the "peninsular return" and the stainless steel "kick
boards".
Notice also the corner sink. Ordinarily such a sink would
be set into a corner. Here the sink is on an "outside"
corner. With one person
within the "principle work area ", any one assisting can gain
access to the sink from the "outside". The sink is
also close to The Bar. More of which below.
Photos 11,12, below:
Looking to the centre picture above it can be seen that the
peninsular projects from the wall. The brief was that the
cupboards between the sink and the food mixer (and below the
worktop) should be accessible from either side. Below left
is that cupboard , and on the right with one
door open on each side, a view straight through the
unit.
Photo 13 below: The "return" of the
peninsular (meaning the last part of the peninsular that
turns through 90 deg) also has cupboards that
can be accessed from either side. A sense of which may
be seen in Photo 4 above. Two large doors on the
outside of the return and a small one on the inside.
Photos 14 and 15 below: The hob is set into
its own unit. Below the hob are six drawers, the largest
of which was designed to hold a food mixer with all the
accessories. The "Oven Tower" to the right of the hob
accommodates a conventional fan assisted oven. Above
that is a combination oven. At the bottom is a warming
drawer.
At this stage you may be wondering how anybody can reach
the top shelves of the cupboards? To solve the
problem there is a small set of fold away steel steps
available. They are kept in the small cupboard
below the warming drawer. This cupboard can just be seen
in the r/h picture below.
Photos 16, 17 and 18 below:
The Bar is in the same style as the rest of the
kitchen. Above the oak counter there are two large cupboards
with a smaller one in the middle. The centre cupboard has a
"secret" panel that hides the wiring and transformer for the
LCD TV/Radio.
The wine tower is a
particular feature! A friend of the customer reckoned that a
single 10" square would hold 9 bottles of Bordeaux, so was
my brief presented. When full this wine tower can
comfortably hold 92 such bottles . The tower is made from
solid 25mm (1" if you will) Oak. Further photographs of
the tower are below.
At the left hand end of the bar and below it is a wine
chiller. To the immediate right
of the chiller is storage for trays. The storage unit makes
the transition from the chiller that projects quite a lot to
the necessarily fairly shallow bar. The curves of the
storage unit and bar counter complement each other.
There is a four drawer unit between the tray storage and the
wine tower. All the drawers have a "double extension" (i.e.
they open fully rather like filing cabinet drawers). The two
lower drawers can each hold half a dozen spirit
bottles with optics fitted.
Photos 19, 20 and 21 below:
A detail of the TV
, cupboard and wine tower, the oak counter top, a long shot
of the bar cupboards and wine chiller.
Photo 22 below: The right hand bar cupboard full of
cookery books. Would your kitchen cupboards be able to take
such a weight?
Photos 23, 24and 25 below:
The
construction of the wine tower. If you look carefully in the
lower l/h picture you will see (1) the manure covered
farmyard that is the entrance to my workshop and (2) a
variety of wine bottles in the background -
necessary to test the thesis that 9 bottles will in fact
fit into a 10" square! Of course they had to be
emptied first....
Footnote: It should be
noted that there was a lot of wiring for lights and
sockets that had to be done. Nowadays such work can only be
undertaken by an electrician who is fully qualified to
undertake such work. I am indebted to the good will and
humour of the electrician, young Colin,
who assisted me .
