There are a lot of decisions to make when constructing a new home. Having a large production builder as our contractor, the task was made somewhat easier with an all-day “selections appointment,” where samples of all the products were presented and a specialist was on hand to answer questions and give guidance.
When my husband and I lived in New York City with our two young girls, we had a single bathroom in our one-bedroom apartment. And it was small. If you’re a parent, you probably understand that for many years you almost never get to go to the bathroom by yourself. Can you imagine two adults, a toddler, and an infant cramming into one 5′ x 8′ bathroom for various duties together? Someone always needed to go potty while someone else was brushing teeth. It was the domestic version of the clown car.
Many contractors and home improvement experts will say, “Homeowners and DIYers should try anything, except for electricity and plumbing. That’s best left to licensed professionals.” Whether you agree or not, you gotta admit: the possibility of having 110 volts arcing into your body or the danger of causing a major water leak is intimidating for some folks. Me included.
There are hundreds of companies who will gladly sell you stock kitchen cabinets and storage solutions, and master cabinetmakers who will offer a more customized approach to your specific needs. Perhaps there are even a few of you BobVila.com fans who are trying to build and install your own cabinets—and you should. But, don’t be fooled into thinking that the standard “uppers” and “lowers” is the only way to go. Sometimes, looking outside the realm of classic cabinets and drawers is just what a kitchen needs for a bit of extra character.
With that in mind, here are a few creative alternative to kitchen cabinetry; all work just as well—if not better than—traditional units, and they can even save you money in the bargain. Can’t beat that!
Birdseye Design
1) Tool Chests
These steel, drawered workshop standards are built to last and house lots of heavy duty gear, which is exactly what you want from kitchen storage! Many tool chests slide under standard countertop height surfaces, making them a great solution for an island or extra prep station.
My wife, Mary Ann, hated the backsplash tiles in our kitchen, and I agreed they were slightly dated. Unfortunately, the crackled glass that we wanted to replace them with was amazingly expensive: $17 per square foot (more than $500 for the 30 sq. ft. that we would need). So I did what any good husband would do—I stalled.
But one day, while she was at work, I decided to do a little experiment. I applied a mixture of primer, glaze and artist’s oils to some spare tiles to see if I could create a faux stone finish that would give the existing tiles a fresh new look—at little to no cost. And it worked!
The faux-finished backsplash tiles.
Here’s a step-by-step of how I created the look:
Thanks to the Internet, there’s no shortage of inspiration when it comes to bringing color to your home. Ah, but the ability to pick complementary colors for the lovely image you’ve just found online; that’s usually hard to come by. But the new Sherwin-Williams color tool, Chip It!, could save the day. The free service loads through your Facebook or Twitter account and sits on your browser’s bookmark menu bar.
Colorado's Estes Park: Swimming, Dazzle, Undercool
When you see a picture with a color scheme you like, click on the Chip It! icon in your browser menu, and pull your cursor across the image. Up come five complementary Sherwin-Williams color squares above your cursor. Click on the accompanying Chip It! logo and you see a window with the image that inspired you, along with as many as 10 complementary colors. You can create a Chipbook, or a folder, in which to save your images. If you do save an image, you can share the picture and chips via social media.
Pierre Frey's "Les Travaux de la Manufacture" Toile
Though the word “toiles” conjures up visions of fabric dotted with romantic scenes of maidens, cherubs, pagodas, and military or fabled heroes, the actual translation is simply “cloth.” Toiles du Jouy originally referred to linen or cotton cloth manufactured in the French town of Jouy-en-Josas beginning in the 1760s. Located close to Versailles, the Oberkampf factory manufactured toiles for the royals. Deemed Manufacture Royale by Louis XVI and Legion of Honor by Napoleon, Oberkampf toiles were extremely popular.
In The Decoration of Houses (1897), 19th-century tastemaker and co-author Edith Wharton notes the 18th-century French transition from heavy dust-collecting silk brocades to washable, simpler toiles. She describes the pattern: “Absorbing the spirit of Chinese designs, the French designer blent mandarins and pagodas with Italian grottoes… and French landscapes.” She continues, “The little scenes were either connected by some decorative arabesque, or so designed that by their outline they formed a recurring pattern.” Toiles were often printed in one color on a neutral ground, but not exclusively.
While I’d always been interested in history, it wasn’t until I got to college that I fell in love with it. A special course on the 20th century actually led me to make the subject my second major.
That course was taught by one of the top professors at the university I attended. What made him different was that he didn’t focus on dates, names, or places. Those were all essential to learn, but even more important, the professor told us, was to see the big picture. To trace how different things came together to push movements and people forward. To understand where we’re at today, you’ve got to understand the ways in which we’ve evolved.
Photo courtesy of Douglas Friedman
The week before the holidays, I had the chance to talk *color* with Celerie Kemble, the New York and Palm Beach interior designer whose most recent book, Black & White (and a bit in between), recently landed on shelves. Before long, however, Celerie and I found ourselves discussing, of all things, light bulbs.
With incandescent fixtures on the way out, designers—like the rest of us—are experimenting with compact fluorescents (CFLs), which are known for their sometimes harsh, cool, too-bright light. Not surprisingly, Ms. Kemble has found at least one way of modulating CFLs’ temperature…
