Kitchen Cabinets Part 2

 

Having retained our in-house carpenter, the kitchen cabinet building continued. Once all those boxes were built and in place, they were joined together and faced over with a lovely hardwood strip of wood to hide the join (we built the house of mostly fir, so I learned to appreciate those skinny strips of expensive hardwood!).

All this time we were taking any available surface we could for food prep. Here you see the top of the freezer being used for cinnamon-roll making. Note the sign: "All items must be cleared from this surface and surface cleaned after each use. Violaters will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law."  Unloading tools from the freezer access could delay dinner, and this was prime real estate so it had to be highly protected. It was hard keeping a surface clear anywhere in the house, as rare as they were! 

Once the sub-counter-top was installed, the surface was instantly useful as a tool-bench. 

Since we had a hiccup with the depth of the cabinets, some adjustments had to be made. Out came the sawz-all, and we once again proved that Good Design can solve problems. In order to accommodate the large sink, a bump-out was installed. I love it! The sink is a heavily used area, and I like that it isn't just in a line with the rest of the cabinets. Without having to do this bit of design work, we may have never thought of this idea. 

The Carpenter was then in charge of figuring out how to install the foot pedals and make them work with a regular sink faucet. 

I liked the idea of foot pedals (the idea was borrowed from medical facilities) because if you have dough, meat juice, or any other kitchen work on your hands you don't have to touch your faucet handle. We like to say that we were germaphobes before it was popular.

The bigger reason for the foot pedals was water conservation. From rinsing dishes off for the dishwasher to soaping up your hands, there is no reason to leave the water running. For some reason it is easier to remember to let up on the foot pedal than it is to remember to reach your hand over and stop the faucet temporarily. 

We could have gotten one of those "motion sensor" faucets, which would have been less of a headache to install. There were a couple counts against them: often the batteries were placed in an awkward spot, (and the idea of having to replace batteries in general was not favored), and we had heard reviews about the faucets malfunctioning (turning on when someone walks by, etc). 

Of course we chose the one option that took MOUNTAINS of work and research and phone calls and hardware store visits. And the one option that hardly anyone else was doing. Actually, it may have only been us and the guy on the Amazon review (thank you, Guy on the Amazon review, for putting in the details of your installation!).