The Kitchen is Finished!

This week I got a big grin when my sister - who loves to cook - saw the finished kitchen for the first time. She called it a "dream come true" kitchen, with designer showroom quality. The cabinets throughout the kitchen are custom, created with the highest quality of workmanship. The cabinets are finished with many, many details. Even the kick board has curved finishes. The granite is also decorative, with carved edges. There's a built-in china cabinet with custom art glass doors. The island is both gracious and functional, with sink and serving area - plus room for seating to keep the cook company or serve a quick meal and loads of extra cabinet space. The window above the large sink is the only original window (on the only wall left standing so the project could qualify as a "remodel" instead of a construction project). My mom - who always knows how to resurrect the beauty of the past - helped completely restore the window, and it is beautiful. It keeps the kitchen filled with lots of natural light. The cook's grotto is both a centerpiece as well as a high performing cooking center. The grotto hides the large, powerful overhead fan. The tile behind the professional cook's Viking stove and oven has lovely decorative elements, but is also made from high quality tile designed to wear well. A stove faucet was built into the wall behind the stove for convenience (think of filling that pasta pot!). The small side cabinets and drawers can hold spices within easy reach.
The long stretches of granite counters provide ample workspace. Although it made for extra work, we designed the kitchen to include lots of extra electrical sockets. We wanted the cook to have maximum flexibility in use of workspace.

The backsplash has both small decorative tile and a band of larger tiles, providing a beautiful aesthetic offset.
In the picture below, on the left is the walk in pantry. (You can see iron willow art pantry door here.) In the center of the picture is a stainless steel microwave, second oven and refrigerator, all Viking appliances. To the right of the fridge is a work area with a cabinet above. This corner could be accommodate a little television (love those cooking shows), or a laptop, or a kids homework area.
Most of all, I love how the kitchen flows easily into the big, open great room, connecting the kitchen to the rest of the house.

Door Knobs: Pieces of History

With each of the rooms, careful attention has been paid to details. The doorknobs and doors provide a good example.

In exact keeping of the style of houses built in the early 1900s, the bedroom doorknobs and finish plates facing out into the hallways and common spaces are highly ornate (pictured immediately below).
On the opposite side of the same door is a glass doorknob, which in turn is matched exactly to the same doorknob on the bedroom closet, which is shown below. Even the interior of the closet has a brass doorknob.

18 fabulous six-paneled 1¾ inch thick solid wood interior doors -- complete with original bronze hardware -- were rescued from an estate in Atherton. All of the door hardware was painstakingly restored.
The design the doorknobs corresponds to their placement. The above hardware is for a bedroom closet. The glass doorknob matches exactly to the doorknob leading into the bedroom. On the opposite side of the closet door is a brass doorknob with a separate design.

These highly ornate doorknobs and hardware, and their timeless construction, represent pieces of history.

Take a Look!

It's been a while since the last update back in January and a lot of progress has been made throughout the entire house. I'm going to give a quick overview in this post.
The front door is finished.

I am proud every time it swings open. The door is heavy, beautiful, solid, rich and warm mahogany - making the house feel secure, welcoming, gracious. (Staggeringly heavy, it took all my strength to install it.) The floors are done and they came out as I had hoped. As you walk into the living room, you can see the new mantle. It was resurrected from a turn of the century home in the Bay Area and was missing many components when we claimed it. I had to recreate what I envisioned the original piece to look like, using what was there for guidance.
The custom made radius topped windows and true divide 15 glass paned doors provide lots of natural light throughout the downstairs. The doors are solid yet add an airy, light-filled feel to the house.
The solid wrought iron handrail on the staircase is now installed and the first of three gilding colors have been applied to embellish and accent the metal scroll and panel work.
Both of the downstairs bedrooms are completely painted, and each have double doors leading out to the backyard. The hardware and trim work will be complete soon.

The downstairs bathroom -- with old world tile floor and wainscot as well as custom trim and cabinetry -- is nearing completion. The dining room chandelier centers majestically in the room and matches the newly installed handrail and balustrade. I envision a table with a comfortable seating capacity of 12 people.
The wood stairs look warm next to the raised paneled wainscoting and newly installed wrought-iron handrail.
The wrought-iron handrail and balustrade is both heavy and delicate, inspired by the handrails found in other Tudor homes we visited while designing the house. In the next post I'll include more pictures of the upstairs, which is nearly finished!Upstairs there are three more bedrooms. One includes two doors leading out to a 7' x 14' front balcony, built-in custom cabinets and computer work station.
We need to install carpet in the upstairs bedrooms, one of the final tasks upstairs. There are 5 bedrooms: 2 downstairs, 3 upstairs. The second upstairs bedroom has a 10' closet with three 6-panel doors that match the rest. All bedroom closets have custom shelving and closet poles inside. All bedrooms are equipped with multiple TV and telephone jacks for various options for furniture positioning. The second upstairs bathroom has a custom vanity and cabinet, custom granite work and a large shower. The entry door to the bathroom is fitted with a full length mirror.
The laundry room is upstairs and closely connected to where the majority of laundry will be located. It is functional yet elegant with granite tops, custom cabinetry, can lighting and a full size stainless steel sink. The laundry also serves as the mechanical room where the electrical sub-panel and telecom panel can easily be accessed. All electrical breakers associated with the upstairs are located in this upstairs panel for convenience. This prevents having to go down stairs and outside for servicing. The hot water heater is also located here and equipped with a recirculating pump to minimize water waste and to avoid having to wait for instant hot water at any faucet in the house. The master bedroom has double doors with a private balcony for the morning retreat. The balcony has a custom wrought-iron railing and tile deck overlooking the backyard. The master bathroom is a large spa-like retreat. The large custom shower is equiped with two shower heads with separate controls, a seat and heavy frameless glass enclosure and door (to be installed).
It's painted in a soothing color and contains double sinks, a huge soaking tub, custom his and hers sinks and vanities and an option for TV and cable/telephone connections.
Stay tuned - the house is changing quickly every day as the finish work nears completion.

Working on the Master Bathroom

We want the master bathroom to be a tranquil place, a place to relax, unwind and rejuvenate. It also needs to be practical for modern families who are often on the go. The master bathroom has double Kohler sinks, custom bathroom cabinets finished with granite, an oversize sunken soaking tub, and a large standing shower. The tile is a creamy, soothing color. The walls are a muted green, a healing color.

Here's a picture of the double sinks. You can glimpse the shower in the background, where we will be installing custom shower glass later this month.

The sinks are a square cut, one of my favorite Kohler sink designs. The four bathrooms throughout the house feature Kohler sinks.

We selected faucets that are simple, beautiful and highly functional. The handles are easy for children to turn off & on, and the finishes on the faucets are beautiful in form.

One of my favorite features of the bathrooms is the oversized soaking tub. The rectangular design matches the squared finishes on the double Kohler sinks. I built a custom frame to house the bathtub, inserting the tub at a diagonal. This took more time to design. I needed to maximize the available space to accommodate the diagonal fitting. But the overall effect is elegant and creates small sitting areas around the tub. Windwos frame the corner of the room, providing plenty of ambient light. We used decorative tile to finish the edges, and incorprated 4 different sizes of tile to create unique designs framing the tub. This allowed us ability to leverage the soothing cream colors of the tile without monotonous patterns. The overall effect is soothing to the eye, a clean, tranquil room.

I created custom cabinets in every bathroom, and am very pleased with how they are coming along.
The finish work for the custom cabinets is painstaking, but the result is wonderful.

The Staircase: Polishing Every Step

The last time I posted about the staircase and wainscotting, they looked like this:

The staircase and wainscotting came out even better than I'd hoped. I'm posting these pictures so you can see it before the handrail is added.