The Cabinetry Wall Design

Referring back to our floor plan, you can see on the north facing wall (bottom) there is this long line going across the entire wall of the kitchen/dining/living room. This line represents a wall of cabinets. This feature wall is something Tyler and I wanted from the get-go, which would offer ample amounts of storage in the house, without having to purchase furniture to do so. We like built-ins! So for the last two months, I have been working on the layout, design, and materials for this wall. I am happy to announce that as of yesterday, I have signed off on the design and color. Waahoo! That was one big check on my to-do list.

Let me walk you through my design process. Our initial design inspiration was from a kitchen in dwell magazine, where the island featured the cooktop, the sink, and the prep space. The cabinetry wall held all the supplies and appliances. See below from architects Bone/Levine:

This is high-end cool, in case you couldn't put a price on it. I really tried to make this kitchen concept work with the cabinetry wall not having any countertops, and I started making deals with myself inside my head ("Lisa, you can learn to cook with minimal countertop space"), but the everything-island kitchen was vetoed because I like to cook too much. Functionality conquered and a galley kitchen was in.

I'm also a big fan of the Seattle based cabinetry company Viola Park. Images on their website have also been influences for our cabinetry. I've been just mad about their dark gray cabinets and open shelves. Notice how the objects placed in the open shelf really pop against the dark gray.

So based off of the above two images, here is what I designed. The double lines represent open shelves. The island is obviously upside down, to show how it lines up with the cabinet wall. (You can click the image to make it bigger.)

Finally after much tweaking, here is the official design, ready to build, drawn up officially by our cabinet guy, Peter who owns Glanville Woodworks & Design.

Now, let me tell you everything is intentional. I can tell you what is going in each drawer and shelf.

Like Viola Park's gray, I signed off on this color sample, Deep Space, for our cabinets. Note the white paint sample for the walls and the wood sample for the floors.