Art.Kitchen.Karma

What time is it? Time for color!

The cabinet door and drawers are gone. The hanging cabinet kaput. What's next? Color of course! Rich and I needed to sit down and decide on the colors that would serve as the unifying base for all the fun stuff to come. What shades should we choose? Blue, gold, yellow, red? By the way, in case I have not mentioned it before, when deciding that Rich should create our art  kitchen we ultimately deiced to work with the existing cabinets rather than have him build new cabinetry from scratch. Not only would that save time and money, but it would lend a consistency to everything. We knew that each "alteration" on the drawers and doors would be different, so there was an attraction to having continuity in another way. Plus, not having the entire kitchen ripped out also meant much less disruption overall.

I posted the clock piece above to give you an idea of the kind of palette Rich uses in his art. Colorful and fun! The interesting thing is that he uses Mike Paint from the Old Fashioned Milk Pant Company in Groton, MA. so it is paint that is contains only natural ingredients and will not harm you or the enviroment.

Got Milk?

Does Milk Paint have milk? To tell the truth, I have no idea, but it is comforting to know that it is a totally safe paint to use and that it can be mixed with water. I just watched the video instruction for mixing Safe Paint--the Milk Paint for walls-- and I love the fact that the demonstrator mixes the paint in the kitchen with tap water and a hand mixer! It makes me want to get every color they offer and start playing with the paints myself for some of my own artwork. But, back to the kitchen...

After looking at the color palette, Rich and I landed on a combination of Buttermilk and Soldier Blue, with the Buttermilk being the basic color, and the blue on the raised panels of our drawers and cabinet doors. At this point, he figured it would be better to use paints directly from the bag and mix them up as needed, rather than work with a custom mixed shade. The reasoning behind this decision was very practical: going back and retouching parts that would certainly  get scuffed in the process of building the kitchen would present a serious challenge if one were to attempt to recreate a blended color. Better to save the mixing for the added details down the road.

With base colors all set. Rich began the tedious work of painting what was here in the house, then returning home at night to his workshop to paint the drawer fronts and cabinets doors.

I still had a sink hooked up and water in the kitchen!

You can see the subtle difference between the old pale stained white birch and the Buttermilk paint.

Mixing more paint.

Coming up soon on the blog? The hunt for the perfect counter surface. We are about to find ourselves stoned, but only in the best (and legal) sense!

Kitchen Bare Bones before the Fun Begins

Well, the signs and decorations are down and the cupboards are empty. I'll tell you this: emptying kitchen cupboards after 18 years worth of stuff accumulated in them was an ordeal in and of itself. The amount of "past-due-date" food we threw out was astounding. About 600 lbs worth. My poor depression sharpened Grandmother must have looked down on me, shaking her head as she did. Who knew what lurked in the minds of men and the back of the cupboards? I think I even found a can that expired in 1998, which meant it was most likely as old as my almost 16 year old son. I guess life keeps you hopping even if it does nothing to keep the food storage up to date.

Once we completed the task of  unloading and emptying, Rich came in and started to further dismantle the room by taking off the doors and removing the drawers, so that he could take them back to his workshop where he would begin the painting.

Here they all are, piled up ready to head out to the truck and then over to the workshop. Rich numbered everything so he would know the exact spot for each door and drawer, when they came back again to Needham after being painted and  "altered."

Next came the job of removing the hanging cupboard that divided the space between the kitchen and the diningroom. Taking that cupboard down really opened things up and gave the  rooms the look of a loft.

Our son, a master at Craigslist selling, managed to sell both our fairly new 40 inch stove and our Sub-Zero fridge! What a kid! Here is the new GE Cafe stove, which is 30 inches, the standard size for a stove.

Why the change and why did we have a 40 inch stove to begin with? Because when we first bought this house, it was a 1950 Ranch and it came with the original Frigedaire range in it. That stove looked just like this:

I loved the look of that stove, but one Thanksgiving it seemed to give up the ghost and it did not really seem wise or even possible to restore it. Not really thinking it through for the long term, we purchased a new 40 inch stove to fill the space. When we redid the kitchen 18 years ago, we kept that stove and made space for it. We even replaced it, yet  again with another 40 inch range (a Frigedaire!) not long ago, since the space called for 40 inches of stove. Finally, with this kitchen redo, it was time to go for a standard size. They are a lot easier to replace!

So a new stove went into an old place. Rich will take care of the side space. And here is something old, going into a new place.

Next up: The painting begins!

Where it started...

I originally posted some of these pictures on my other blog, Design Rocket, as "Captains Courageous in the kitchen." That was before I created this dedicated blog solely for the purpose of presenting this "kitchen as art" project. Those shots really belong here. So here is the workable, but tired, kitchen, before Rich Dunbrack began his magic.

One thing I sort of felt, but did not understand just how much I felt it, was the fact that the white Corian countertops were glaring and just too white and too kitcheny! I know that at the time we put them in , the kitchen did not have the extra dining space, and it also had no other natural light other than the sink window and skylight. But, between the Corian and the white tiles, I think we went overboard on the operating room look, don't you?

We were also no longer feeling the love for the "not quite wood, but not quite white" cabinets of stained ash. And long ago, I got over the dual inlaid sinks. The fact is, one really BIG sink is much better.

Ah, well. Tastes change. Needs, too. Mr. Kitchen, it is time for a whole new YOU.

 

Welcome to the adventure!

For the most part, kitchen remodeling jobs are nothing special. At some point homeowners look around at the spaces they cook in and decide:

1. This is livable. As long as I can cook, I am fine.

2. This is retro and fun, even if outdated. As long as I can cook, I am fine.

3. This is butt ugly. But I can cook, and I am fine, even if slightly nauseated.

4. This kitchen has to go. I hate cooking in it and I am not fine. Bring in take-out!

In truth, number one comes closest to how we felt about our kitchen. It was livable. We could cook. We were even fine. But it was a tired space, and it showed the wear and tear of 18 years of family use and still-experimenting teenage cooks. Time for a change.

And so began our kitchen adventure. Honestly, we might have coninued to just leave it as-is, even if we were not happy about doing so. After all, it was not Butt ugly. But once in a while we did think about doing something to freshen it up. New counters? New cabinet? We just did not know what, when, or if.

And then something happened that made the decision for us: Artist Rich Dunbrack posted pictures from a kitchen job he had done for the owners of the Cheesemaking Supply Company. Here is the link to their site. 

How could I not be enticed by these pictures?

We already owned several pieces of Rich's work. His art makes us very happy. Sort of like Amy Flynn's Fobots.

And so, we decided to take the plunge for a unique kitchen remodel by Richard Dunbrack. Not even sure yet what it will look like, since Rich designs as he goes. But I haven't yet seen anything that he has made that I haven't loved, so we are not too worried. 

And since this is an adventure and a first rate art installation, why not dedicate a blog to the process? Hope you will come along for the ride. Feel free to fire questions as we go.

BTW, the piece at the top of the post is the piece that just went in where an upper hanging cabnet hung between the kitchen and dining room. Isn't it wild? But more on that when we get to it.

The process has already begun, so I need to back up and start from the beginning...