Moving right along

Our house has been a busy hub of contractors lately. Most days of the project, we have one trade, maybe two, onsite. For the last few days, we've had perhaps 3-4 different trades onsite and a veritable sea of people (6-7) all plugging away. Activity is a good feeling.

Lots of uppers, including our wood hood/vent, have been installed over the last week. The wood hood was the first real cabinetry "oops" of the project. It was designed by the firm, approved by me, and subsequently built about 3" too short. The vent liner hung down 3" exposed beneath the box. Somehow all of us missed this in design. I had really struggled in designing this area -- trying too hard -- and the lead designer at the cabinetry firm finally hit upon a solution that I really liked. Anyway, we changed the design of the wood hood so many times that this probably contributed somewhat to the mistake -- the final design solution was simple (thankfully) but we certainly went through many iterations to get here.

There have been a few other minor cabinetry issues, but this was the first one that required some sort of immediate and significant resolution with input from multiple parties. It is not only a very large box in a prominent visible location, but it was also a dependency for HVAC and other connections, and had very strict clearance requirements for appliance installation specs. We were able to resolve the issue by cutting into the floor of the cabinet above, and nesting the smaller top of the vent into the upper cabinet. I was very happy with the solution because (a) I really like the proportions and location of the wood hood as it was designed, and (b) I have no concrete plans for the storage above the hood anyway. Losing 3" there is no big deal to me at all. It was much more important to me to keep the design ratio of the four door sizes above (two of the four doors are installed in the photo) and the proportions of the hood cover itself. (See, sometimes I do choose form over function!)

Our banquette is also mostly installed. I am so very, very happy with how this area is turning out. The dimensions were hard to figure out during design, because there's no easy "standard" for banquettes such as there is for tables, chairs, counters, aisles, etc. I went and sat in a lot of restaurant booths with tape measures. I also checked out a lot of different table styles with tape measures. Every one inch really makes a surprising amount of difference.

The banquette is turning out to be quite a cozy and inviting area. It just feels good to sit there. And man, I have a TON of storage in those benches! Way more than I expected.