BEFORE

DURING

AFTER!

A few of my favorite things... all thanks to GW.

Corner drawers

Vertical pan drawers

Spice drawer

Potato and onion storage

Pet station

Charging drawer

Swing out compost

Other favorite things

Induction cooktop. Especially love the ease of clean up.
Tapmaster. How did I live without it?
Fiber optic disposal switch.
Pull out trash and recycling.
Gaggenau steam oven
In cabinet TV
More windows!
Prep sink next to cooktop

Could live without
Servo drive for trash pullout. Kind of nifty, but could do without it

Wish I had paid more attention to GW
Double hung windows. Like the look, but they are very hard to open and close b/c of counter depth.

All in all though we're very happy with how it turned out. It is *so* much more functional than the old kitchen.

kitch

How deep is your spice drawer? Do you find any brands hard to fit into it? I've been planning on having one myself, but didn't know what the depth needed to be.

How deep is your charging drawer? Did you have the electrician fix the back special somehow? I haven't seen this before and am very intrigued by the idea. . .

Davidrol, I think I'm going to keep this one for a while :) but would be glad to share specs for any aspects you might want to replicate.

Missmuffet, the spice drawer has a 6 inch high drawer face and about 4.5 inches in usable interior height. Most of my spice bottles are the standard Penzey jars, which are 4.25 inches high. If you do end up with less height, there are many options for shorter spice jars.

The charging drawer face is about 12 inches high, about 10 inches or a little less interior height. I had thought about using a 6 inch drawer but am glad I used a deeper drawer to allow more room for all the chargers and cords and also to be able to have items that stand vertically, like the TV remote + charger and the phone. The electrician hard wired the cord for the 6 outlet surge protector to a source in the back of the cabinet. There was much discussion about the best arrangement, because the need to avoid crimping in cords the need to extend and retract as the drawer is opened and closed. So far, no problems.

It's beautiful! Congrats!

I also love the floor. Could you share the specific of the hardwoods.

thanks, Kristine

Also, I too would like information on your backsplash. Are those 2 x 6 or 3 x 6 tiles?

Can you tell us what is the sink and the faucet? Thank you.

Re: the layout. We opened up the wall between the dining room and kitchen, and moved the wall about two feet into the dining room.

BEFORE

The entry into the kitchen was awkward because the path went between the peninsula and the wall with three doors (to basement, pantry closet, and to pantry room/entry to powder room).

AFTER

Dining room into kitchen

Kitchen into dining room

Old 3 door wall, now down to one door

Entry from kitchen to pantry area

Backsplash close up

SPECS
Paint. BM Huntington Beige, kitchen, BM Buttered Yam, dining. Cabinets and kitchen trim, BM Timid White. Dining room trim, BM White Dove. There's a lot of White Dove in the house, as you can see from the dining room, but we elected to use the cabinet color for the trim in the kitchen and it seems to have worked.

Backsplash. Ann Sacks collection, Matte #BB22, ivory, 2x8.

Hood. Modernaire, ORB finish.

Hardware. Alno, Barcelona finish. My pictures are not the best. The finish is an ORB and does not look as dark as appears in the pics. The picture of the charging drawer gives a better idea of the brown tones.

Sinks. Blanco silgranite, black. Prep sink is 12x15.

Faucets. Hansgrohe Talis.

Floor. The kitchen floor was chosen to match the existing dining room floor. Not sure of the wood but there is only a clear finish, no stain.

As far as the charging door, IIRC the cord from the power strip was fairly stiff and so does not move much when the drawer is opened.

I use the prep sink faucet as a pot filler, and use the sink to drain pasta as well as things like canned tomatoes. It is also handy for placement of dripping utensils. So far, I like the functionality.

kitch

I really appreciate all the kind comments!

kitch

Can you tell me about your frig? Looks great on the outside. How is it with function? What brand is it?

Kitchenkrazed, the ceilings are 8 ft 10 inch.

As far as functionality, I think it is great, keeping in mind that my previous fridge was a 10+ year old Kenmore. Produce lasts amazingly long. It is shallow on the inside but fits a lot. The temp control is very precise, and there are vents to allow items in the door to stay as cool as items within the fridge cavity. It is tall though, I'm 5"4" and need to stretch to reach the butter compartment. We're two people and so far the capacity is adequate for us, but I also have a freezer in the basement for batch cooking jobs.

I believe the gagg and Miele are two of the few models that can be completely integrated, meaning no vent is visible (the vent is at the bottom, above the toe kick, and hidden by the freezer panel). The door hinge allows the unit to be mounted flush with the surrounding cabinet/counter. Also, in our case, we do not have 180 degree clearance for the door swing, and there is an option to lock the door so that it stops at 90 degrees and therefore does not bump into anything beyond 90 degrees, such as a door frame.

We are very happy with the appliance functioning and the integrated appearance, which was a priority for us, BUT, installation was a bear. Another recent poster, who has a Miele, advised not to have your GC attempt the installation. I would echo that advice. I paid for a lot of man hours for the installation, definitely much more than an independent installer would have charged, I think. So if you have an option to pay someone who has experience with these units I would definitely go with that. The cabinet maker also had a lot of trouble with the panels and had to ditch the first efforts. He did not seem to understand that the panel needs to fit the cabinetry opening, not the dimensions of the fridge itself. He also did not understand that unlike SZs there is no need to leave room for a vent at the top. In the end the bottom panel of the freezer is a little lower than the bottom of the rest of the cabinets, which bugs me, but I'm trying not to think about it.

So my take home lesson is to ask the GC and cabinet maker about their experience with integrated appliances in general and this model in particular and then investigate options for persons with experience to do the work. I believe the instructions provided are relatively minimal, plus some people of a certain gender tend not to read instructions carefully :)

kitch

I have some questions for you as well.

1) I am planning on using the Blum Space Corner as well. What size drawer fronts make up the corner? Also, what is the usable width of the drawers?

2) Whose cabinets? I really like the upper door style.

3) do you have a pic of you trash pullout? I assume that this was the only cabinet you did with Servo drive.

4) Were the other pendants from the local glassblower as well?

The corner drawer fronts are about 12 inches wide. Most blind corner units require more space, and if we had gone with a super susan or something like that we would have had to use piano hinge cabinet fronts, which I had before and don't like. So the fact that we had relatively small corner width dimensions was the main factor that prompted me to go with the blum corner drawers. I'll need to measure the interior width, but it is very usable, and fits a Reynold's Wrap container from side to side.

The other thing I did was to have the sink cabinet next to the corner drawers extend to the drawers, meaning that the sink cabinet is not a rectangle, but has a triangular extension on that side. Turns out that the extra space has come in handy.

The pendant shades are from Arroyo, the metal fixtures were made by a lighting store.

Will post a picture of the trash pull out with servo drive.

Here is a pic of the inner workings of the servo drive unit. The box on the upper left is for outlets on the side of the island. Be aware that the servo drive takes up about 4 inches in the back of the cabinet so the dimensions of the drawer box need to accomodate that.

Muspic, it is funny, because we could not tell what dimensions we would end up with for that nook until after the wall had been moved and the framing and dry wall completed. The original plan had been to have a bank of drawers there but the actual space was too narrow and shallow to do much with. Decisions need to be made, so I posted a request for ideas and a GWer suggested a pet station. As it turned out our existing dog bowls fit in exactly! The joke is to say that we started there and built the rest of the kitchen around the pet station :)

Can you share what the granite (?) (or is it marble?) is?

That is truly a wonderful transformation

Excellent layout - function, function, function
Love that you kept the integrity of the DR
R those lovely Marvin windows? well suited for the space
Well thought out from function to aesthetics all very pleasing

What is behind the dbl doors to right of glass shelving? -

Speaking of shelving I love the use of the beautiful hand blown glass chandy
How about more, more more on those shelves - That use of orange/terra cotta very suitable or some lovely pottery

http://www.etsy.com/shop/alisglassdesigns

https://www.artfulhome.com/servlet/Guild/EContent?gclid=CLOEo4rChaUCFU Pu7QodOSqhEQ&Ns=p_days_since_activated:0&cm_mmc_o=mH4CjCbEtBAlwCjCTBBT kwCjCTwEwyzk&N=8182+8046

http://shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&_trksid=p5197.m570.l1313&_nkw=orange+h andblown+glass&_sacat=See-All-Categories

http://shop.ebay.com/i.html?_nkw=orange+pottery&_sacat=0&_odkw=orange+ handblown+glass&_osacat=0&_trksid=p3286.c0.m270.l1313

2 wool runners & some simple window treatments, oh, Yes A le Crueset orange pot sitting on the Miele

Can you tell me what power strip you utilized in the drawer? I have outlet behind a drawer & need to get a strip, but wondered about the crimping issue
Thanks for sharing

The doors to the right of the glass shelves open onto the stairs to the basement.

Bigdoglover, the granite is antique persa.

ka

I especially like the way you did the upper cabinets to the right of the sink. Could you tell me the overall width and than what the door sizes are? Is it one totally open cabinet inside or is there two separate cabinets?

I am sure you are enjoying this beautiful kitchen over the holidays. Zoey

How did I not comment on your kitchen??

It's really beautiful. I love the warmth that your granite brings to your white cabinets. Do you love your sinks as much as I love mine? I think the choices you made are all perfect...

KA:)