I squeezed in some time this past week fleshing out one of my noodles and doodles from my previous post. I settled on Style 1, with the dark Moroccan zellige backsplash.

I’ve always felt that the range/oven elevation is the focal point of the room, with the rest of the room being built off it. The next two sketches vary slightly from  the quick idea sketches. Neither one of them feels quite right… I’ll explain…

In this first sketch, I carried the pantries on either side of the range to the ceiling, rather than aligning them with the top of the cabinetry on the pantry wall and the refrigerator/sink wall, thinking that I needed tall vertical forms to frame and contain the tile and anchor the room.

My concern in this idea is that the pantries don’t relate to the strong horizontal line created by the head of the door openings and upper cabinets on the side walls and that horizontal line is the visual string holding the room together…  A quick overlay of trace and pencil produced the following…

Pulling the pantries down, didn’t reconcile my uneasiness with the design. In fact, the elevation felt weaker visually.

Then it dawned on me, the high pantry was the solution, but they needed more strength. Pulling the pantries forward  to so that they “support” the wood beam that crosses the kitchen provides the right balance of strength and lift to the elevation. The very first elevation had simply been too static!

The rest was easy. The following are two versions of the same scheme – traditional and modern. I’m actually torn as to which version I like more…

 

TRADITIONAL BELGIAN STYLE KITCHEN

Range Elevation – The lattice on the pantry doors is woven oak lattice. At the conclusion of the post, I will be posting a few pictures, including images of the woven lattice. Range exhaust is concealed behind the wood beam and fascia. I can’t seem to get away from the Cornue range/oven. Wood is white oak. Walls are plaster.

Elevation to Left of Range – Pantry and Storage : A pair of 2′-0″ doors to the dinning room. Hard to see, but there are little pull out shelves sitting between the counter top and the cabinets in the base cabinets. In my mind, I couldn’t decide on whether the doors on the upper cabs should be sliders or standard out-swing doors. Finally decided, out-swing doors with simple clean pulls and hinges.

Elevation to Right of Range – Refrigerator, Sink, Dishwasher, etc… I tried closed upper cabins over the sink and they felt clausrophobic. Sink is the same material as the counter, custom made. The scale of the paneling changes on the fridge to match the scale of the lower panels in the french doors on the other side of the room. One large split panel covers the freezer drawers. The upper panels extend beyond the top of the fridge to align with the jamb to the right. Again, splitting the panel at the top of the fridge. the upper cab opens with touch latches, avoiding any exposed door pulls.

 

MODERN BELGIAN STYLE KITCHEN

Range Elevation – I kept the Cornue range/oven. Love the contrast with the clean uncluttered lines of the cabinets. It becomes a piece of sculpture. Lattice and modern didn’t go together, so the pantry/storage area becomes open shelves with closed cabinets below the line of the counter top. I’m still torn about a pot filler… Lighting is now surface mounted mono-point halogen fixtures throughout. I’d zone the switching and put it all on dimmers. I had recessed down lights in my mind for the traditional scheme, but as I think about it, maybe not… The hi-tech blend of strategically placed mono-points is feeling pretty good in the traditional scheme.

 

Elevation to Left of Range – Pantry and Storage – The doors are now modern with large panes of glass. I pictured the upper cabinets having frameless glass doors, frosted and with a slight tint of warm gray. Juxtapose a small rustic table on the other side of the door… Note the horizontal direction of the grain of the oak veneer on the base cabinet doors sweeping around the entire kitchen.

 

Elevation to Right of Range – Refrigerator, Sink, Dishwasher, etc. Same treatment here, with the frameless frosted/tinted glass doors above the sink. Added a modern Stainless steel rod for hanging cooking utensils. Changed the direction of the wood grain on the upper fridge doors.

 

And so the concept comes to a close. Almost…

I thought I’d add a few inspirational pictures of details and materials.

Remember the lattice pantry doors? My blogging friend and very talented interior designer, Greet Lefevre, knows about this detail, too…
I want to shout out a big Thank You! to Greet for so graciously letting me use her photographs in this post.

Interior Designer: Greet Lefevre, Photographer: Claude Smekens

 

The original shutters on the 1804 Federal Period home Sally and I worked on were woven lattice. I’ve never seen them elsewhere.

HABS photo of lattice shutter on 1804 Federal Period Home, Manchester, MA

 

Other inspirational images courtesy of Greet Lefevre and Claude Smekens…

Frameless door on the right.

 

Paint tones, millwork and door details and finish.

 

Source, Belgian Pearls; Photographer, Claude Smekens – Mix and match furniture and base cabinet details. Funky chandelier…

 

Source, Belgian Pearls; Photographer, Claude Smekens – Mix and match furniture, millwork detailing and more lattice doors!!!

 

Source, Belgian Pearls; Photographer, Claude Smekens – door and millwork details. Lovely floor pattern, too!

To visit Greet’s blog, see here. To visit Lefevre Interiors, see here. To visit Claude Smekens website, see here.

Aren’t Claude’s photographs spectacular?

Hope you’ve enjoyed the journey as much as I have enjoyed creating the design.

Cheers,

John

 

If you like help designing your dream Belgian Style Kitchen, please contact John or Sally here.

I think this is the longest period of time between posts since last August, when I took time off from work. Not so this time… A ferw things have kicked in to high gear, several interviews with potential clients and some serious work on our continuing marketing and PR efforts.  Somewhere in there, Sally and I painted a bedroom.

I hadn’t given much thought to the number of kitchens we worked on in 2011 until this weekend. As it turns out, we’ve been involved in four. (Painting interior window trim is conducive to contemplating such arcane statistics…) We plan to have three of them professionally photographed this spring.

One was in the 1804 Federal home I’ve talked about in previous posts. The other three, just sort of dropped off the radar screen.

We designed this kitchen for a couple who made the decision to move out of Boston to raise their children. They found a beautiful older Colonial home that looks out toward Plum Island in Newburyport. As is the case in most older homes, the kitchen and bathrooms needed to be brought up to today’s lifestyle. In this case, there was need for expansion as well. A team of architect, interior designer (WKD) and contractor was assembled and the process began. Our role was to design the kitchen, pantry,mud room, powder room, front foyer for ground floor.

While Sally worked with the home owner on finishes, materials. sink and faucet selection, etc., I prepared a detailed set of construction/pricing drawings (including lighting and electrical drawings, detailed elevations, custom banquette and cabinet details.) for the kitchen and powder room. As Sally and the home owners made their decisions, I added the information to my specifications, which accompany the drawings. Later, the contractor told us he never gets or sees the qualityof detail and information he saw on our drawings. Music to our ears. ..

Located in Ipswich, we became involved in this project after the kitchen had been designed and the project was in construction. Our role was to review, comment and make recommendations on the layout and finishes. Most of out comments related to the island and a little fine tuning of the galley ares behind the island, lighting layout and design and Sally helped with all the final material and fixture selections. Sally was involved in other area of the house, which we will talk about another time. Sally did the powder room in this project, too. Black leather tile on the walls… Awesome…

Remember the blank wall below the upper cabinets. It will play a prominent role in my next post…

The final project, we will never be able to photograph. That was part of our agreement with the client. We are able to show selected preliminary plans, perspectives and sketches. For pure function, this is the best kitchen I have ever designed. Very tight and compact, everything is at one’s finger tips. Every detail was thought through and mocked up, down to the custom pulls on the cabinet doors/drawers and the concealed door pull in the mahogany wainscot on the hidden powder room door.

Floor Plan

The fridge is in the upper right corner of the kitchen. With it deeply recessed, the landing zone to it’s left works beautifully for groceries going in to the fridge or taking things out of the fridge. There is 48″ dual fuel range and exhasut hood to the left of the fridge. On the far left, by the powder room, is the pantry. The dining room wall has two sinks with dishwashers between. Lots of counter space on each end and between the sinks. All the “stations” are laid out diagonally one from the other so that when several people work in the kitchen they don’t bump into each other. There’s between 5 and 6 feet between counters.

Perspective looking toward powder room.

Dining room side of kitchen.

Pantry in foreground. Range/hood and fridge beyind.

Looking toward kitchen from garden room. Upper level will hold small table looking into garden. Lower level – informal seating. Stairs on far right lead to a wine cellar below. Love the “crow’s nest” floating over the stair…

I had thought that looking back at these kitchens I might see patterns or trends. Not so. What I saw were four unique solutions that were the result of a very dynamic process of engagement between ourselves and our clients. The “Process” may be the subject of a fairly philosphical post in the near future.

Cheers,