Let’s Eat- part 1

I wanted to break the kitchen into two parts, this is my world (the making of, not the cooking in, har har) and there are so. many. details.

So, we left off with the awesome pantry door- we talked about its origin, and how Mindy refinished it for me. I forgot to mention she filled in a bullet hole in the door….. no, we don’t know where it came from- but alot of messed up stuff has happened on this road. I love the Hafele Flatec rolling door hardware! Hafele has been good to me- I use them for many things in my job including lights, internal accessories, hardware, etc. Their catalog is almost 2″ thick, so if I need something that’s not in my regular book of tricks, 99% of the time, they have it!

Beside the pantry, to welcome you into the eating area, is a neat piece that encapsulates how we both feel about dining, especially Brandon. He is always wanting more people here 🙂 My friend Michelle bought this for us when we moved in, and what a perfect spot!

And here is a close up of the Control4 control pad- I’d venture to say this is the one we use most-this wall is truly the center point of our home:

The top three buttons control our kitchen and dining lights- all are dimmable. Then we have a “music” button which either plays “Hip Hop Barbecue” or “Hair Band Radio” on Pandora- you can pick between those two, or know somebody with an app on their phone that can change the channel (that is me and Brandon lol). The “morning” button is awesome. It turns on the island pendants to a certain percentage, and turns the TV on to the Today Show, and all is well in my world. 🙂 Then the “night” button turns everything off except for the island pendants for 5 minutes, and locks the doors.

You get two shots of the pantry- the one above when it was empty and new, and this one when it was full, and Karen (who is my favorite appointment on Tuesdays- she does all the things I need help with) had just re-organized it before I went off to Mexico. Samson also had to photobomb……

It is full, but we live here- it does do many of the things we intended for it to do. I was inspired by this pantry in a kitchen I had done earlier in the year- this house had an angled corner pantry, and the homeowner had seen something in a magazine, and we made it happen! Then, I loved it.

I wanted a wood butcher block countertop, and I had my friends at Signature Custom Woodworking custom fabricate both of these tops actually! Then I thought it would be nice to fit in a couple of drawers, one for coffee pods, sweeteners, tea, etc.. and one for chip clips, coozies, straws, etc. We put many outlets in the backsplash and increased the distance from the bottom of the cabinet to the top of the countertop to make room for all the countertop appliances, which has worked out ok, but food ends up covering up the bread maker and I’ve made bread once. oops. We also have the coffeemaker, Sodastream, waffle maker, and cuisinart griddle on the counter in there. It is absolutely easier to access these items when needed. We used to have a toaster oven in there, but then we got the 10-in-1 air fryer. I cannot even talk about that right now. it will have to be a whole post on its own after the kitchen. THAT is an appliance everybody can use.

So, is this pantry accessible? In some respects. The opening is wide enough that a wheelchair could move into it and back out. The shelves are adjustable, and could be easily retro-fitted to hold something like this Kessebohmer iMove shelf lift system if necessary to accommodate different heights and reach abilities.

Beside the pantry, we have what I call a “hutch”… It’s built-in kitchen cabinetry, but gives that furniture feeling. My favorite “design opportunity” (sometimes otherwise known as mistake) is that we didn’t consider the HVAC returns when designing the closets. Our builder came up with a way to have all the returns come back to one central place that funneled from this corner, which the hutch tucks up to nicely 🙂 I ended up loving it!

The hutch now holds paper products and serving pieces in the bottom cabinets, and our formal china pieces and crystal, my Great Aunt Dink’s china, and my Granny’s cousin Elsie’s china. I love to mix and match all my pieces! The countertop has ended up serving as a bar, but the bottles are dwindling. Neither one of us really drink. Brandon never did, and I have only occasionally. Every bit of alcohol except tequila makes my Trigeminal Neuralgia flare up… so there is that :(. We never intended for this to be a bar, it just happened. There is a catch-all corner on this counter too that we need to totally quit piling stuff up on. I have lighting above the cabinetry (this section does not go to the ceiling), inside the upper glass section of cabinetry, under cabinet, and inside the lower sections that activate when the doors are open.

Here is a sneak peek at one of the features in the main kitchen:

“oooooooh, they got that good ice…….”