Art.Kitchen.Karma

The First Eye Candy Arrives!

At some point in our kitchen art installation, artist Rich Dunbrack knew we needed to see some eye candy. And you know what? He did, as well. Up until that point it had been a lot of prep work and demolition and painting.  

One day, before a trip back to Martha's Vineyard where his main studio and full time home are, Rich started to give us a taste of things to come. I could wax poetic, but I think the pictures speak for themselves. This is what happened over a week or two.

Rich puts up the very first embellishments, made from old sleigh parts and other items.

Two of Amy Flynn's Fobots find themselves quite at home for the time being! About one week later came the stained glass doors. Here are the parts in the shop.

And in place.

Then the pantry doors came in. Phl thinks the yellow metal parts on the top soors remind him of the Simpsons.

That is what the antique heating grates look like when Rich first brings them to his shop. Below, they are in!

Stay tuned for more!

 

Next up: Getting Stoned, Courtesy of Glorious Mother Nature, Part 1.

When it came to the kitchen counter-tops, we really had pretty much decided early on: we were going to use a natural stone of some kind. Our Corian counters had served us well for most of the 18 years we had them. Well, they did  until our middle son decided he liked to cook, but did not like to use trivets for the hot pots he cooked with. The once pristine island top cracked in record time. And a dark crack on a white top is not pretty. Still, even though we knew it was fixable, we didn't bother; the kitchen would be getting a make-over before too long and we'd take care of it then. 

And so, we began to look at stone. And look at stone. And look at stone. And once we really started to investigate just what is out there in the world of granite, we became more and more enamored of the beauty that comes out of the earth in different parts of the globe. 

It all started by walking into a tile and stone store front and being told,"You need to go to the warehouse and actually see the slabs." I could try to wax poetic about the colors and veins and speckles and everything else we found at our first visit to a stone distributor, but I think the pictures themselves will do a better job.

We made sure we had a panel of wood painted with the main colors of the kitchen, using the Buttermilk and Slate hues from The Old Fashined Milk Paint Company. That's the blue and cream colored rectangle you see in many of the pictures. Armed with that color reference,  we set off.

The first place we went to was MS International, a company that has several locations of stone slabs. This one was located in Westwood.

We were overwhelmed. Rows and rows of slabs awaited us, each one more beautiful than the last.

 

And how do they move these heavy, enromous pieces of stone around? Like this.

and this

Don't walk  near any of this!

One given we knew ahead of time: we did not want the average kind of speckled granite one often sees. Why? Because our kitchen was open to the rest of the house and we wanted stone that looked less  "kitcheny." We also knew that it would not work well with the aesthtic of most of our house, which is funky to put it mildly. We wanted "veins" of color.

The look of marble had been in my mind, but we knew that marble was not a good choice because of its relative "softness"  and its tendency to stain. One thing we had not really landed on was color. And then we saw the slab at the top of this post, "Blue Louise." Here is another shot.

Isn't that the most amazing piece of stone you have ever seen? To say that this particular stone knocked our socks off is to put it mildly. The colors in this slab were the most gorgeous turquoise and blue, combined with rust and cranberry. Fortunately, this slab was not enough to do the kitchen and it was all they had. Why is that fortunate? Because this is about the most expensive stone you can use for a counter-top. 

But seeing that stone made us start to think more about finding real colors in the slab we would eventually choose. That meant we needed to consider all sorts of blues. Here is Blue Macauba:

As far as this particular stone goes, the above sample did not really "rock" our world, pun intended, which was also fortunate, since this is a very costly stone, as well.

We seriosuly considered this next slab. It is called Harlequin Green.

And we even thought abought this crazy slab, since it had the right blue. It is called "Palomino."

We decided, however,  that after looking at Palomino for a while, we might get a little dizzy, especially after a drink or two. 

Here are a few others. The stone below is called "Fusion."

Above is "Dune." FACT: the same stone might have different names, depending on the distributor. For example, when we saw the stone below we loved it. It is called "Nacarrado."

And at another warhouse it is called "Onyx Bamboo."

The stones are slightly different because mother nature does not create cookie-cutter style. But they are essentially the same stone.

I did flirt for a spell with the idea of soap stone counters and sink, but once we got a gander of the gorgeous colors and patterns of granite and quartzite, that old gray thought quickly left our heads.

We also learned that the kind of stone we seemed to prefer is called "quartzite." What is quartzite? You can check here. But suffice it to say that it is actually harder that granite. And, best of all, it is the kind of stone that is more often "veined"rather than speckled.

Part 2 soon. 

"We interrupt this program to bring you a special message..."

And that message is about our wonderful finish carpenter and contractor, Mark. 

There has been a lot of work going on at our house. In addition to the kitchen, we spruced up a basement room so that our teenage son would have a nice place to hang out in with his friends. As it turns out, everyone likes the space a lot, so it was a very worthwhile investment. Anytime you can reclaim extra usable space inside an existing house, you cannot go wrong.

Mark was the guy in charge of  that project. He oversaw all the work, did most of it, brought in help when he couldn't and also took care of the extremely fastidious finish work.

Mark has also been the guy behnd the scenes in the kitchen. While Rich is taking care of the cabinets themselves, Mark is making sure everythng else gets done. For example, someone needed to tear down all the old backsplash tile, as well as rip up the floor tile along with the plywood under it. Mark was also in charge of changing the exhaust fan over the stove, getting the new fridge in place, and building the support for the copper sink, which is very heavy (more about sinks later). Mark gets the plumbers here to take care of anything water related, and gets the electrician here to change the light fixtures. 

Every project, large or small, needs someone like Mark to coordinate all the related work and prep work that is essential to reaching the finish line. Besides being being extrememly talented at his own fine, custom wood work, Mark can do everything else, as well. He brings in super workers and the best part? He is Mr. Positive--always cheerful and always has a "can-do" approach.

Mark's assistant, Rob, working on the exhaust fan. Another nice guy!

Someone had to get down to the original sub floor. Not an easy job. Those old boards are form 1950, when the house was built. Can you believe the spaces between them? And that knot hole? Yikes! A new solid oak floor will go over this one.

BItty is not so sure she likes the old sub floor. Any scraps of food that drop off the table might slip beanth before she can get to them. 

So BIG thanks to Mark and his crew of hard working guys. It makes work like this so much more pleasant.

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!

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.