Chef’s Kitchen With Luxury Materials

By redesigning the island and moving the range we create more counterspace and a better workflow for the kitchen. 

Chef’s Kitchen: Key Updates

Project Summary:

A beautiful home in Myers Park with a kitchen that was long overdue for an upgrade. The husband loves to cook but was limited by the lack of counterspace and odd cooktop layout.

Inially we were planning a more modest update but in design the decided to “go all out” and get the luxury finishes and pro-grade appliances they had always wanted.

They made some amazing choices and the end result is is a very attactive kitchen with a lot of high performace features. 

Chef’s Kitchen: Challenges And Solutions

This kitchen had a few unique materials and appliances that created a few challenges. Most were easily dealt with but one did delay final completion by several weeks. 

Fortunately these issue did not prevent the kitchen from being completed to the point it was functional, the issues were mostly aesthetic. 

Challenge 1: Unique Marble Choice

Challenge: The marble material was difficult to source and delicate to work with. Because they slabs were bookmatched there was little room for error.

Solution: Fortunately for the last 10 years we have been working with Tim Peachey with Southern Tops for all our countertop installs.

Tim in the best countertop installer we have ever worked with. Without Tim we would not have been able to source this very unique marble as the supplier is very particular about who he works with. Because the stone took was difficult to get Tim took extra time in fabricating and polishing it which added two weeks to the project timeline.

Challenge 2: Misordered Fridge Panels

Challenge: The built in fridge they selected was not originally meant to have wood panels. However the manufacturer did make a retrofit kit so panels could be used. But our appliance dealer mistakenly sent us the wrong specs for the panel size, something we did not know until we tried to fit the panels to the fridge.

Solution: Getting the right panels made actually turned out to be a bit of an ordeal. We had to work with both GE’s engineers and our cabinet manuracturer to route special grooves in the back of the new doors so they would fit. Everything worked out in the end but it took several weeks to get the new panels.

As a temporary measure we installed the original wood panels so they would have a functioning frigdge. They worked fine, they were just 2″ too small.

Challenge 3: Ceiling Lights

Challenge: They chose a decorative ceiling fixture that was pretty unique. This did not seem like an issue at all but when we went to install them we discovered that 1. the fixtures had a separate driver that needed to be hidden in the ceiling and 2. They required a special rough in box.

Solution: Normally something like this would not have been an issue but in this kitchen we had installed a wood tounge and groove ceiling which made making alterations difficult.

The solution was to switch to the same fixture but in a slighly larger size. The original fixtures were 4.5″ x 4.5″ . The was another option for a 6.25×6.25 fixture. The larger fixture did not have the separate driver and was able to be installed normally.

Chef’s Kitchen with Luxury Materials and Appliances

Our Favorite Things

The material choices on this project were fantastic. It’s easy to say everything was ouro favorite but here are a few things that stand out. 

A little luxury for their furry friend 

Large island with marble top, farm front sink and unlaquered brass faucet

Walnut shelf with brass rail and linen curtains. 

Project Video

Summary of video

Bar Area Overview

[H3 title] Before and Initial Concept

Reasond for initial concept …..

After: We changed the island, moved the fridge and added a bar area for storage and accessories.

Timeline

We started design on October 18th, finalized everything on Nov 29th 2022 and scheduled the project start for Feb 28th 2023. The project was completed on time on April 27th.

• Proposed project start date: August 22nd, 2023

•  Actual Project Start Date: August 22nd 2023

• Proposed Completion Date: October 24th

• Actual Completion Date: November 14th

The countertops on this project were very unique and took a little longer to fabricate than originally expected. While we had the kitchen mostly complete and 100% functional just before Thanksgiving we did have to reorder the fridge panels. It took about 4 weeks to get them so the kitchen was 100% complete on December 19th. 

Chef’s Kitchen with Luxury Materials and Features

Materials and Fixtures Used 

• Fixtures
  • Kohler Tempered Farmhouse Workstation sink
  • Georgian Era Brass Faucet from Perrin and Rowe
  • Geoargian Bridge Faucet from Perrin and Rowe
  • Swing Arm Pot Filler from Perrin and Rowe
  • Precision Solitare Ceiling Lights from Visual Comfort
  • Arno Wall Sconces from Arhous

Before Photos

Final Project Photos

Final Thoughts

Project like this one with unique materials are always fun to work on. They are not without their challenges as high end fixtures and materials tend to have their quirks and you always want to take extra care in installing them. But the end result is well worth it and we couldn’t be happier with how this on turned out.