End Results

Moore Family
of Arizona

Kitchen Remodel - End Results

General Overview - Quick Look

Well we replaced the flooring and countertops both with a deep blue color - yes bold color changes to contrast with the white cabinets. The Island has been extended in length considerably and in width a little - while at the 'eating' end it was expanded and reshaped to a circular perimeter as our new much more social new kitchen dining area. In total we can now fit 7 chairs comfortably (8 at a squeeze) at the island (Vs 4 before). For our 4 family members we can sit together and converse comfortable over food - which we do indeed do.

For the main chairs we decided to go equally bold with bright red contemporary chairs and stools matching the red trim around the backsplashes and cabinet tops.

The island also has a white solid surface half & half split sink integrated directly into the manufactured stone top. This has a pull-out spray nozzle with single handle faucet and instant hot/cold RO filtered water dispenser. There are also dual soap dispensers for dish & hand soap as well as a pneumatic remote garbage disposer control.

Additional worktop space was installed where the low wall used to be with new cabinets and appliances below as well as a computer and LCD screen above. The new cabinets join to the old with a corner wine rack to bridge the space. All the units in the island are new and many base cupboards were relocated around the kitchen to optimize space for the new appliances.

We also changed all the cabinet pulls on doors & drawers to a more contemporary style stainless steel look - this matches the new appliances installed: a new Bosch dishwasher, a U-Line under-counter dual drawer refrigerator and additional under-counter Freezer and Wine Cooler.

Internally the cupboards have also been significantly modified with top to bottom pull-out drawers in the pantry units and several of the base units, additional drawer units, shelves, racks and drawer dividers to make the space more usable. Additionally new pull out waste & recycling bins have been installed in the main prep area and under sink areas.

Lighting has been extended significantly with 6 pendant lamps above the island: 3 for general lighting and 3 clustered at the circular end for the main eating area. Under counter fluorescent lighting is mounted under all the upper cabinets including the desk area.

Under cabinet pull-down cook book holder and desk organizer help keep things tidy - while customized drawer organizers for utensils, cutlery, knives, chopping boards, recipe cards, and re-chargeable electrical equipment were all developed/installed.

Details & Close Ups:

Countertop Material:

All our countertops are made of Caesar-Stone a man made composite material made of 93% crushed natural Quartz material bonded together with polymer resins & pigments and then super-compressed into sheets. It feels like stone and acts like stone (except it needs no sealing). It can be worked like stone but is completely consistent in color and texture across sheets. We chose a special finish called "Pacific Reflections" which includes random mirror particles in the top surface creating a reflective glitter on the surface. You can see this a little in the sample of the island to the right. Its a quite subtle effect in practice but of course deep blue is not a very common counter top color so its a quite striking effect anyway!

All the edges are triple thickness full bull-nose for a full 2 1/4" thick look - a very substantial effect. - but appropriate given the very long countertop runs. We also have 4" back-splashes to match all around.

In the middle of the circular eating area we have a matching triple thickness bull-nose edge lazy-Susan (using an aluminum turn-table). I had the counter-top fabricators create this after the installation and since they had sufficient spare material left over - they ended up doing all the fabrication on this for free! - fantastic!

Sink Details:

The company we used to fabricate and install the countertops also offered a custom feature of solid surface material sinks that could be set into the Caesar-Stone countertop much like those commonly available with Corian countertops. We liked this feature and selected the split 50/50 sinks to replace our old ~30/70 sink.

The main sink hardware you see is a Hamat pull out mixer/spay faucet in the center with single handle "joystick" type control. To the left of that is a remote air operated push-button switch for the garbage disposer, then 2 pump type soap dispensers one for hand soap and one for dish soap. The smaller faucet is for filtered water with one tap for instant hot filtered water and and other for instant chilled filtered water. Both of these are supplied from storage tanks below.

Water Filtration/Convenience:

A reverse osmosis drinking water filtration system is installed for this sink but instead of mounting everything under the sink we have a custom built shallow cabinet on the other side of the kitchen island allowing easy servicing & filter changes. The water storage tank is mounted under the sink as is an addition expansion tank, then the water feeds to both a water chiller unit utilizing quiet Peltier cooling technology and a small hot tank . We always have available instant hot (almost boiling) and cold filtered water for cooking/drinking.

Unfortunately despite several returns and upgrades the Peltier chiller unit didn't work well enough to provide chilled water in Phoenix weather until I redesigned it to use an upgraded 192W Peltier element with an upgraded cooling fan and power supply, insulation changes, mounting changes and cabinet airflow modification, (it really shouldn't have been this hard though - I basically ended up totally redesigning the whole thing!).

Cooking:

Since we don't have a direct gas supply at this home (our ideal cook top fuel) we have converted our cook-top to a Jenn-Air ceramic topped unit with 2 quick-response radiant rings and 2 magnetic induction rings for even immediate response control. This necessitated some new magnetic cookware but works very well - although the radiant rings are hotter.

We also added a GE Advantium combination microwave / halogen speedcooker above the cook top. This was custom combined with a remote outdoor mounted centrifugal extractor fan for much quieter extraction. This can be used as a combo quick-cooker, microwave, oven or even for plate/food warming.

We also have a Jenn-Air conventional/convection/broiler oven and a Kenmore built-in microwave/convection oven. Only the single Jenn-Air oven survived from the original appliances

We do both like to cook and this is a very good combination of equipment to cook on. Note that although we have a very large kitchen all the primary cooking equipment is located at one end for convenience, The other end is reserved for the eating area and the infrequently used appliances (wine & freezer) and storage.

We also have a well used BBQ and single wok burner outside on the patio - these also get regular extensive use.

Food Storage - Freezer/Fridge:

In the re-modeling we created space to add additional under-counter fridge & freezer units. This was to address convenience in the prep area as well as expanding total freezer storage area.

The new fridge unit is a U-Line 2 drawer fridge only unit in stainless steel with electronic controls. It has an additional pull-out crisper unit under the lower drawer. This is mounted directly below the main prep area - this is a very convenient location for frequently used items.

Garbage & Recycling:

A new larger slide-out garbage bin was installed in a double cupboard also directly below the main prep area - this provides for very convenient clean up while working. The bin is easily removable and a small amount of storage is included in the cabinet sides. the bin is configured so it can be left slightly open for access while working at the countertop. The cupboard area to the side and the drawer area above the bin are completely sealed from the bin area to limit odors and any spill over.

The under sink area is now significantly filled with water filter equipment and the garbage disposal but there is still just room for a recycling bin also mounted on a slide-out unit with a small storage area behind.

Food Storage - Pantry Cabinets:

Items in the back of the 24" deep pantry cabinets were always difficult to access limiting the usefulness of the space. In the lower cabinets I removed all the shelves and the center cabinet stiles and built 5 full width full extension pull-out drawers in each. These are mounted to heavy duty pull-out glides attached by a heavy duty plastic mounting system to the cabinet walls. This provides full depth access to every drawer and make much more efficient use of the space.

Due to height this system was not practical to use directly for the upper cabinets. I am still working on possible solution for the upper cabinets but I did build a prototype that was partially successful as a side access pull out drawer

Equipment Storage:

The large number of base cabinets are used for equipment storage for kitchen food prep and serving equipment. Several of these cabinets have been converted to have pull-out drawers or dividers shelves etc - although probably more will be implemented here over time.

Wine Racks/Wine Fridge:

We have both a wall mounted 4 position metal wine rack and a custom built base cabinet wine rack with 5 slots. These are used for inexpensive red wine to be drunk soon. For whites and expensive red wines we have the temperature adjustable Wine Fridge unit that can preserve wine at a suitable temperature for storing and serving. This is a medium sized unit capable of cooling 30 bottles.

Recipe Cards:

We have an extensive collection of recipe cards that we use quite frequently. Rather than keeping these in a cupboard in a large box (as we had done for years) I divided 2 narrow side-by-side drawers each in half to construct a storage space for the whole set of cards. These fit into the drawers on a set of slanted dividers made of thin Lexan material. This works with the subdivision of the recipe cards very well and allows them to both fit into the drawers and be individually easily accessible.

Pull Down Cookbook Rack:

I wanted a cookbook rest/rack right next to the cook-top but easily hidden. In order to not loose any light from the under-counter lights when this was folded away I constructed it out of thick clear transparent polycarbonate sheet - this works excellently.

Pull Down Desk Organizer:

The desk area in the Kitchen is used a lot, for notes messages and as a mailing center. I wanted a place to post notes and for pens, stamps etc but I did not want a cluttered look. Implementing a pull down rack allowed all this right next to the phone with the ability to access and hide it all with a quick push on the unit - perfect.

Drawer Organizers:

I have installed a large number of different drawer organizers for different purposes, several for cutlery of different sizes as well as several for utensils of different sizes and chopping boards as well as flip down drawer fronts on the sink base unit for small items.

Charger Drawer:

This idea came to me as a solution for dangling cords and equipment sprawled all over the worktops next to the most convenient outlets - phones, iPods, PDA's wireless headsets etc all looking for a tidy place to be recharged. Well now we have it. This cupboard already had a power outlet installed inside ready for the kitchen computer - so adding the power outlets into the drawer was quite easy.

Blue Tile Flooring:

The Blue tiled floor - looks to have a very grey mottled effect in Photographs but is in fact very blue in person with just a slight hint of grey. We realized that Blue countertop and Blue tile was a pretty radical look - but we felt the room needed more consistency - well you can't say we aren't bold!

Future Projects:

	In wall mail organizers
	Replacement cupboard doors on some cabinets
	Cupboard with plate-racks
	Additional pull-out drawer inserts
	Finish upper pantry cabinet refit