kitchen counter

Our cabinet maker just finished the surface of the kitchen countertops, which means this may be the cleanest you'll ever see the kitchen. The countertop is made from slabs of black Richlite, a composite material made from layers of paper bonded with epoxy. In it's fresh-from-the-factory state, the material has a papery texture on the surface, though it has a density and hardness more like stone. But after sanding it repeatedly with increasingly fine sanding pads, the surface feels more like soapstone or an epoxy laboratory countertop. The surface is then protected with a coat of natural wood finish that includes linseed oil, tung oil and lemon. The finish is rubbed in with a rag, and needs to be reapplied annually.

Now we just need to let it sit for twelve hours. Then we can start cooking.

Below, another gratuitous image of the gorgeous Plyboo pantries, and the ultra-functional LED task lighting...

completing the cabinetry

Yesterday, our cabinet maker installed the doors and drawer fronts on the kitchen cabinets. Both the pantries (left, in progress) and the base cabinets under the sliding glass doors/window are now simple volumes clad in bamboo. The low cabinets have Haefele pulls, but we haven't yet decided on what handles to install on the pantries... it seems a shame to interrupt those gorgeous expanses of bamboo.

countertop

Our cabinet maker's countertop experts installed our kitchen counter today, and it looks gorgeous. We're using Richlite, a solid-surface material made from thin layers of paper bonded with phenolic resin. The Richlite has a dense, matte finish which will become even more lustrous once we apply the finish coat after its final sanding. The black surface works really well with both the bamboo cabinetry and the painted metal finishes of the windows, walls and structural frame.

cabinetry

On Wednesday, our cabinet maker installed the first run of cabinets in the kitchen. These are the base cabinets under the big window facing the courtyard. After the drywall and other heavy work in the house is done, we'll install the drawers, doors, appliances and countertops. For now, the carcasses of the base cabinets give us a better idea of the scale of the room and the relationship between the kitchen and the courtyard. We also get our first hint of the warm wood tones that will contrast against the prevailing cool grays of the steel, concrete, drywall and glass.

gott nytt år

Nothing says Happy New Year like a trip to IKEA. While we're having our kitchen cabinetry custom built by Surface Workshop, we're leaning toward using IKEA cabinetry and sinks for the bathrooms. We'll write more about this after we make some decisions. For now, we like the flexibility and design of the IKEA cabinetry. We're less sanguine about their durability, but we think we can make it work for a few years.

Of course, it's not just the merchandise that inspires us at IKEA...

site visit with Kaelsie

We met on site with Kaelsie Saravia, our cabinet maker, yesterday. We came out to finalize the layout of the cabinets in the kitchen and to verify the dimensions of the walls, since the walls have moved a little in response to where the plumbing ended up. Kaelsie is also an architect - you can tell by the way she and Holly are talking with their hands in the photo - which gives her a keener understanding of the details, proportions, finishes and alignments we're trying to achieve.

After the break, a video panorama of the house, so far:

cabinetry

Met with our cabinet maker, Kaelsie Saravia of Surface Workshop, this morning, and picked up two big samples of bamboo plywood. This is probably the material we'll use for the kitchen cabinetry, and it'll bring some warm color and rich texture to an otherwise cool, smooth palette of steel, glass, concrete and gypsum board.

The "plywood" is made by Smith & Fong under the Plyboo name, and has three great attributes from a sustainability standpoint: it is made from fast growing bamboo, not trees, it is made without formaldehyde, and it is very durable. Aesthetically, it is gorgeous, and its grain makes it easy to disguise the slight inconsistencies from board to board, which will allow us to build a run of cabinetry over twenty feet long that looks like it was made from a single batch of (far more expensive) matched plywood.