Oh, cabinets. You are spectacular but also spent many weeks as the bane of my existence and tempted me to become a House Hunters International client who does not use cabinetry.
I love the way our cabinets turned out, but holy smokes it.was.a.journey! Since we designed our own home, we had a custom shaped kitchen meaning that the cabinets that can be ordered from the big box stores would not fit our space (although I highly debated just buying some and making them fit the space during the cabinet ordeal). Aaron just kept patiently reminding me that building a home is a process and boy was it! I’m still not as patient as he is (and good gracious, I don’t pray for patience! I know better). I’m just super really happy to be on this side of the building process and can look back on the weeks of despair and recognize how happy I am allowed to be.
So many decisions have to go into making and building a home, which I knew in theory but actually had to (and am still having to!) practice when in the process. For the cabinetry alone, the decisions included: style of cabinets, height of cabinets, structure of countertop space, drawer and cabinet pulls (just got those ordered today!), and color of cabinet stain. Let’s break these down.
Style of cabinets: This one was pretty easy. I knew I wanted shaker style cabinets so that the lines stayed simple and linear in order to bypass any trends and keep the classic lines. However, my drawers did not end up being shaker style, and although sometimes I think about being frustrated, I’m just glad that I have drawers.
Height of cabinets: This is where I kind of falter. I don’t measure things. My husband is great about measuring and understanding written measurements on blueprints, Amazon, etc., but I’m not. We wanted a linen cabinet in our bathroom, but it ended up being gigantic (like a wardrobe) which I actually think is simultaneously funny and entirely useful. I love it, but it was a surprise that it was so huge. In the kitchen, I knew I wanted tall upper cabinets but they are really tall and I can’t reach the top shelves without a step stool. This is not a complaint—just an explanation. More height means more storage space, which is always helpful.
Structure of countertop space: This one was where we felt our lack of expertise. We designed our kitchen with a certain number of cabinets and countertop space, but when it came time for framing and fitting in our humongous fridge (that I’ve had for seven years and don’t want to part with), we lost a section of cabinets next to the fridge space. This meant that the “L” portion of our countertop was shortened, leaving us with a change in cabinet design to accommodate the empty space in the corner of the “L.” This meant that I lost my large pull-out lazy-susan cabinet door on the bottom, but got to retain my 45* cabinet up top. Additionally, I lost my section of three drawers on the bottom and had to go with a standard one drawer and one cabinet. So, these decisions part way through the building process meant that I had to create time to be upset that my original plan wasn’t going to happen.
Drawer and cabinet pulls: I literally just sent Aaron some cabinet knob and drawer pull choices today, and we’ve been living in the house for four and a half months. I’ll post an update when we get these pulls in and installed.
Color of cabinet stain: When I met with the cabinetmaker in July (yes!), I told him we wanted stain-grade maple and not “paint grade” so I knew I’d be picking a stain eventually. The actual picking of the stain colored happened on a whim one evening when the cabinetmaker was ready for us to choose a stain color and bam, we had to pick one out by looking at Google images. Having worked with professional photo printing websites before, I know that the color on a screen is not necessarily the color in real life, so I was cautiously optimistic about my selections and trying to remember that it might not look exactly as it would on the phone screen. I chose a dark stain, like mocha or walnut or something similar. Our wall color is a neutral gray color, so I knew the dark color would work well. Our cabinetmaker later confided to Aaron that he wasn’t sure how it would turn out but once he saw the cabinets in the space, he thought we did very well in our stain selection. It took 4 coats of stain to get them the color they are, and I absolutely love the way they turned out.
Our cabinetmaker waits until the cabinets are installed before he orders the cabinet doors (no, we didn’t know that ahead of time), so we actually lived in the house for a few weeks without cabinet doors. Also, the countertops couldn’t be measured until the cabinets were installed, so that took a couple weeks after we moved in for them to arrive.
We ordered our countertops from a tile company—the same one we used for the countertop in our old house when we renovated the mater bathroom. They did such an awesome job there that we wanted them to do our countertops throughout the house this time. We were going to choose something different in the kitchen than the bathrooms, but ended up choosing just one countertop for kitchen and bathroom and we couldn’t love it more! The countertop crew installs the sinks as well, so we couldn’t have sinks or faucets until the countertops were installed. That meant that we lived in the house for about two weeks while using the tub faucet as our only “sink” and place to wash dishes etc. Eventually, I took to washing dishes outside in a plastic tub using the hose. All this to say, nothing was going to keep us from living in our home! We are so so grateful, though, to have actual cabinets, countertops, faucets, and sinks.
And without further ado, here is the picture progression.
Kitchen:
Whew! That's it! I'll continue updating over the next couple weeks with posts of living room/ dining room space, master bedroom, master shower, and cabinet pulls/knobs.
Until Next Time,
Much Love, Reba
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