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Steel For Show, Steel For Go

John Liu
13 years ago

Have you seen the Most Uncomfortable Man in America? He agreed to meet his wife in Victoria's Secret, and she is late. He shuffles between the voluptuous and the nubile, the silken and the precious, eyes firmly averted. What wouldn't he give for something plain, not ornamented; flat, not curvaceous; still, not heaving. Something male, not Eve.

We are all here in a sort of Victoria's Secret for the TKO. Surrounded by brassieries and bustiers for the kitchen. Marble, writhing. Porcelain, swelling. Polished nickel, arching. I don't avert my eyes - I'm not him, I'm the guy over there, leering and fingering the camisoles - but sometimes, just sometimes -

Don't you ever want to just rip one off? Crank The Clash to 11, kick every burner to max, slam an iron pot down so hard it rings, throw a hunk of meat on a scarred slab of wood , chop it, chop it good, flecks and blood spitting, and to hell with cross-contamination, because everything that isn't seared black is going to be wire brushed, doused with bleach and put away wet?

In those, not infrequent, episodes, there are some brutal truths, it seems to me. You shall not slam iron on marble. You shall not scarify polished nickel with wire brushes. And you shall not wear a silk camisole to chop bloody meat. Precious fireclay, polished and beaded wood, delicate ogee edges, those are for smooth jazz and elegant cooking. For my Clash nights, I see stainless steel and painted slab wood.

Unfortunately, big expanses of stainless steel aren't everyone's aesthetic teacup. SWMBO has expressed her preference for not cooking in a battleship boiler room. Even I get tired of monochromatic gunmetal, and (I just added it up) there could be as much as 122 square feet of it in my kitchen, if good sense doesn't prevail, and you know, sometimes Good does not in fact triumph.

I went looking for stainless steel that isn't dull and institutional. My, there are many possibilities.

Classic engine-turned jeweling:

Spiral burst wire-brush patterns:

Random anti-graffiti pattern:

Industrial checkering and diamond plate:

Contrasting brushed and polished:

Black coatings:

Powder coating:

Zinc and cadmium plating:

Weirdly creative metalworker stuff:

Maybe that is the answer. Decorative, but amoured-plated. Built for show, and for go. Catherine Denevue . . .

. . . in a chain-mail camisole. Rowwwr.

Or is this too off-putting? Too ghetto, too brutal, too much Beast and not enough Beauty?

Comments (62)

  • John Liu
    Original Author
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I really like the, I'll call it, ''beach waves'' stainless steel pattern that marcolo found. It is beautiful, vibrant, probably vaporizes fingerprints and scuffs, and looks like it can be done free-hand.

    Now, suppose you had a goodly amount of that pattern in a kitchen. For example, let's suppose you took a wirebrush wheel to your shiny new $8K stainless refrigerator (or more realistically, your second-hand surplus scratch-n-dent $500 refrigerator, since you're going to alter it beyond recognition anyway) and it came out looking like marcolo's image. 20 square feet of abstract metal swirls.

    Would that be too much, too weird, too bright? Would it send you into an epileptic seizure? And . . . very important . . . would it make all the other stainless look like crud, so that you'd be forced to finish off the hood, range, oven, dishwasher, etc, just to matchy-matchy?

  • still_lynnski
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Beach waves look great and wouldn't send me into seizure. I think it would require variety and funk in the other surface finishes--EKG flatline on the dishwasher, death spirals on the range hood. Solid surface for the abattoir, where function already provides plenty of texture.

  • cluelessincolorado
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Check out the New Wave finishes, that plus blackened steel behind your immoderate shoji, nice!

    Here is a link that might be useful: Steel finishes

  • Circus Peanut
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Why, I've just been reading about this.

    [Video not quite safe for work and contains ribaldries and cursing]:

    http://www.theonion.com/articles/massive-snowstorm-leaves-thousands-without-access,18993/

  • marcolo
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I doubt purchasing the actual product from the real vendor would be that expensive. They're in Buffalo, for God's sake. At this point they'll work for road salt.

    And no, I don't think you can mix it with regular SS, or use it throughout your entire kitchen. Few recipes benefit from an impromptu soupçon of vomit.

  • cat_mom
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    No wonder I still hang out around here--not only for the kitchen porn, but the (well-written) "articles" too!!!!! LOL

  • sandn
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    John Liu,
    We are having the same dilemma. We want indestructible, but we want beauty too. I just posted a thread about stainless vs soapstone. We are messy (or, maybe I should say, passionate) cooks who can't imagine stopping mid-process to clean a fragile surface. So we always thought our compromise was stainless perimeter and marble island (maybe even an ogee on the island, and maybe Miles Davis, too, but no smooth jazz around here). Now we're worried about lack of contrast. I'm not sure about the decorative steel. I think it's probably best as functional surface reflecting the rest of the room rather than decorative accent in its own right (especially 122' of it). And you're right. The orbital sander is seldom taken to the Sub-zero. It would be a shame to be forced to in pursuit of kitchen cohesion. What do you think of soapstone?

  • palimpsest
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I know someone who has a steel floor with a pattern similar to the one Marcolo posted (disconcerting if alcohol is consumed, clattery if women wear heels), and a backplash of what is essentially CorTen but lacquered so it didn't rust, but stayed black. (Not a warm n fuzzy house). The steel is rusting along the counter edge.

    I know what Marcolo is talking about "old fashioned" stainless steel with the little pits in it. The ticket offices at my train station have these as service counters.

  • marcolo
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I think johnliu is just competing with me for the world's longest kitchen pre-pre-pre-planning stage. it's like somebody using Dilbert as a KD.

    palimpsest, if you've got a crowbar and a dark ski mask, you've probably got a couple of buyers. Googling "pits" doesn't yield a lot of good countertop choices.

  • John Liu
    Original Author
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    marcolo: ''I think johnliu is just competing with me for the world's longest kitchen pre-pre-pre-planning stage. it's like somebody using Dilbert as a KD.''

    And sometimes Dogbert!

    ''I just posted a thread about stainless vs soapstone.''

    They are both hard-working surfaces, so I don't think there is a wrong choice. It is probably more about the look you are after.

    In my case, it is about learning what I'm really all about. There are many gorgeous kitchens and lovely details here, and I'm so easily distracted. After stumbling on the KF, I was first convinced that I wanted a white kitchen, all beaded woodwork and flowing marble. My neighbor had me sold on a period-correct 1920's museum piece. There have been side trips to the lands of silver-banded barrel hoods, rainforest stone, French tops and polished copper. Whatever you all have posted that was striking, I have mentally tried it on for size. I'm coming to realize, that silk camisole looks great on someone, but not on me.

  • beekeeperswife
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    john, when I started reading your post, my mind immediately went to "snowed in and out of booze" uh oh.

    Between you and marcolo's thread I am reminded of The Shining!

    great writing though.

  • Circus Peanut
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    John, on a serious note, you know how I love to push natural patinating copper counters, but what about zinc as a non-shiny workhorse surface? It's time tested, it's fairly cheap (esp as a DIY job via Rotometals), it has that desirable greying 'pitted' look, it offers the uplift you need without the flashy ribbons and furbelows.

    I'm thinking that you and SWMBO would appreciate a welded-in sink with no rims or edges to wipe down, so do keep on envisioning various metals, with or without underwires.

    {{gwi:1701770}}

    Here is a link that might be useful: zinketty zinc

  • marcolo
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I thought, in accordance with the Inevitable Rule of Such Things, there were huge drawbacks to beautiful, beautiful zinc, such as massive expense and slow food poisoning? Or something like that. I just know that it looks good, so it's bad.

    I think johnliu is trapped in the dreaded Prison of Infinite Possibilities. There are no bars, and no locks, but every door simply leads to other doors.

  • John Liu
    Original Author
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    That is a pretty zinc counter. I've also been in amour with theresse's stainless counters. Toxic? Schmoxic. I don't (personally) worry much about the food-safeness of counter materials, because I don't prep food directly on the counter. A loaf of bread sitting on a copper or zinc or Waterlox counter isn't going to hurt anyone.

    ''trapped in the dreaded Prison of Infinite Possibilities. There are no bars, and no locks, but every door simply leads to other doors.''

    You are perceptive. And what a Pleasure Prison it is! But I think I'm digging the tunnel, teaspoon by teaspoon, and am nearing the escape. Things are starting to coalesce and clarify. The layout has been more or less figured out for some time, while the style and look have been indistinct, but the fog is lifting.

  • marcolo
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    he layout has been more or less figured out for some time, while the style and look have been indistinct, but the fog is lifting.

    Well, post it, for cryin out loud. So we can all cheerfully eviscerate it, tail to neck, reducing your gossamer dreams to windblown ash, ripping off the mask of satisfaction to reveal the hideous crone of failure and error, and smashing all your hopes into the icy--um, I mean, so we can all help.

  • John Liu
    Original Author
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Now I'm the one blushing!

    It is hard to post a ''look''. I don't know Sketchup well enough to do all the textures and colors that would actually convey a ''look''. I haven't been systematically collecting inspiration pictures, and GW's search is weird enough that it is hard (for me) to go back and find old threads.

    When I have something put together, I'll definitely post it for some, er, icy-um.

    In general, think of parts of (the aesthetics of) theresse, macybaby, histokitch, antiquesilver. Add a splash of Urban Remains, too much of

    and a bit of

    Stir to combine.

  • plllog
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Well... There's always the Bulthaup workbench, but it's too refined for your hobnailed boots.

    Seriously, how about concrete counters. It etches and all, but can still look fab, and if you break off a chunk, you can fix it. :)

    I worry that all those pretty swirly stainless patterns are just a Victoria's Secret bustier with Harley Davidson flames. Still pretty delicate and easy to mar, no matter how buff it looks.

    If you just want to bleach things down, get glossy glazed tile with epoxy grout.

    Seriously, I can see in my mind the kitchen that your brain still would produce, and it would be quite excellent. Go for it!

  • sabjimata
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I love that there is some gender diversity on this board!

    Definitely adding this post to my clippings.

    Check out the fridge/kitchen I am linking...

    Here is a link that might be useful: house beautiful

  • marthavila
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Sabijimata, that kitchen you've posted is one of my all-time (non-GW) faves! Love it! And, since we're adding some more inspiration to Johnliu's already bloated inspiration file, I figured I'd add this link to the list. Not exactly what you're looking for John. Given the kitchens you say you've been admiring ( me too, btw!), this kitchen is probably going to be too contemporary for your tastes. However, there are some exciting elements here that may be in line with your thinking -- even if not the specific approach you would take. I must say the steam valves, backsplash and ceiling fixture most certainly caught my attention!

    Here is a link that might be useful: Ikea Sleek with a Side of Steampunk

  • plllog
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    So. I'm looking in a design magazine this morning and realize where I've seen John's latest inspiration... He's trying to con you that it's Steampunk, but what he really wants is a kitchen by Laddie John Dill!!

    at de Vorzon Gallery:

    It's not like the blend mentioned above, nor a festival of steel, but here's another inspiration kitchen for you. It reads very strong and masculine, massive even, while being cook-centric and residential.

  • John Liu
    Original Author
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I like the antique cubby wall, the exposed piping and pressure valves, the blingy toekick lights, and the drop-acid steel sculpture.

    Here are some other looks I like . . .

    I'm not big on the brick, but I like the sink . . .

    The hanging lights and blackboard cabinets caught my eye

    My ideal pot storage - the rest of it is too slick:

    Isn't this sort of an ''apron front'' sink, after all?

    Somehow I see ''baking center'' - if raised about 8'':

    I'm still a romantic for ladies in white dresses:

    But also their bad girl sisters?

    The dress doesn't have to be white, but if there's going to be a dress, it should have some sense of period-correctness:

    My island - add a lower shelf and keep the slide:

    I don't know why I need an oscilloscope, but I like knobs and buttons and green glowy things.

    I see task lighting, with personality! It would be very funny to have what looks like a faucet mounted on the wall or counter, that emits light. With LEDs you can fit a bright light into the unlikeliest places.

  • still_lynnski
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Your kitchen is going to be *dirty* in the nicest possible way.

  • chesters_house_gw
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    How about a butcher shop rack, like the one at the link? Brings together marble, wood, industrial, and hanging space. They turn up on ebay and at architectural salvage places. I'd love to find one that would fit our -- small -- kitchen when we get to a renovation next year,or maybe we'll find a way to make one fit.
    The link goes to an ended item on ebay -- there are a couple of others floating around there now.

    Here is a link that might be useful: butcher rack

  • warmfridge
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Umm, is SWMBO on board with all that stainless and the white dress thing?

  • John Liu
    Original Author
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    So far, yes. SWMBO has funky and unpredictable taste.

    She loves red, can't abide blue. Covets copper, not brass. Keeps her mercury glass, raku pottery, and Venetian masks just so, but permits the Lego Eiffel Tower and Death Star to live on the sideboard. Welcomes any old flea market piece, but won't allow anything post-modern.

    Her primary instructions have been that the kitchen has to have a lot of storage, a big refrigerator, not look much more modern than the house (a century old this year), and did she mention the storage? She claims to have no problem with lots of steel, though she'd prefer copper, and she wants plenty of light. She has said ''no'' to anything of a surgical nature, but nods approvingly at various bizarre steampunk pieces. She liked marcolo's beach waves but thinks that all the steel would have to be equally wild - and added that she likes plain gray steel fine.

    She's a girl who looks good in silk and in chain mail.

    (We do have one fundamental disagreement about the floorplan, which I will need to ask you all about sometime.)

  • kevinw1
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    LOL on the Lego, John. I have my custom Lego car ferry, apartment block, farmhouse and red barn on display in the living room. No lego in the kitchen though.

    Here is a link that might be useful: my LEGO model gallery

  • formerlyflorantha
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I'm still working on the idea of Catherine Denevue in a steel camisole. Come, on johnliu, that's sacrilege. I don't care what kind of kitchen you've got in your dream, there's no fair messing with mine.

    I think that texture #1 would be acceptable, in small doses. As for the battleship boiler room, I agree with whatever your DW has told you about the acceptableness of THAT idea. Double it. I'm on her side.

    Denovue in a metal corset indeed.

  • plllog
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago
  • live_wire_oak
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Oooohhh! I can see that copper topped silo/pantry in your kitchen! It'd be even more perfect finished in actual copper all the way around.

    And instead of doing the shaker doors with the metal as the inset panel, do flat panel doors that are all copper.

  • beckysharp Reinstate SW Unconditionally
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I just read about these old industrial carts in a blog post the other day, and then saw John's post -- talk about a funky island....

    Becky

    Here is a link that might be useful: Industrial carts at Silver Fox Salvage

  • marthavila
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Ooh, I don't know about John, but I'm loving the way this thread is developing! Some of the out-of-box designs and sources are so exciting. Copper cabs? Yeah, bring on that domed, silo pantry clad entirely in copper as LWO suggests. And, that industrial work table? Two joined together with a marble/soapstone/stainless top? That could be fabulous! BTW, I am somewhat familiar with Silver Fox Salvage as they frequently vend some of their salvage items at a local flea market here. Their stuff is great and their retail style is warm and folksy.

  • itsallaboutthefood
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Sounds like what you are is a great pair of jeans, servicable brown leather boots you can run in, a white camisole top and black boyfriend jacket. Throw in some funky silver jewelery and you have a low maintenance, do-it yourself girl who's not afraid to get her hands or her clothes dirty or to put on a pair of pumps for an evening out on the town.

  • beachlily z9a
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    John, you have me looking at metal fabricators who do those sheetmetal textural things. Hubs and I have raced cars together, built engines together and built daylily boxes together, too. I love textured stainless sheets and when we do the kitchen, there will be room for some. After all, it can be removed and tile put in its place and we do live in the Daytona Beach area (car lover's heaven)! I'm thinking over the range would work just fine.

    Thanks for the inspiration!

  • rjr220
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    "Don't you ever want to just rip one off? Crank The Clash to 11, kick every burner to max, slam an iron pot down so hard it rings, throw a hunk of meat on a scarred slab of wood . . . . .

    That so smacks of Anthony Bourdain, dude. Hmm, WWAD (what would Anthony Design?)

    I like the swirly wavey pattern as well. The zinc is hot as well.

  • John Liu
    Original Author
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    SWMBO's reaction to the patinaed copper panel cabinets: a rapt ''oooo''. So that looks like a keeper. I wonder how well the exotic patina holds up to daily use? I should order a sample.

  • segbrown
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    This thread makes me happy.

    By the way, the March House Beautiful has a great kitchen with about 5 million finishes ... quarter-sawn oak, marble, antique brick, patinated bronze, chicken wire, steel, tile, whatever. Maybe too country for this, but maybe some ideas lurk ...

    Here is a link that might be useful: march hb kitchen of month

  • marthavila
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Wow, Segbrown. That is one kitchen to die for!

  • ironcook
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    the hood is zinc...

    from jennifer adams design blog:

    but maybe you prefer copper...

    Here is a link that might be useful: copper hoods

  • lavender_lass
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Here are a few of my favorite stainless steel countertops...from BH&G.

    {{gwi:1701793}}

    {{gwi:1701794}}

  • gwgin
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    John,
    Check out:
    http://www.quickshipmetals.com/decorative-sheet-metal/decorative-stainless-steel/decorative-stainless-steel.html
    I particularly like the "Bright Hammered" & "Bright Ocean" finishes.

  • Nancy in Mich
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    If you want to be slammin' things down, I have a nice, used 24 year-old butcherblock top I did not use in my new kitchen. Here it is in its original kitchen in Connecticut.

    Here is a close-up:

    {{gwi:1701796}}

  • Circus Peanut
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    You want depth and texture? You know copper can oblige.

  • skyedog
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    My favorite line - "snowed in and out of booze". Anyway, I remember reading your intro post and the "face" I put on your kitchen was sort of take on plllog's second kitchen only with red cabinets and no round prep space or modern backsplash. If you go with metal counters, my vote is to let the surface develop it's own patina ala circuspeanut instead of forcing it. As for reconciling your differences with SWMBO - DH picked out most of our aesthetic details (with only slight nudging from myself) and I held firm on the layout issues.

  • kaseki
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Heh. Funny original post John.

    I have always thought that the ideal configuration for cooking and efficient clean up would be top to bottom stainless steel and white tile, a floor drain, and a steam lance and hose mounted to one wall to wash all the surfaces down. Then the vent hood could be anywhere so long as the stainless doors stayed closed during cooking. :)

    kas

  • John Liu
    Original Author
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Now, channeling my inner hippie . . .

  • plllog
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    :) I was going to get a live oak slab table but by the time the tap root of the natural fall trees is gone, there's not enough wood left. Thanks for bringing back the nice memory. There was an artisan in Cambria who did these. I don't know if he's still there.

    BTW, one of the great features in that kitchen I posted, that Skyedog referenced, is the pot rack on the left. I first saw this in a magazine where more shows. It looks sculptural but stores a heck of a lot of cookware.

  • marcolo
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Does that countertop come with a balding mullet and an amateur jazz trio?

  • mtnrdredux_gw
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    You want utilitarian with a whiff of vintage to get the patina. Interesting, unusual and very high quality materials. Most of all no matchy matchy or anything contrived.

    Do you happen to have any old lathe in your space?

    Here is a link that might be useful: great kitchen

  • mtnrdredux_gw
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Try skinflint or obsolete or R.T. Facts for lighting

    Here is a link that might be useful: cool vintage lights at decent prices

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