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beaglesdoitbetter

Kitchen - So I took your advice but now have two more questions

beaglesdoitbetter
last month
last modified: last month

Some of you may remember my prior kitchen post and I was advised by all of you to not do all glass cabinets.

Well, since I switched to doing cabinets with Dutch Wood and driving them from PA to FL instead of using the FL cabinet maker, I was happier with the Dutch Wood door styles AND I was able to do my fridge and pantry cabinets the way I want rather than getting stuck with shelves since they couldn't make the fridge door bigger. So, I've decided to take your advice and put in several solid cabinets as you can see in the picture (Excuse the rough drawing, I did it quickly in photoshop).

I now have two more questions

1. Should the tall cabinet next to the window seat be blue. You can see where the other blue cabinets are based on the shading in the picture. I have this Big Chill blue range and I'm doing the dish rack cabinets and the built-in window seat cabinets in blue. The countertop on the island will also be blue. The rest of the kitchen will be white cabinets and the perimeter countertops are white.

But, the cabinet next to the window seat I'm torn on. I am leaning towards making it white because the glass cabinets should continue around the room? But I also think having all the breakfast area cabinets be blue would be a nice alternative. What do you think ? And if it should be blue, should the glass cabinet above it be blue as well even though it's sitting next to a white glass front cabinet?



2. I am putting in a charging drawer on the back of the island. The top drawer will have plugs inside to charge ipads, laptops, etc. I am debating making the top TWO drawers back there into one big drawer (but it would still look like 2 because Dutch Wood does an amazing job with false-fronts to make one big drawer look like two different ones). The downside is I lose a drawer, but the upside is I can charge bigger stuff in there like a dust buster? What would you do?



Comments (13)

  • Feathers11
    last month

    1. Based on your rendering, I would have the cabinet white, because it's more part of the kitchen run of cabinets. To me, the breakfast area starts with the seating. The dish rack itself is separated from the kitchen run by the doorway, and seems a separate element.

    2. If you use a dust buster around the pet station and breakfast area, yes, this seems a logical place to store/charge it.

  • Allison0704
    last month

    Agree with Feathers.

  • lyfia
    last month
    last modified: last month

    I agree with the others white for the tall cabinet.

    For the drawer I think it makes sense to be able to charge the dust buster in a hidden area, but I'd be afraid other things charging would get lost. Can you do an insert for smaller things to lay on in a deeper drawer (for example only cover half of the drawer) or do you have a cabinet where the dust buster could lay and be charged and still be handy?

  • Kswl
    last month

    Not blue, unless you completely alter the look of those cabinets to create a reason for them to be a different color than the rest of the run. (Even then I probably would not do it. )

  • lascatx
    last month

    No -- absolutely keep that cabinet white. You have the bridge over the door opening with an identical one on the other side. If you want that one blue, omit the cabinets above the door opening and consider making the blue and the white cabinets slightly different. For example, I have white, cherry and blue cabinets in my kitchen. The white are a Shaker style with a routed interior edge. The blue are very similar, but the routing is a little different and also on the outside of the face as well. The cherry are like the blue but they have a raised panel and the routing has a little more detail. It sounds like a lot, but it's very subtle and it helps the different finishes make sense.

    I don't use a dustbuster. You may have to have the drawer not only be wider but also taller. As your kids get older, they will have things to charge too -- my guess is the dustbuster will go somewhere else. I put in a 12" wide tall cabinet for my step stool, dog leashed, a broom, dustbuster or stick vacuum. When I got the Dyson, I decided to put it in a different closet, but it COULD go there. Could you put yours in a lower drawer of the breakfast room side tall cabinet or under the seating there - similar to the way some people do a toe kick drawer for a stepstool?

  • beaglesdoitbetter
    Original Author
    last month

    Thanks for the suggestions. will go with the white for sure!


    I will make sure I have the charging drawer set up well for both the little stuff and the dust buster. I don’t have operable drawers under the seating as they will not be accessible and I did not want handles under peoples feet. the lower drawers in the breakfast area cabinet are actually refrigerator drawers.

  • Eileen
    last month
    last modified: last month

    The only reason it needs to be white is because of the cabinet bridge over the doorway. From a design and practical standpoint, I don't think they add much. I don't see any reason to connect the kitchen to the nook, and it makes that wall feel oversaturated with cabinetry.

    Treat them as different rooms by making the nook cabinet distinct from the white cabinet across the doorway. You can reference some of the design elements of the dish rack--which is also outside the kitchen proper--with color, but also by using open shelves on top and repeating what looks like beadboard in the dish rack. I think the cabinet in the nook would look better not the same height as the kitchen cabinet.

    I know you don't have the width but this is very sweet. Picture it without the side cabinets. I like the idea of having a cabinet with a shelf even if you do use a glass door cabinet on top, just for variety. You could also make that cabinet white but use blue beadboard to tie it back to the dish rack and the bench seat.


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  • beaglesdoitbetter
    Original Author
    last month

    Thanks Eileen. I'll think about maybe getting rid of those upper cabinets and maybe doing some kind of shelving or bead board. I really do like the idea of a bead board back in this one...


    The issue is, I kind of wanted to bring the breakfast nook into the kitchen proper. When we bought this house, the kitchen was disproportionately small relative to the size of the house and was very poorly laid out. One of the things I wanted with the remodel was to make the kitchen feel "bigger" (especially since we are used to a big kitchen in our other house w/ tons of cabinet space as we do cook a lot and I have a very large dish collection at both houses). So I was sort of trying to bring the breakfast nook in and make those cabinets feel like a part of the kitchen proper -- hence the bridge.

  • Eileen
    last month
    last modified: last month

    It's hard to say if more cabinets would make it look bigger or smaller.

    I went to your old thread to see if you had photos of the nook. But then I saw the photo I posted about your corner cabinets. Is that your plan for a bridge? It's beautiful. But what makes the bridge work to my eye are the solid doors and that they are inset. They blend in. This photo would persuade me to do all the top cabinet doors solid. Even though you did change three uppers to solid, the bridge and nook cabinet weren't in your design in the old thread, so that does put some of the busyness back in. If I had to keep the glass in the upper uppers, I might try to omit some glass on the two cabinets flanking the doorway by using solid lower doors or some open shelving, perhaps with beadboard. Note that in this photo, the cabinets flanking the doorway don't match.


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  • beaglesdoitbetter
    Original Author
    last month

    Mine won't match either as the one is mirrored (and has plumbed-in coffee maker and microwave behind it) and the other is open glass. I am considering doing a beadboard back or maybe open shelves for the nook cabinet. We are not doing inset and I don't want to switch the uppers to closed cabinets though. I really do want those glass.


    Thanks for the suggestions!

  • Eileen
    last month

    Cool! When are you expecting them to have your cabinets ready?

  • beaglesdoitbetter
    Original Author
    last month
    last modified: last month

    Well, not until October! Dutch Wood is really in demand so they have a 12-week wait even for local projects. And they are coming up from PA to FL to put my cabinets in, so I had to wait even longer until they were able to work that into the schedule. It is well worth it because the cabinets are so, so much better AND cheaper! Esp. since we don't be back in FL after April until November anyway!

  • Eileen
    last month

    How nice that it works out with your schedule!