I absolutely LOVE this guy's work,

He is a New Zealand potter; lives on the western side of the South Island in Hokitika, a place where New Zealand jade is plentiful and jade galleries abound in town. We marveled at a solid jade breakfast table and a bolder the size of a small settee.      

Weaver's main gallery space is a nice showroom at the edge of town. When we arrived, the owner said he had just left. He was one potter I really wanted to meet. I so admire his work. I had intended to buy one of his black teapots, but found a sauce pot I liked even better.

I don't know if he steam bends the wooden components of his pots or if someone else does them, but they always look just right on the piece.  I especially like the yardstick handles.

The Almost-Final Kitchen Pictures

It was cloudy and gloomy out the other day. Just the kind of day to get good interior shots with all the LED lights on yet to also capture glimpses of the outdoors. So, I charged my camera up and took these shots of the kitchen.

I say Almost-Final because I haven't gotten shades up yet. I'm thinking Roman blinds (since they will be open most of the time) with broad black and white stripes. Pottery Barn has something that would almost work, but they don't make them wide enough.

Here are the shots going around the room from the sink that faces South. The cabinet on the far side of the refrigerator is a large pull-out pantry with steel basket shelves. I can store nearly all my canned goods in there plus the bottom section is for recycle and bag storage.

Behind that large cabinet unit is the old porch which is not a walk-in pantry.

I can't believe how much more room I've gained!

The basket collection comes from all over. Left to right:  Bamboo purse, backpack from the hill tribes of Bagio in the Philippines, apple picker back basket, another tiny backpack from unknown region, Filipino fish trap in the corner, pie basket from Missouri, an egg basket that I made, and a Mexican market basket. 

The two tall cabinets from Renovation Hardware and the "Guds Frid" sign has been remounted over the doorway. The cabinet on the left holds baking supplies, extra pans, booze and flower vases. 

The cabinet shown here holds serving dishes, everyday dishes, cookbooks and oversized serving pieces. 

I LOVE this commercial grade prep table. It works as an island, but is much more. It's movable on wheels. It's handy for hot foods from the oven, cold things from the fridge, for staging things out of the dishwasher, and as a buffet table. It's great to work on and cleans up beautifully. Great for storing oversized steel pans and items. 

The table in front of the windows provide great views of the bay. (Note the binoculars for ogling boats and birds, to say nothing of the occasional eagle, geese, great blue heron, or kingfisher.) We also see sea otters and seals lounging on the docks. My Currier and Ives sloop prints are perfect here. 

Knowing how you cook and use a kitchen helps tremendously in renovating a space. 

I now have everything centered at the back of the room leaving the front for the eating and enjoying the view, clearing a traffic lane for going in and out and creating a new relationship for the dishwasher/silverware/dish storage. ie. dishes come out of the dishwasher, got to the table, sorted. They are put away in the tall cabinet to the left, ready for the next table setting. The silverware is stored in the top drawer next to the dishwasher. This model dishwasher has a silverware sorting tray in the top, so the transfer from dishwasher to storage trays in the drawer is an absolute snap. 

Me, No More

Finally!

The last workman has left the building.

Even though we've been back in the house after the flood,* there were still things that needed to be tweeked.

The mystery flickering lights in the bathroom and the occasional whiff of gas from the cooktop, to mention a few.

Both we and the electrician (who is now talking to himself even more than he did before) have racked our brains to try and figure out why our bathroom lights flickered at unpredictable intervals. It was like trying to shave or wash your face in an old movie theater. The mystery was finally solved when a new separate outlet was installed.

Our gas cooktop emitted a slight whiff of gas every so often and investigations by the installers and finally a gas company expert pinpointed the source under the cabinets at the regulator coming into the house. He immediately 'red tagged' the line and shut everything off. Which condemned me to cooking once again with an electric skillet. I should have never bought the thing. Instead of meals out, I have had to become an expert in one-pan meals.

Although I do have the microwave and the oven, I don't like microwaved meals and there's just so much you can bake. I'm more of a 3-pans going at the same time kinda cook.

But now I'm free, Free, FREE of the skillet, the workmen showing up every day, the bottling-up of the rabid Schnauzer who wants all their guts for garters.

Yesterday, I reinstalled my big tables in the garage, sorted my glazes and tools, rehabbed my clay and threw two big platters and a big bowl.

It's nice to be back to undisturbed studio time.

(Maybe I should have put the "Me" sign on the person on the top of the pile.)

*In June of this year, the water filter connection under the kitchen sink failed and flooded the house with about 2 inches of water. Luckily it was discovered quickly and a professional disaster team was on the scene with fans and rescued most of the furniture. Our insurance covered most of the damage, but attending to the aftermath has taken every bit of the time from the initial disaster until this last week. Everything is repaired, restored, and we essentially have a nearly new house, BUT I wouldn't recommend this as a plan for remodeling.

What happened to the old Porch?

The kitchen had a dutch door that led onto a small porch. The porch was charming with three old narrow windows and shelves, but when you went out of it, you were turned away from the water side of the house. If you wanted to go out on the deck or toward the shore, you had to turn around and retrace the path you took out the door.

We had already covered up the old concrete steps that led down to the yard many years ago when we built the side deck onto the house.

So, with the new door now going out of the kitchen from the other end of the room, the old door was taken off, the porch walled in to create a small walk-in pantry/storage room with large, deep shelves and a niche for my vacuum and a hose bracket, all to one side.

At first, I put all my appliances on the shelves just to see which ones I used the most. Those would finally sit out on the counters in the kitchen proper. Most of the canned goods and the recycle went into the pull-out pantry cabnitry and the rest of the pantry is devoted to bulk storage-type goods.

I really don't miss the side door; the new one is much more practical. The dog, however, still holds out hope that the wall will open up to let him out.

The Befores and Afters

The kitchen is nearly finished.

Even though nothing was changed in regard to expanding walls and the enclosure of a porch to make a pantry, the whole room seems twice as large. Moving and enlarging one window, the addition of a glass paneled door and opening up the ceiling changed everything.

The only thing left to add is a movable kitchen island. I'm ping-ponging between a wooden cart type one and an industrial-look stainless steel.

So, you've already seen the business end of the kitchen--the working area was shifted away from the front and side view area. The previous work plan had me running up and down the long cabinet line. The new work area is now a rather tight triangle from the sink to the stove to the refrigerator at the back of the room.

The new pantry is around the corner where the refrigerator is now located.

The window over the sink was shifted a couple of feet toward the view and is a bit larger than the old one.

The old overhead cabinet and Norwegian "cooler" were done away with and a new door with a very large glass panel opens up the view down the shoreline.

The old kitchen had old strip light cans and another light fixture at the stove. New recessed LED light cans were installed in the ceiling and under the counter LEDs light up the work areas.

The cabinets are lacquer finish ivory white, the countertops and backsplash are soapstone. All the outlets over the cabinets are framed in black so they seem to disappear into the stone.
The old view to the east and the new one with the shortened cabinet and new door. We also placed a smaller table with some English elm chairs at the window.


There was not question that I wanted a solid surface behind the stove and work areas. None of that fiddly postage stamp tile for me! What are they thinking? Imagine what a cleaning nightmare they must be. I hope that fad dies a fast and hideous death!

Besides, when you buy stone, you get it by the slab, so why not use it all? (More about stone countertops in a later post.)

We relocated and widened the narrow doorway. So, even though the kitchen is still a separate room, it seems to link with the living room better.

The wider doorway has brightened and opened up that end of the living room as well as the kitchen.

The old cabinets were replaced with two tall Restoration Hardware French door cabinets. They are oak and have wonderful hardware.

They hold as much or more than the old cabinets. The cabinets were 1 3/4 inches too tall, so the wonderful carpenters trimmed up the bases and they just fit under the curve of the ceiling.

Both cabinets are fastened to the wall and added quarter round anchoring strips finish the bases off nicely. I mixed up some acrylic paint and matched the cabinet finish adding a thin black line between the wood and the flooring.

Finally!

The workmen have left.

Only a few things remain to be done to make my new kitchen complete: The addition of a stainless steel work table and finishing off the pull-out pantry shelves, adding the soft close to the cabinet doors and a small piece of metal to conceal water pipes going to the new baseboard heater.

My new kitchen is such a joy to work in. It is so much more efficient than the old one and I haven't even filled up all the new storage that was gained.

I'm waiting to photograph it in total with comparative before and afters, but for now, here's a hint:

Shown is the old kitchen with the low ceiling and the parquet floor. The only thing we kept was the 'fridge. The new kitchen has a lofty ceiling and a refinished original floor we found hiding underneath the parquet and an old linoleum floor.

More Progress.....

The kitchen is coming along.

The beams have been reinforced and the Insulation is in, as are the light cans.

We even gained a widened door leading into the living room. (not showing, however).

I had debated long and hard about whether to have a whole-room concept with a bar dividing the living room/dining area and the kitchen or to have two distinct rooms.

In the end, decided I wanted the kitchen to be separate.

Adding a bar would virtually put the kitchen in the living room and, since it that room is very large and long, I wanted it to stand alone.

Also, the area where the kitchen is serves as a main traffic area between the front and the back of the house. Putting a bar in the middle of that would not be a good idea. (A main bearing wall also had something to do with it.)

The new kitchen has been opened up visually to a very large degree and it should be within it's own space.

We also gained even more view of the bay from there. And glimpses can be seen from the living room area.

This view is looking toward a small walk-in pantry to the left and the sink location under the window; the stove will be where the metal vent shows at the right.

I'm going to have the wooden wall showing at the back of the room; this is the original wide wooden boards that framed the house. It is shown in at the back of the room in the first shot.

Look What we Found in the Walls

It is detailed instructions about what to do in a gas attack in 1943. I suppose it needed to be posted during construction of the house.

Clicking and enlarging the jpeg will make it readable.

Also, there is a reference to a 'sealed room' that people were to retreat to and seal themselves into in the event of a gas attack.

And noted at the bottom, evidently you could buy war bombardment insurance.

Three antique thumb tacks held it in place. I remember seeing this style in the drawer of my Dad's desk when I was very young. They were a simple disk with a triangular punch-out that had been bent at a 45 degree angle to make the point of the thumbtack. An elegant design.

Look what we found. A beautiful ceiling!

If I haven't mentioned it before, we're doing two, count 'em, two kitchen renovations. One in WA and one in AZ.

The Washington one was planned; the Arizona one, not.

The Washington kitchen was charming, but old, decrepit and worn out.

The Arizona one was a whole-house disaster caused by a broken reverse osmosis water system that flooded the house. All the walls had to have the drywall removed, the framework treated for mold and the carpets ripped up. Built-in cabinets de-laminated and had to be removed. Thankfully, we have a very good insurance company that is replacing and repairing all the damage, but we are of necessity doing kitchens in stereo.

Anyway,

We're down to the studs in Washington. And when the ceiling got ripped out this Friday, look what we found!

A Great set of rafters. Unfortunately, we won't be able to raise the ceiling to the apex of the roof--support beams will have to be added and it will flatten the top somewhat, but hey, anything's better than it was before.

We also found a pristine wood floor under the top layers of parquet flooring and linoleum.

Renovation Revolution

Coffee and Dog Food are now available in the guest bathroom,

dinner will be served in the Living Room,

and the laundry room is the new multi-purpose room.

The kitchen renovation has begun!

P.S. Wonder if you can make a ceramic gong? I've made a bell before; it could work.