Ottawa interior decorator: A virtual kitchen transformation

Thanks to Susan at Between Naps on the Porch for hosting another Metamorphosis Monday :-)

Metamorphosis Monday posts are usually about cool transformations that people have made to their homes or things in their homes. My Met Monday post this week is a bit different… it’s about a metamorphosis that I created in my mind. Scary place that it is!! ;-)

Paul at Kitchen and Residential Design recently held a dream kitchen contest. I thought about my dream kitchen for weeks. I scribbled down notes and sketches in the notebook on my night table at 1:30 in the morning. (That’s what the notebook is there for, so I can write down my night-time thoughts before they leave my mind forever!!) I searched the Net for inspiration pictures. I tried my hand at my very first renderings. And I had a blast putting together my dream kitchen!! So I thought I would share it with you… think of it as a virtual transformation :-)

I had great plans to design fabulous 3D images of my dream kitchen in SketchUp. But that didn’t go so well—probably because I didn’t take the time to read the help files and tutorials. You would think as a part-time technical writer who writes those kinds of things for a living, I’d have a greater appreciation for help files and tutorials. But, unfortunately, I also have a very short attention span and… what was I saying?? ;-) Oh yeah, I have trouble focusing on reading when I really want to be doing!!

So I wrote down a bunch of notes and drew a few sketches…

I designed the stove section of the cabinets in Paint:

I also tried one with a range hood…

And another one with a cool blue stove:

But I’d actually prefer a streamlined stainless steel stove like this:

And then I took a shot at doing a couple of renderings (thanks to the tips and advice from Michelle at A Schematic Life). Don’t laugh at my spotted island countertop—it was supposed to look like this recycled glass & concrete countertop in Chivalry Blue from  Vetrazzo…

…but something was lost in the marker translation:

Hahahah!!! I know, it looks pretty bad!! But try to envision the Vetrazzo countertop there. The sides are plain white, probably Corian. Don’t want to have Vetrazzo countertop overkill!! Here’s my Paint version:

And here’s my inspiration island:

I’ll put the sink in the island so that I can have a long unbroken run of countertop on the cabinet side. The dishwasher will go in the island, as well as a beverage fridge.

Then I did a rendering of the cabinets. The blue lower and wood & frosted glass upper cabinets came out better, except for the smudges:

Here’s my list  of “wants” (slightly modified from the late-night scribblings!!)

• Long run of lower cabinets along the 25’ foot wall, including stove and shelves.
• Oven on another wall (same place it is now) with a warming drawer below and a microwave above.
• Deep sink with gooseneck faucet in the island.
• Glossy cobalt blue lower cabinets and dark wood & frosted glass uppers.
• Glass backsplash — back-painted sheets of glass to keep the backsplash simple and easy to maintain. Plus, I don’t want a fancy backsplash to take away from the main feature in the kitchen, which will be the cabinets.
• Countertops in white Corian.
• Large island in the same dark wood as the upper cabinets and wrapped in countertop material—white Corian on the sides and Vetrazzo glass & concrete in Chivalry Blue on the top.
• Zinc range hood.
• Doggie feeding/water station at the end of the run of cabinets.
• Under-cabinet lighting and power outlets.
• Toe kicks in the same metal as the range hood.
• Pot lights + decorative lighting over the island. Can’t decide between a couple of rectangular chandeliers and a series of pendants in either cobalt blue glass or crystal. Oooh, a few Schonbeks would be sweet!!! This IS a dream, after all!!
• Simple flooring, again to allow the blue cabinets to be the feature in the room. Something easy maintenance that won’t get damaged from doggie paws and water spills and food dropped on it :-) And not hard on the feet/legs either. I’m thinking Marmoleum in a cool but subtle pattern.

• Big deep drawer beside the stove for pots. Other drawers beside the store hold spices, large utensils, and other items that you need near the stove.
• Replace the existing sliding patio doors with French doors. The eating is in front of the French doors—likely a glass table with lucite chairs, to minimize the obstruction of the view through the doors. Maybe something like one of these:

OR

I based my dream kitchen on the footprint of our existing kitchen, which is about 25”L x 12”W. Here’s a very bad and not-to-scale floor plan of the existing space with the changes I envision for it:

The existing kitchen isn’t quite wide enough to accommodate the big island. But seeing as this is a dream, I’ll dream that my existing kitchen is a few feet wider :-)

Candice Olson on Divine Design created the kitchen in the picture below. It has almost the exact same layout I envision for mine. Check out the long stretch of cabinetry and appliances along the 25’ wall and the big island wrapped in the countertop material—in my kitchen, that’s white Corian on the ends and Vetrazzo in Chivalry Blue on top (you saw my polka-dot rendering earlier!!):

Right from the start, I knew exactly what style of cabinets I want—glossy cobalt blue!! I absolutely love the sheen and depth of these blue cabinets. I like the table & chairs too—maybe they’ll go in my kitchen :-)

They’re fabulous, and I love them and want them!!! But, I don’t want them everywhere… to make things interesting, I’ll use different materials on the upper cabinets—wood and frosted glass. I love the wood in this kitchen, but I’m not sure what it is:

Victoria said the wood is “gorg”. I never heard of gorg wood. Then she told me meant “gorgeous,” but she was in a rush and gorgeous was too long to type. Haha!! Whoops!! But seeing as this is my dream, I’m going to call this wood Gorg :-)

The upper cabinets will look just like these ones, with wood (Gorg!!) on the top half and frosted glass on the bottom half:

I’ll also use the wood backsplash design as my inspiration, but instead my backsplash will be simple back-painted glass where the wood is and a strip of the blue cabinet material where the metal strip is. As much as I love funky backsplashes with lots of pattern and colour, I think it’s important to keep this backsplash simple so the cabinets and the island countertop are the real stars of the room.

I don’t want a solid bank of upper cabinets. I’ll break them up with some open shelving in the Gorg wood. Shelving similar to this (I also like how these shelves wrap around the hood):

Some more inspiration kitchens with blue cabinetry…

Love the big gooseneck faucet in front of the window:

And I LOVE the long rectangular window right along the countertop in the next set of pics. They’re from Mrs B’s Decorating A Modern Home blog. She’s done a fantastic job designing her kitchen!!

And now, my creative little addition to the kitchen… with three dogs, I’m filling the water bowl ALL the time. So I’ve created this little doggie station at the end of the run of cabinets. There’s a faucet installed right on the wall above the water dish, a towel bar on the side of the cabinet for easy wipe-ups, and the last cabinet is a pull-out bin that holds dry dog food and treats.

And finally, some decorative lighting ideas… seeing as this is my dream kitchen, I’m going all-out with Schonbek pendants!! The Twist pendant is beautiful:

So is the Vertex…

Although a couple of Cellula chandeliers would great too…

So that’s my dream kitchen. It has all the things I wish our current kitchen had, and reflects my design style—a mixture of modern and traditional with a bit of funky and a touch of the unexpected :-)

I didn’t win the contest, but I had a fabulous time thinking about and designing my dream kitchen :-) You can see the winning entry here. Thanks to Paul for the incentive and encouragement to dream :-)

Now head on back to Between Naps on the Porch to check out more transformations, virtual and otherwise!!

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