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Post by Maura on May 8, 2015 15:29:12 GMT
DH and I bought a retirement home two years ago. It has needed a bit of work. Right now the kitchen floor has been replaced with bamboo- looks great. We left the upper cabinets up and painted them. Had a local guy make lower cabinets to match for the stretch in front of the window where the sink is. Ten feet. There are no cupboards in the new lower cabinets, all drawers. I’m ordering an engineered quartz counter top from Cambria (I think that’s the name), the only quartz made in the U.S. We will have tile on the walls surrounding the countertop and also where the cooktop will be.
Okay, so my question is: what do you love about your kitchen? I still have time to make some changes. I’ll have a small counter and cupboards next to the refrigerator, 42” wide. Also, the cooktop section. No room for a wall oven.
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Post by barefootfarmer on May 8, 2015 16:35:01 GMT
I actually hate my current kitchen. But I have lots of ideas for our remodel in the next couple of years. I'm going to install a wood cook stove, along with a regular stove. We lose power a lot out here and I've always wanted to learn to cook on one.
I bake a lot and want to have a baking area to store just my baking equipment. Like a baking station, I guess. The counter will be a bit lower to make it easier for me to roll out my doughs, knead bread etc.
And most importantly, I want to have a very long table as part of my kitchen. When my kids come back with my grand kids there will be plenty of room for everyone. And in the meantime, I'll have lots of work space for all the cooking, canning etc that I do. We once had a house with bamboo flooring. I loved it. So beautiful to look at and to walk on in bare feet.
Congrats on being able to retire!
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Post by motdaugrnds on May 8, 2015 17:33:58 GMT
WOW What a wonderful project... Were I creating a kitchen, I would make sure everything was constructed in such a way that I would NOT have to do much bending nor much reaching.
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Post by Deleted on May 8, 2015 18:16:59 GMT
We like our island the most. Marble countertop to knead and roll dough. It is only 3 1/2' long, over 2 18" drawer cabinets. The cabinets are 2" lower than normal, we are short people. Our 2 18" top cabinets are painted, 30" tall, 9" deep and lower than normal, glass doors to show the beautiful dishware. Dinner plate rack in back so they stand up, rest of set in front. We have a drying rack behind sink for dinnerware, fast scrub, rinse and use the next meal. Kitchen is very small but all is used....James
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Post by Maura on May 14, 2015 3:23:37 GMT
jwal, at our current house we have a dish rack over the sink— great minds. This ‘new’ kitchen is so much smaller than my current one. It has a normal height counter for the sink area, the rest is table height. It is wonderful to work at. The quartz countertop will be regular height, but I think the second unit will be lower. In my current I also have shallow drawers that I keep cooking sheets in and the broiler (electric oven).
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Post by solargeek on May 14, 2015 4:40:29 GMT
jwal, at our current house we have a dish rack over the sink— great minds. This ‘new’ kitchen is so much smaller than my current one. It has a normal height counter for the sink area, the rest is table height. It is wonderful to work at. The quartz countertop will be regular height, but I think the second unit will be lower. In my current I also have shallow drawers that I keep cooking sheets in and the broiler (electric oven). It's so interesting to hear what everyone likes! Here is what was important to us: 1. I am 5'9" and so I had all my counters RAISED up (including sink area) 3" so I can cut, bake, roll out and not have a bad back from always having to bend! 2. I got to design our kitchen when we built 2 years ago. Having moved 16 times since being married, I pretty much knew what I wanted. The MOST important thing for me was the SINK of all things! 44" not 33" which is standard. 8" deep 1 side, 9" deep other side and a great long reach high sprayer. We use cast iron and large pots (mostly Le Creuset so super heavy). The larger size sink wells make cleanup so easy. 3. I have a 10' long snack bar/peninsula and we had shallow cabinets put all along that = hidden basically. All of our party stuff and glass ware (not everyday) are in there, safe and sound and close by yet not cluttering up daily cabinets. DH has been in the beer industry for 34 years so we literally have been given for free at least 10 cases of logo-identified glasses over the years. I kept 4 or 6 of each and gave the rest away. We never run out of glasses haha. 4. My baking cupboard and my spice cupboard are pure luxury. Do it if you can. Both are double door so lots of space for all your canning stuff too. Ok those are the special things I love about my kitchen. Maura, yours sounds perfect. Walk through it in your mind each day to make sure you get it the way you want it. One thing we learned the hard way and I have a scar from it, is measure 2x so none of your "opening" appliances" conflict. At the 5th or 6th house, the dishwasher opened all the way to the island. So if someone opened it while I was at the fridge I might not (and did not) see that and could (and did) get badly cut. Here we had to jigger things around to avoid the lower oven of the "2 ovens in 1 range" by LG did not do the same thing. We also could not afford wall ovens but I love my double ovens in the free standing range.
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Post by susannah on May 24, 2015 14:46:27 GMT
Kitchen remodels are so much fun! Yes, I'm serious. I loved it! How exciting for you to be making your retirement place into what you really want!
We totally redid the kitchen last year. It was an unworkable mess before - let me put it this way: When we came up for the home inspection and I really took a good look at that kitchen, I started hoping the house would fail inspection in many ways and I'd have an out. I was like "I cannot handle a kitchen like that." There was a door leading out onto the deck that smacked into the kitchen table if you tried to use it. There was a half wall dividing the tiny kitchen from the living room. There were almost no cabinets. The former owners apparently were very short people or the house was created for much shorter people because we'd get back aches from bending down so far to use the sink.
Now, I love my kitchen. Among the many things I love about it:
The counter tops. Maura, you mentioned Cambria quartz counter tops. We chose to go that route instead of granite because the walls and ceiling are knotty cedar, the floors that we put in are ash that look kind of like hickory in how colorful they are, and we were going with knotty cherry cabinets. Every granite we looked at was too "busy" with all the other things that were going on with the kitchen. Cambria in the Torquay pattern was absolute perfection. And it is SO easy to take care of. We'd had granite in our previous house and that was more work than I'd been led to believe. With Cambria, no sealing is necessary, nothing has stained it, cleanup with soap and water - LOVE IT. Truly low maintenance.
We have high ceilings, and to get maximum cabinet space we have the cabinets going all the way to the ceiling, with crown molding at the top. Yes I need a chair to get up to the top shelves, but that's where I store the seasonal/little used stuff so I don't need to go up there often. I love having a pantry cabinet. I love being able to keep all my kitchen stuff in my kitchen. In case anyone thinks I was exaggerating about not having any cabinet space in the old kitchen...prior to the remodel, I stored kitchen stuff in the giant closet in the powder room, the hall closet, and the downstairs pantry. Of course, I got a lot of extra exercise any time I cooked - but a lot of frustration was there as well.
I love the the deep, DEEP sink. I can fit big pans in it. This is particularly important since due to the size of the kitchen, I had to choose between a pantry cabinet and a dishwasher. I chose the pantry cabinet, so anything to make doing dishes easier makes my life easier.
The window over the sink, looking out into the woods. If I have to do dishes, then I want a nice view! We will be replacing the existing bow window with a bay window this summer. It will give a little more room and the illusion of a lot more room.
Finally, I love the LED under counter lights. Another thing that makes my life easier - being able to see clearly while I use a knife!
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Post by Maura on May 26, 2015 15:53:37 GMT
Well, the bamboo floor is in, the painting is done. The cabinets, which were made last year by a cabinetmaker in the little town (at roughly the same price for knock offs) are in at the south wall where the window is. Now, just waiting for the fellas to come out and measure for the counter. I will have a single sink. Was going to have a 3” backsplash in the quartz as well, but it’s unbelievably expensive, so it will be tile.
SIL checked out the kitchen fan. It is in the wall and must be original with the house, 63 years old. But, he knocked on it with a screwdriver and it’s now working well. Last weekend the toilet was put in Yeah! When we gutted the bathroom the toilet went to the basement where a bathroom had once been. In hindsight I am so glad that I insisted on a downstairs bathroom because it is taking so long to finish this house. The bathroom sink goes in next weekend.
A kitchen and a bathroom. Wow!
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