Cabinetry!!!!

Well I must begin by saying, first, I hope all of you are safe and sound as the Corona Virus cancellations are really picking up speed. From SXSW in Austin and the Spring Antique Show in Round Top, to the St. Patrick’s Day Parades in various cities, to numerous conferences cancelled – this social isolation is impacting many of our friends and family. Personally, all of my travel going forward has been cancelled until further notice and the two international conferences where I was invited to speak this spring have been cancelled or postponed. John and I both hope that the cancellations do have the intended impact of “flattening the curve” – meaning that it may not stop everyone from becoming infected (eventually) with COVID-19, but it will elongate the period of time it takes for everyone to be infected, and thus reduce the strain on our hospitals and healthcare system.

Moving onto happier topics, as mentioned in our last post, our cabinetry arrived and has been installed this week!

No seriously. I think I squealed and did an awkward jump into the air. Even John commented, “You don’t usually look that dorky.” Thanks, honey.

Shall we go through room by room? Yes, let’s… Let’s start with the heart of the home – the kitchen. We are really glad we went with the upcharge for the cabinets up to the ceilings. What are we going to keep in those glass front cabinets up top? No idea, but it sure does look perrty…

Just off the kitchen is the Butler’s Pantry. It’s basically a little bar area as well as a dish storage haven. It’s like a bigger version of the bar at the lake cottage, for those of you who have been there.

OK, maybe a much bigger version… Again, we really like these cabinets up to the ceiling. All the glass will be installed in the doors later, after they have been stained and varnished. All the wood (except for the outside kitchen) is knotty alder.

Moving into the library, John’s desk has been installed, as well as a wall of bookcases (a TV will be mounted in the middle section) and a corner set of bookcases too. These have file drawers on the one side for household documentation storage. I’m weirdly excited by this quirky little library/den. Makes me want to drive up North and get all of our books out of storage now!

The master bathroom and master closet also have cabinetry. In the master bathroom, we included built in medicine cabinets (again, the mirrors will be installed after staining and sealing), and I have a little vanity space as well. In the closet we included one built in (my antique dresser will also go in here).

The two other bathrooms have simple vanities. The vanity in the family bath (with a tub) will be painted, while the little one in the bar bathroom will be stained. The bar bathroom actually was designed to have a podium sink, and while I think they are lovely (we have one in our lower level bathroom at the lake cottage), they provide no storage at all. So we added this little two door vanity in at the last minute.

We also have a couple of built in benches. One is a window seat in the guest bedroom. I think this will be a lovely spot to sit and read a book, or it would be a great place for guests to get their suitcases up off the floor. The other bench is in our mudroom, right outside of our laundry room. It will be a place for us to sit and take off dirty shoes from hiking around the property.

Speaking of the laundry room, I’m loving this one. I’ve never had a laundry room with a window (our garden will eventually be on that side of the house – so it will be fun to look out at that). Here we did not opt to pay the extra money for the cabinetry to go to the ceiling, nor did we upgrade the drawers to soft close, but since it will only be John and myself using this room, I think it was a good place to economize.

The great room has two areas of cabinetry – the bar and the built ins around the fireplace. But first, our bar from the Lodge – the first bar we ever designed. It was a fantastic and often used focal point of the great room in our home of 20 years.

This one is a little bigger in length and about a foot bigger in depth. We decided to not be so squished between the front bar and back bar on this round. We also included some bottle drawers for the bar.

The bookcases on either side of the great room fireplace will hold our turntable, records, and maybe some games. There is a gap on either side of the fireplace because they will be installing stone around the fireplace all the way back.

And finally, the cabinetry for the outside kitchen was installed. At the end, we decided to cut out the exterior cooktop – John wants a grill/smoker and that cannot be put right next to the house. So instead, we opted to have a TV wall mounted here and it will be a nice place to put food out for a buffet (we have outlets for crockpots, hot plates, etc.) and it will have an outdoor refrigerator, sink, and garbage/recycling. The wood for the outside cabinetry is cypress. The front of this bar will be stone, matching the stone on the great room fireplace (inside) and chimney (outside).

The only other thing that was not delivered, was the living room mantle. It will look very similar to the bottom of the kitchen range hood.

Having the cabinetry in place has really helped us get a sense of the rooms, how we will functionally use them, and what we can see from various points of view (like the living room fireplace, for example). In short, it has really helped the shell of the house feel much more like a home. We know that trajectory will continue as the painters and stainers will be arriving Monday to begin painting everything (which is estimated to take two weeks).

With all that cabinetry, now you can see why we took so long to find a wood stain, right? There are a few painted pieces of cabinetry (although John is hesitant because, as he says, why would we paint such beautiful wood?), but the majority will be stained.

We’ve also decided to change our window sills from painted to stained. While the baseboards and trim around the doors will all be painted, we wanted to add a bit more of the stained wood look in at the windows. Above are a few examples we found on the internet (sorry – I don’t remember now where I found them so I cannot give photo credit).

So that’s our update for now. Stay safe and healthy and thanks for stopping by!

Hugs, Libby