High Art in a Custom Kitchen from the Past

As I've shown earlier on this page, the kitchens I designed and contracted in the past were each unique and highly customized. This is not the case today.  I have found that in designing my soon-to-be "custom" kitchen with standard cabinets fabricated off-site, that some things can be customized and others cannot. Often, you are halfway through your most efficient plan when you discover this.

But in the past, only the demands of the site limited your options.  This Annex kitchen shows what a highly skilled carpenter could achieve to create a luxe look.

Each drawer here is trimmed with a strip of "Octolam," a brass-coloured laminate which the carpenter has routered in to form a striped trim.  The pulls I selected are plexi with a brass centre, and they fit precisely onto the brass trim strip.

Here is a wall of cabinets with the trim placed vertically, and again the pulls integrate neatly with it. This kitchen is 25 years old, yet switch in modern appliances, add a suitable back-splash and granite or quartz countertops, and it would still be unique and lovely today, especially now that the warm metals are back on trend.

The size of this galley kitchen was dictated by the square footage the owners were allowed to add on to their house and what they wanted to achieve within it.  Their house is an Edwardian, and all trim reflects the oak trim in the rest of the house.

Here is a back view of the angled corner of the other side of this galley.  The corner is angled to provide ease of passage leading to the solarium eating area.

You will pay at least 3 times more per linear foot today if you choose a custom cabinet shop rather than Ikea, Home Depot or any other large "big-box" store, even when you choose one of their luxury cabinet lines.

However, you will never find a kitchen of this unique beauty, anywhere but here.