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Transformation of a dim galley to an inviting, open, gourmet kitchen
comments (0) April 6th, 2009 in Project Gallery
Rick, member
8 users recommend
Two out of the four kitchen walls were removed so that the kitchen could be enlarged and opened up to the dining and living rooms. Glass shelves and integral lighting help to open up and brighten the space.
Purpose of the Project:
To turn a drab, dimly lit, plain, galley kitchen into a dramatic and open space for a young professional who enjoys cooking and entertaining. This was a very ordinary condo that needed a focal point and some pizzaz.
Scope of the Project:
- Type — major kitchen remodel.
- Demolition and removal of old kitchen walls, two living room closets.
- Removal of all old cabinets, appliances, plumbing fixtures, and flooring.
- Expansion and reconfiguration of kitchen and dining space — new walls.
- Creation of a large peninsula at kitchen entry.
- New cabinets — mostly stock, some custom-made.
- New appliances and fixtures.
- Granite countertops.
- Marble tile kitchen floor.
- Refinish living/dining floors, replace all baseboards.
Unique Features:
It was a family affair!
All of the labor was carried out by the owner (Richard), his Dad, and his Mom. Dad did the carpentry; Mom the demo, painting, tiling, and drywall finishing; and Richard the plumbing and trim-out. The threesome also constituted the design team, with Mom taking the lead and Dad generating endless sketches for the implementation phase.Enhanced DIY cabinetry.
The inexpensive boxes are all IKEA, tricked out to look like inset, face-frame cabinetry using custom (but economical pine) molding. Where infill cabinets with odd dimensions were needed, Dad built birch-ply boxes in the shop, and Mom stained them to match the IKEA cabs. Installing the tall cabinets into a custom-spaced stud wall not only provided a nailer for the extra face-frame molding, but also substantially strengthened these relatively light-duty carcases.Custom look achieved, but with money-saving fixtures.
Appliances, sink, and plumbing were not high-end, but all have a gleaming stainless steel finish, complemented with steel door and drawer hardware, switch and receptacle plates, and lighting. We purchased a double-oven range with ceramic radiant cooktop, a large side-by-side fridge with water and ice on the door, a dishwasher with hidden controls, and a handsome hood — but all are economically priced IKEA or Sears items.A commuter project!
This job in Washington DC was basically accomplished on weekends. Dad and Mom live in Cleveland Ohio, and would come in to blitz the project from Friday to Sunday nights on available weekends. During the intervening weekday evenings, Richard would purchase supplies for the subsequent weekend, Dad would knock together the next component, and Mom would prefinish the trim for installation. Email, text messaging, and lots of cell-phone photos (see example) between DC and Cleveland kept the planning on track. Richard lived here throughout the project, so every Sunday night was devoted not just to cleanup but also to temporarily turning the project area back into some sort of makeshift kitchen.An out-of-the-box vision for a previously boring condo.
The building includes one, two, and three bedroom condos, all with an almost identical (and boring) floor-plan. During this project to enlarge and rearrange the kitchen, the customary dining and living room areas were swapped, creating entirely different (and more intriguing) entertainment and eating areas. After removing some ugly closets, for example, a tiny — but sophisticated — bar was inserted into a small wall that serves to shield the dining area from the entry hall.Smart use of space.
Because the entire project — from wall construction to toe-kicks — was custom-built and under the control of the family team, cabinet and stud placement was optimized to utilize every spare inch. Note the tall, custom-made, vertical cabinet above the sink for pizza peel and cutting boards, that makes use of an extra 4" that was available in the upper cabinet run. For the base cabs, the corner cabinet dead space (usually so inconvenient no matter what Rev-A-Shelf contraptions are employed) was turned around and made into living room niches to house AV-equipment on one side, CDs and DVDs on the other.
Rules, regulations, and restrictions — Oh my!
DIY condo remodels are really tough, especially since all of the work takes place on weekends and late into the evening. Mom’s and Dad’s rehab experience on their own properties was previously always on single family detached homes, so this was a new and somewhat frustrating jobsite. Keeping peace with the neighbors and the condo board is a very important fact of life in a condo. Obviously it is important for them to know when to expect noise the Ramset to fire. Richard went to extraordinary efforts to notify and negotiate with the neighbors on all six sides: promising to quit making noise by a certain hour, projecting a timeline for project completion, and then of course renegotiating when the milestones were inevitably missed — all with cookie bribes. It turns out that dropping handtools onto the concrete floor was more irritating to the neighbors below than sawing and hammering was to the neighbors next door. The rules regarding debris disposal, elevator usage, material storage in the garage, allowable times for deliveries, etc were almost showstoppers. A couple of examples of necessary workarounds: 1) There was literally no permissible place indoors or out to set up the tile saw. So after installing the central area of the floor, all the cuts were marked, the tiles were numbered and transported back to Cleveland, and cut there for installation in DC the following weekend. 2) A 4'x8' sheet of drywall would not fit into any of the elevators (including the service elevator), but with some creative contortions could be carried up the five flights of stairs. Exhausting, but doable.
There was a lot of detailed design work that went into this project, and a host of little touches that were tweaked during construction, only a smattering covered in this brief review.
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Want to see the winner entries?
Fine Homebuilding editors are a finicky bunch, and opinionated too. So the task of narrowing down the nearly 150 entries from our “Before and After: What’s Old is New Again,” kitchen and bath contest to just five winners wasn’t easy.
After the field was narrowed down to a group of fifteen, the editors convened with coffee and notebooks into a conference room equipped with a projector (for easier viewing). After going back and forth, and sometimes cringing, a few entries kept rising above the others, and viola, we found our winners.
Thanks to all who entered, and congratulations to the winning participants who will be mailed a new, DeWalt 18V 1/2" XRP LiIon Hammerdrill/Drill/Driver kit.
To view the winners, and a few runners-up, click here.
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