Mark Mitten 0:02 Are you going to do it yourself food on your kitchen remodel, including the design? You better call Paul. Paul McAlary 0:17 Hello, Kevin, can you hear me? Kevin 0:19 Yeah, I can hear you. Paul McAlary 0:20 A great. Welcome the calls with Paul. I've got all your paperwork in front of me. So, first thing I just want to ask you, because I don't want to be too rough on you if it's if this is your work yourself. So with these architects and this is your design, or did this come from somebody else? Okay, so this is actually a coworker of mine. Kevin 0:43 And he, he's doing cabinetry on the side. And so basically, he just did me a favor by meeting with me on a couple of our breaks at work. Okay, and kind of firing up his laptop, and then I put in all binocular dimensions, and then he's helped me, you know, try to visualize what I'm trying to do here. So I can't say it's, it's not me. Paul McAlary 1:12 I've driven a lot of it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's just the reason I'm saying is, it's quite apparent from the plans, that the person that's doing the designs, doesn't really know what sizes, cabinetry normally comes in, or what you would want them to do. So he's, you know, he's doing this as a help to you to be able to show it to you in 3d, etc. But if you're really doing this part of the mantra in kitchen design, is it's all the same money. So however much money you're spending on this project, it's all from one pool. So were you to spend more money on cabinets, than you would have less money for construction. If you spent an inordinate amount of money on your appliances, you might have only enough money for IKEA cabinets or something horrible. So you have to. That's why kitchen designers do a lot more than just designing people's spaces, since we know how the cabinets are installed. And we know how the cabinets are priced out. And what makes them expensive and what makes them harder to install or what problems might arise. The designs that we come up with a very different than people would come up with who don't have any of that information. So for instance, by making cabinets 16 and 13 sixteenths inches wide, you're now making them the most expensive cabinets, everything in this kitchen is custom cabinetry. So if you are getting a white Shaker Cabinet, that would be silly. Because there's no reason this design needs to be in anything other than practically a stock cabinet line for if you're getting white shaker just because there's so many stock cabinet brands that really do white shaker extremely well. And equally as well made as custom cabinets. But if you were doing this kitchen in quarter sawn or a RIF cut oak, well, then you're only going to be able to get those kinds of cabinets in a custom cabinet brand. And then you might as well be making them any sizes that you want. Only because getting custom tablet brands It doesn't cost you anything. Were you thinking you wanted to get expensive cabinets or something very low jewel. No. And actually, thanks to you, I've I looked at your ratings and the cabinets and I looked through what was available here. And initially we started down the road procraft. Kevin 3:40 But I had sent a feeler into the Sabu website that we would. And luckily, there's a local kitchen cabinet company that is going to start carrying them in the Seattle area. And so she just contacted me out of the blue and said, Hey, I got contacted by Fabry wood that you might be interested. So what I wanted to do with you to kind of start off the bat was just to lay the groundwork a little bit because I'm not going to go custom. And I want to do Fabry wood. And I don't know if you've printed out, have you printed out maybe the first page. I've got everything printed out. So I'm looking at mansions and everything else. And by the way program does a good brand too. Paul McAlary 4:27 Yeah, yeah. procraft is just a West Coast brand. So you might want to price out the pro craft simply versus the FAB, you would simply because Fabula wood is shipping all the way from the east. It comes into in containers, at least as far as I know. Maybe they've spread out now because there's such a gigantic corporation that they may have containers now coming into the west coast. But up until at least recently, all their containers were coming into the East Coast, and Procrit Kevin 5:00 Have comes into Seattle. So pro could be a better buy simply because you're closer to the source. Now that the reason one of the reasons I liked the other word is I've seen the pro craft door. I've seen this Abbey Wood door, and we're just looking at the Galaxy frost shaker. And I wasn't really I wasn't loving the program, I felt like the Google plasticky and okay, and then I felt like the fabric would look a little bit less plasticky. Okay. Paul McAlary 5:34 Probably what I think is the nicest of these type of brands. So Kevin 5:42 I got a quote on the savvy word, and I can kind of run down. But it was it was higher than I thought it would be. Because I've heard some of the prices you've thrown out. And I know those are East Coast prices. But what I wanted to do was to just kind of have you I wanted to just real quick rundown the cabinetry that I think will work here. And you can just sort of line through the the cabinetry that you see on this page. Paul McAlary 6:13 So now if we could start with this stove when window wall, yeah, why don't we start that though? Why don't we just also talk about the fact that what you've got here is you've got two walls, and then an island. But I don't have any idea how big the room is, because these walls aren't connected to each other. So we don't know if you're leaving the proper distances between the cap the countertops between the island and the stove wall, and between the island and the refrigerator wall. And then, yeah, so I mean, you haven't measured the width of the room to be able to be able to tell you exactly how big your island could be. Kevin 6:56 Yes, okay. So the room is 100 basically 126 wide, if we're measuring that like that wall that the windows on, so the under the window, refrigerator wall. Paul McAlary 7:08 So from the refrigerator wall to the window wall is 198 inches. Okay, so 198 from the refrigerator wall to the sink wall. So 198 minus 26 minus 26. You should be good space wise for everything cabinetry wise. And then if you want to start with the stove wall, you can fire away. Okay, so for the uppers, I've got in by the way, that window that you see has been shrunk. Okay, which I don't love. The window that we have now is 59 inches wide. And the one that you see there is 44 inches wide, and that includes those wrapped around the window. No, that's just that's just measuring drywall to drywall on the inside of the window. And are you going to have trim on the outside of the window this is going to be no trim. Kevin 8:04 So I I'd like to start with no trim, but I want to leave enough room for trims I've planned out about three and a half inches around the window. That'll be available for trim down the room. If you're gonna have trim around the outside of a window. Paul McAlary 8:23 You don't drywall, the inside of the window, right? Okay, what you do is you use a wooden jamb that you want on the inside of the window and then the trim is wood. And the reason that you never drywall, the inside of a window if you're going to put trim around it is the seam that you're going to have between drywall in between the wood, it's going to expand and contract differently. And you'll never be able to nail into drywall. So it will constantly be opening up and it will never look good. So if you're going to use trim, the thing to do is, you know we put your window in, and then you put one by jams around it or whatever so that you can nail your window trim to the outside casing, it's old around the window to the window jamb and then that way everything is wood that you can caulk and then paint and then the seams will never open up. Kevin 9:22 Okay, so Paul McAlary 9:24 okay, that makes sense. So just you know, or if you want to drywall and not have any trim, then you just drywall, and then you put a corner bead, which can be square, or can be rounded nowadays around the perimeter of the window and then you just have the window and you have the drywall and you paint it and you do whatever you're going to do but you wouldn't you know That way you wouldn't have trim. So either you have trim and new drywall around the corner. Or if you're going to have trim, you just have the wooden casing trim on that over the jamb that's a wood on the side. Kevin 10:00 It's Gotcha. Okay. And then this, the standard size trim is two and a quarter for a standard sized rim and then three and a half or three and a quarter is the larger size. Let's just fire away. Okay, so the uppers on the window wall, I'm planning to do a one and a half inch filler, and then a 30 inch wide double door, then a 15 inch wide single door, then I had SPECT about three and a half inches of space until we got to the window, you know, whatever that looks like, then a 56 inch wide window, then another three and a half inches for trim or whatever, than a 15 inch cabinet. And then a one and a half inch filter. Paul McAlary 10:51 And that gets me to 126 total. So you left out the first 15, you're going to have that you're going to have 15 inch cabinets, right? Because that's the standard size that you're going to have. So the first cabinet that you have is you don't have a filler first, but then you have a 15 inch cabinet, then a 30 and a 15. Oh, if I said I meant to say it's a 30 inch benefit team. So there'll be three doors to the left and the window away on Kevin 11:24 the stove, the stove. You know, we didn't get there. The stove is going to be moved. It'll be an induction cooktop in the island. Oh, okay. Paul McAlary 11:35 So they're not gonna have any ventilation on this. Kevin 11:39 Yeah, I wanted to talk to you about that. I wanted to go through the ceiling for the ventilation either putting in a flush mounted, bent above the induction, or doing a drop down hood above the induction Paul McAlary 11:58 above the island. This is a very different version from the one that you sent me. Is your island staying the same size? Yes. Is induction cooktop going to be a 30 inch cooktop? Kevin 12:11 Well, I wanted to talk about that as well, because 30 inches seems pretty big. But I know that's kind of the standard. But it might be bigger than what we need. But I've kind of SPECT out the island as well, as far as you know what that might look like? Paul McAlary 12:31 Yeah, I mean, I mean, one thing is, is you're really doing a lot of this work. And you're having your friend help you. You're calling into us, which is good. But you're sort of avoiding any local help. Right? So well, I've been to a fad, this Abiword kitchen designer, binder her. Kevin 12:54 But she's about 45 minutes drive away. And it's been a little hectic for me. So I've been there twice, and we've run through. I don't know how to say it, but it's just, she's doing the best you can with what we're giving her. And we've been kind of all over the map on where the stoves going, where the fridge is going. Paul McAlary 13:16 What size the way they'll help you with. So and then really easily as you can't, you know, I wouldn't like if you came to me, if it wasn't a free podcast, we we want to come out and measure. Or we need to have the whole dimensions for the room. Like, I'm wondering, when you're giving me the width between the two walls, you have plenty of room for the island that you have. But why is the eye the length of the island, not longer? What's preventing it from getting longer. I guess there's a doorway, something on one side or Kevin 13:48 No, when I started, if you look at that schematic, top down to the left side, that's actually a wall that we're removing. And there's a tiny door to the if you look at closer to the stove, so that and wall number five, that's a little doorway and it goes to the dining room. And so there's a big wall, the wall just cuts off almost everything to the left of the island. So if you just imagine the number nine wall extending up, we're removing about 11 feet worth a wall. And then the dining room is to the left and the living room is to the right. Paul McAlary 14:28 So that it opens up to the dining room. Why wouldn't you just take out the whole wall, the number nine and number five walls connect to each other. Right now they do the number five wall is an exterior wall. Okay, that's an exterior wall so you can't, it comes out 39 inches and then you're going to take out everything from the 39 all the way down to the nine wall. The nine the nine is going to be left at 30 inches Kevin 14:57 for a couple of reasons but one We, Paul McAlary 15:02 we didn't want to, if you're in the sort of office, sort of formal sitting room, we didn't want to see cabinetry from that angle, we wanted to just see wall, I think you want to make it smaller. Because counter, I don't know what kind of refrigerator you're gonna get, let's say you got a counter depth refrigerator. If you got a counter depth refrigerator and you had a 30 inch wall, then the door to the refrigerator is going to be getting dented by the corner of the wall. Because it's going to open more than 90 degrees, all of this stuff is just so much more complicated than people realize that when you're the, when you're the conductor of this train, you're going to have lots of pitfalls along the way. So it's sort of what you're really looking to do is you really want to have have somebody put this whole thing on the computer. So you can sort of be seeing it in 3d, not elevations elevations are very dangerous, because you're not no one's thinking in three dimensions. So they're not realizing things like your refrigerator door is going to get dented on that wall. That there. Yeah, you know, generally what we want to do, ideally, is it's not bad to see a panel on the side of the refrigerator, you want molding to reach the ceiling. So if your ceilings are nine, eight feet high, you don't want to do what you have here, which is have an you want to usually have 36 inch high wall cabinets with a six inch molding, watching the ceiling or moldings. Okay, if you were doing it and fab, you would, and you were doing it in Galaxy frost, then you would usually have a six inch riser, and then a cove molding between the ceiling and the top that would close in the ceiling. So it wouldn't you know, you wouldn't have dust collecting there, it would look much more built in. And then the cabinet over your refrigerator could come all the way out to the face of the refrigerator. And you would generally add two panels on each side of the refrigerator. If you got rid of the whole nine wall. And then your refrigerator doors would open you know the full 135 or 150 degrees and they wouldn't hit anything. And the you would have much better access to the roof cabinet that was over the top of the refrigerator because it'd be coming out making the refrigerator really look built in instead of having a side of a refrigerator jutting out. Kevin 17:24 Okay, one of my problems is that that wall that the nine wall is load bearing. And so I've got a underneath there, I've got to appear at the end at both sides of that nine wall as let's say leaving, Paul McAlary 17:42 bearing and have it come out something short of two feet and have it come out of foot. And then what you would do is put a panel on the side of the refrigerator on the left side and on the right side of the refrigerator. So that your the refrigerator would be encased in matching cabinetry. And then the molding wrap around the refrigerator cabinet and come around and dye into the end of your number nine wall. Kevin 18:11 And that would be attractive look. So I would have about a 12 inch panel exposed to the left Paul McAlary 18:21 panel exposed that would be essentially, you know you buy a panel that's 24 inches deep, you could have a dye into the end of the nine inch wall just so that the seam essentially would be covered between the wall and the refrigerator. Or you could put the panel if you wanted to against the wall and then have it stick out I guess the thing about doing a panel against the wall that might be good. Is it then your your baseboard in your home could turn the corner on the nine inch wall and die into the side of the panel. Kevin 18:55 Yeah, yeah. Okay, that's a really good idea. And then I could I could work on that. Because I'm, I'm planning to do a lot of this DIY I've gotten a structural engineer to give me the specs on the beam. So I'm just trying to Paul McAlary 19:13 with this thicken out this whole wall the way you're taking it out. I think you've got plenty of room to make your island bigger. And especially if induction cooktop is going to go into this you know right now you only have your island the cabinetry in your island is 24 times three right 24 times 372 minus a 30 inch induction cooktop which is the standard small size induction cooktop which leaves your 42 inches and that will mean that you have to have really at least 12 inches on one side of this cooktop so that the handles of the pots and pans aren't sticking out into space. So the whole area you'll have to prep and work and everything else will be as essentially 30 inches plus the overhang that somebody might be sitting at. So yeah, if your island got bigger than you, you know, it would be a lot better for you because you'd have a lot more countertop to, you know, on either side of the cooktop that you could be working at. Okay, my worry there was, when I first started researching kitchen design, the first thing you see is this sort of golden triangle, you know, the triangle between the sink the stove and the fridge. Yeah, and having, you know, a straight line access. And that meant I was all worried about putting my island in the middle of it. So I thought, well, what if I just, you know, get, you know, a softer approach to the fridge from the stove and the scene by not taking the island all the way across? You know, that's my kitchen designers. That's why you want to be working with us, essentially, because there's always some problem that you're going to have an understanding the weight of the problem is the important thing. So in your case, no matter what you do, you're walking around a little bit around the island, you know, having an island be bigger and having more countertop to work at, I think Trump's whatever the triangle that you're trying to create, although that window that you have there, that's dictating where your sink essentially is going. I don't know that. It's not really even a better kitchen design. If your stove stays where you have it, and your sink moves into the island. First off, you'd have not a cooktop, but you'd have a freestanding range. And then you would have all the countertop to the right, that would be a work area, all around your cooktop. And then if your sink is in the island, now you don't need a hood coming down. For the ventilation, the grid that's in your ceiling is certainly the nicest looking because you don't have a hood coming down. But they don't really work so well. And they sort of get where they're pulling all the grease and everything when you're cooking. Although induction is a cleaner kind of cooking. But you know, if you are cooking greasy things, then the grease and everything else is only a fraction of its really being captured, those things in the ceiling are so far away that they're you know, they're helping get rid of get rid of odors and get rid of some of the grease, you know, a hood works much better, but then that thing would be coming down right in the middle of the room. And if your sink was in the eye, then you wouldn't have that problem at all. Not to mention that sink is in the island, that you're going to have 12 inch 24 inches accounted up, that you're going to be sitting at in back of either your cooked up or your sink. And if you're you have that countertop, and you're cooking, thankfully it's induction, but still the pans and stuff are hot, the surface of the induction isn't hot. So you're you got cooking things really close to you, when you're when you're sitting on the back of the island versus a sink, which is you know, certainly less problematic. Kevin 23:05 We're pretty married to the idea of the things in front of the window, it just feels right. And if I put the stove to the left of the window, then I have to shrink the window. And you know, living in Seattle, we really want to that looks out onto our backyard. And we really want to bring in more natural light or as much as we can. Mark Mitten 23:26 Well, Paul McAlary 23:28 you know, I don't know how much you're shrinking the window, but it's 59. Now it's 44. And that depiction, the one that you send me. Yeah, down to 44. Yeah, so you sinking it down, you're shrinking it down to 44. If you were to put trim around your windows, right, that would make this thing smaller to 42 and a half or so. Yeah. I mean, if you'd literally look, as a kitchen designer, almost everybody doesn't want a cooktop in the island. It's a very outdated thing. So if you're in our area, nobody Asian, Indian, ethnic, cooking wise, is going to buy your house if the cooktop is in the island, right, because they know they're using a wok, if they're cooking things that are greasy, if they're doing whatever they're doing, they know that that they're not capturing as much whatever the grease and everything else that's going around the room and they don't want their whole house to get sticky. Induction makes it better. It's just a less desirable thing, but doesn't mean that you can't pick in because it's your house, right? And you're gonna pick the problems that you're living with. But for us, we will be trying to avoid that if you think about it too. If your goal is to be looking out the window and to be capturing this view that you have, you'll be spending a lot more time in front of that window. If your sink isn't there, because you don't really wash dishes in the sink anymore. What you do is your work at With a cooktop is when you're preparing food. And you just watched up briefly and put it in the dishwasher. So if you did do your your sink in the island, then if your sink is in the island, you made the island a little bit longer, your dishwasher is going to be in the island, you'll be facing the people that are in at the island, the people at the island are facing the window. And then when you're at cooking at your stove, if you did the design the way you had it before, then you would be plumbed right in front of the window cooking and cutting and chopping and doing all the prep work before you put it on the stove. But just just for you to think about I mean, it just that's generally the thing you're trying to do. But there's no you know, there's not a right or wrong answer. It just that's the issue that you have, when you put the cooktop in the island, then if you're going to have good ventilation, now you have a big hood coming down. Kevin 25:54 Yeah, so it wouldn't look weird to have that much countertop. Because I've got the the stove basically about 15 inches from the left wall. And then I would just have a countertop to the right, with with two cabinets framing the window. Paul McAlary 26:14 Yet awkward looking. No, I think that looks it looks exactly like the thing in your picture. Only now instead of the dishwasher and the trash pull out. Those would migrate into your island. And then you'd have pots and pans drawers. Right. And, you know, maybe cutlery, drawers and cookie sheets and tray maybe to the left of the stove, the whole cooking area that you're going to have with with the stove would be would just be chock full of all the things that you need when you're cooking, your window is going to be bracketed by 15 inch cabinets on either side, your stove is going to be bracketed by 15 inch cabinets on either side, and then you'll have a less expensive or a simpler way to vent outside because your hood will be against the exterior wall. Kevin 26:58 Yeah, 100%. Paul McAlary 27:01 I mean, you can think about this. It's you make green ideas. Because you know, I got her, we're gonna sell this house at some point. And being in the Seattle area, there are lots of different cultures here. And I don't want to turn off half of my potential buying base by decisions I make. Yeah, but even like, even this style of the cabinets that you get to it's like I had a woman on our blog that was asking me for advice the other day, and she was really mad. You know, she has to be an expensive cabinet brand, because of the door style she's getting. And I said what door style are you getting? And she said, um, she's getting an arched door. And you know, then I just said to her, an arched door hasn't been popular for 30 years, or 25 years at least. And if you get an arch door, all this money that you spent on your kitchen, forget about the way the cooktop is that just some people just aren't going to like it, some people will like it, some people will like it better, but just generally it's going to be more appealing, probably the more people with the sink in the island, but if you get an arch door, nobody likes your kitchen other than you, you have to make that decision consciously. And and then when I said that, you know essentially made that point to her that nobody wants to hear that but you really have to hear it because it would be like a clothing designer, you know, letting you wear polka dot shirt and striped pants. Right? It's not telling you and not telling not they're not screaming at Hara, right? So the cooktop sake issue that's a minor, your who you have to make that decision on your own. The arch door thing is a crisis. No one wants your kit. So now you just spent 100 or 50, or however many 1000s of dollars. And you've got no buyers, the people that are going to buy your house are going to be ripping and ripping it out. You know even if she says it's our forever home. So she wants to do what she wants to do. It's like Can't you just live with a square door just don't have an arch, the bottom of the cabinets are arched. So you compromise a little bit. And now all of a sudden you can save $5,000 on cabinets because the fabulous or the pro kitchens, they're not going to have any arched doors because nobody buys it. If you're going to have a limited amount of course 1000 finishes, why would you ever do something that nobody wants? Unknown Speaker 29:18 Exactly. If we if we do the plan, like you're saying and this sort of sticks a little more, the wall cabinets being 15 inches versus 12 inches. You know this team's better. But 12 maybe gives me a little bit less of a feeling like I'm tunneling to my window. Well 15 inch candles really is not a good idea. plates, glasses, every all those things, spaghetti boxes, everything's made the fit into a 12. So you'd pay 25 or 30 or 40% more to make your cabinets 15 inches deep. And then if you put a plate in there, oh, I'm sorry, I didn't need to do Kevin 30:00 If I meant why, Oh, why? So yeah, we're looking at that that wall where we could just go 15 And then stove and then 15 window and 15. And I get away with, you know, there's a lot of symmetry there. And that's nice. Paul McAlary 30:15 Would you advise against going 1230 12? Window? 12? Yeah, I would go 15 because, okay, it's a framed cabinet. So the opening is only 12. So if it was a 12 inch cabinet, the opening would be only be nine. Nine is pretty small. A 15th is just big enough, so that a full dinner plate will fit right in the front of it, a 12 inch cabinet, dinner plate will fit in it. But even to get it into the cabinet, you have to turn it sort of sideways to slip it in. So you don't really want to do that. Okay. All your cabinets are like 15 or 18 inches deep. But that's just how the your friend did it. In reality, they'll wall cabinets will be twelves, right? Correct. Yeah. Kevin 31:04 Though, we'd have a 15 inch cabinet there as well. And then we would just go straight cabinetry base cabinets to the right on the lowers. Paul McAlary 31:14 And, okay, I don't think you need any filler, you don't really need any filler, you can put these cabinets right up against the wall, or at most, if you want, you can have a three quarter inch filler, you just take a filler and you turn it sideways. And that's three quarters of an inch. And you could just have three quarters of an inch and whatever you need, but you want the reveal to be the same on either side of the window. So however close you get to the window on the stove side, you want to put the filler big enough to bring that the other 15 on the other side of the window over so you leave yourself exactly the same distance from the window on both sides. Yeah, okay. All right. So looking at the products that probably sells am I buying a filler, or am I buying a panel and cutting it for the line, you're buying a filler, because it's going up against the wall. So the filler will be three inches wide. And you'll put the cabinetry in where you want to get them the right size away from the window. And then you'll just cut the fillers from three inches down to an inch, three quarters of an inch, whatever the distances that they have to be. Kevin 32:26 Gotcha. Okay. Perfect. Yeah. I mean, I think he sold me on this. I got to talk to my wife about it. But it looks like that's my job is to be a monkey wrench. So absolutely no. Paul McAlary 32:44 So that the island is essentially, now I've got a seven foot by four foot Island, essentially, you know, a little bit bigger, do the countertop and all that. And you maybe go eight, eight by four. Yeah, I mean, the thing about this now, too, is once you got the sink in the island and the stove on the wall, yeah, if something is not going to be in that triangle, it's not really such a big deal. If it's just the refrigerator, people go to the refrigerator all day long, and get stuff. When someone's cooking, they go to the refrigerator, but they take all this stuff out of the refrigerator, they turn around, they put it on the island, and then they walk around to the cooking side where they're cooking, I wouldn't really maybe have the island, come all the way down to the end of the refrigerator and make it a really big island or however I don't know, you don't want to make it too tight between the 39 inch wall and the island. And I think he should have enough room even if he came all the way down. I think he's still got 30 inches there, don't you? So that's all you really need. But like as far as a walkway. Kevin 33:47 I'm sitting kind of right by it. Let me just get a quick look. See? I'm thinking Paul McAlary 33:54 that would be very close to 36. So that's good all the way. Yeah, I would I would bring my island all the way down to have all the cabinetry. So to me even. Yeah, I think we would be right at 30 between 34 and 36. Yeah, that's fine. So then but you have way more than that you got the 48 inches, at least that you need between the countertop for the sink and the countertop for the refrigerator. And then yes, you put your your sink in the island and you're going to have a dishwasher on one side here and a double trash can pull out on another side of you probably ideally, you're going to put the dishwasher to the left of the sink. So that and that's just so that the dishwasher door isn't opening, you know straight across from the stone. And then your garbage can pull out maybe on the right side of the sink and then after the garbage call out. I think you still have enough room for one more cabinet. Maybe I make that old drawers. And so that cabinet has your cutlery in it. You know you get your knives, forks and spoons when you're setting the table or when people are sitting The Island and it's all on the end right near where people will be going accessible perfect All right, um we haven't even touched the more controversial wall which is the one with the slanty Yeah, that is the slant the wall is never perfectly 45 degrees. So because it's never 45 degrees, a lot of times the way I would maybe even do the bottom is you could do it you know you could do that cabinet that how did he How did they do it? Did they do it with no, you can't have a drawer in it obviously. But you know, if you did it with a just a cabinet, you just would have to cut that cabinet to whatever that angle was. And and you're going to need a filler to because these things aren't going to come out perfectly the way they are now. So but let's say that, let's say now that I've got that countertop that you helped create by the window and I just make this the complete storage wall top to bottom. Everything 24 inches deep. Kevin 36:10 all line up with the fridge and then I do away with that little bit of countertop. I was just looking for a place to put my toaster that's what that countertop is there for. But now I can put my toaster to the right of the window. And now I can just do away with this little because this to me this looks Paul McAlary 36:30 bad left of the fridge. Well the other thing is is you did it the way I wouldn't have done it. So you have the bottom cabinets and then the stacked wall cabinets. If I was going to do it this way. What I would have done is just have a big pantry cabinet to the left of the refrigerator. And then just have the base cabinets in the wall cabinets after it right. So then you get this big pantry cabinet that's two feet deep that goes floor to ceiling and makes your refrigerator look that much more built in. And then you have that little countertop, that's for your coffeemaker or for your toaster oven or whatever you want. Or if you want to go all the way across go all the way across you have lots of countertop so it's not a crisis but if you wanted a little countertop area to hide something like a coffeemaker or something like that, it wouldn't be bad. I just wouldn't do it with wall cabinets stacked up. I just do a Whole Pantry going floor to ceiling on the left side of the refrigerator. Unknown Speaker 37:28 Okay, Kevin 37:29 my plan assuming we don't do this but while I was thinking I would do 324 inch wide double door, floor to ceiling 24 inch deep 24 wide double door February wood cabinets, Paul McAlary 37:46 pantry cabinets. And the last one I would trim off the back left corner so I could sit in that angle. Well you got 89 inches or 88 inches so you got 88 And she's got a 36 inch fridge. So first we have to take away at least an inch for a panel on each side. That leaves you with 50 inches. So then you could do how if I'm doing 50 inches, how would I do 50 inches, maybe I would do 50 inches in fab you would as a 30 inch pantry. Everybody that's not a kitchen designer worries much more than we do as kitchen designers to make everything matchy matchy. If you've got a 30 inch pantry that's going to be a huge pantry and then you'll have room for eight an 18 inch pantry on the end which will be a little bit of a different width. But instead of having two pantries 24 inches each. The thing about a 24 inch pantry is the open it's going to be a double door pantry with two doors. The opening is going to be 21. If you got rollouts in it, the rollouts are going to be another two inches less. So a 24 inch pantry the interior of the rollout is 19 inches. So if you've got a 30 inch pantry then your rollouts would be 25 inches wide, it would be more functional and you'd only be ruining a smaller cabinet if you did it 30 and 18 but 2424 Everything would be symmetrical from the front. You know that doesn't bother me in the line drawings. It always looks worse than it does in real life. Because once everything's the same color, the fact that one door is a team and the other doors are fifteens doesn't really jump out at ya Kevin 39:34 know, I don't know that I can get that from travel would that 18 inch wide. Yep floor to ceiling. Yep Paul McAlary 39:43 18 and 30 they have 18 Stone teens and 30s and fifteens Okay, and 20 fours and it would be 18 inch single door 18 inch single door 30 inch double door and then actually is if you look at For some excuse for symmetry, then the doors over your refrigerator. It's all going to be in one plane now, right? If you're going to have these all be pantries, so the doors over the refrigerator are going to come out even with your pantries, those will be eight teens, then you'll have two fifteens for the pantry in the middle, and then you'll have 118 on the end. So you're sort of bracketing the 30 with eighteens. On either side. Mark Mitten 40:27 Yeah. Kevin 40:29 And then what does that leave me with? That leaves me? We figured 38 or 38? Plus? Um, 30, you have two inches? Yeah, the 36 plus the two inches is 38 plus 30. Plus 18. So we're at 6876 86. So you got Okay, so that's right before my Wallens, right. Yep. And then what would you do with the slanty part? Paul McAlary 41:04 The slanty part where you're going to debt? Yeah, you have to decide how you want to how you want to do this, the other thing that you could do is with the panels on the refrigerator, if your slanty part ends up working out really well, you could also have a three quarter inch thick panel on the right side of the refrigerator, and a one and a half inch panel on the left side of the refrigerator. If you just wanted to eat up a little bit more space, so that the last pillar that you're going to have at the very end will be a little bit smaller. Kevin 41:36 Well, I don't mind that. Because if I end at six, I can kind of wrap the corner of that pantry cabinet into the slanty. sort of wrap around with the molding. And then just finish it there. And then maybe do some open shelving on that. What's left of the little triangle and it's plenty Well, Mark Mitten 41:57 what do you mean? Paul McAlary 41:58 If I do I see you got the last little triangle. Oh, so you were gonna go on? Sorry. So you're gonna we're gonna go to 25. So the 88 was without the triangle? Oh, yes. If you're going to do it all with solid cabinets. I think what I would do in that case, I think I'd go back to that. Go back to what I said. I didn't like I go back to your 20 fours. I would then do it as three tall pantries, all 20 fours going across. And then you're just going to cut the back of the last one. Yes. Right. That will be the best and work the best. Okay. All right. I like it. Kevin 42:44 I can't thank you enough for going over this with me. I did have a few. I've listened to all your podcasts. And I had a few really listen to them. Paul McAlary 42:52 I wasn't all of them. And I had a few clarifying questions I wanted to ask you just for for myself. Let me let me just mention one thing, just that I noticed when we were looking at the design is on the back of your island, you only have a nine inch overhang on the picture for the countertop. And I just You always want to make the overhang 12 inches. And the reason you want to make the overhang 12 inches is That's how much people's legs really need. But it makes no sense that you're not saving yourself space. If you make the overhang nine to shallow a stool you'll be able to find is a saddle stool and that's still 12 inches deep. So even if you're gonna get overhang is only going to be nine and the stool sticks out to 12 You haven't really saved anything by making the overhang nine so just make the overhangs 12 On the back of your island. If you really want it to make it so that you gave yourself more space. Then make the wall cabinets shallower but always keep the overhang of foot because that's how big a stool is. Okay, that sounds good. But firewall yeah a couple questions for you. Kevin 44:08 You've talked about different cabinets like the like from fabric would they make a full height nine inch base cabinet single door for you know trays and muffin tins or cutting boards but I was curious so on the on a fabric would the three door the three drawer base cabinet. Paul McAlary 44:28 Do you have a favorite? You know he will just say this is my favorite whip on a three drawer on a three drawer really are usually we call them pots or the some cabinet companies name them pots and pans drawers. So when you're having a pots and pans drawer, I scream at the designers all the time. It makes no sense having them be less than 30 inches wide. Because the 30 inch wide drawers are 25 on the inside. And then At least you can fit like two pots side by side. But once you if you go like 24 inch wide drawer, now the inside is only 19, you're only going to fit one pot in it and then you know you'll have some extra space that's just wasted. So always, and the three drawer base, either 3033 or 36. My favorite would be 33. Because once they probably get to 36, that's sort of getting so wide, that when you're opening them, you're tending that you're going to tend to caulk the drawers a little bit, because you'll be pulling harder on one side than the other. Okay, now the four drawer I think I heard you say you like a 21 inch cutlery for drawer 18 is fine. 21 is fine. 15 is a little bit narrower. But 15 works. My wife doesn't like the way I designed our kitchen. She's insisting on using a 15 inch cabinet for cutlery instead of the 18 that I designed it with. But, but it still works. Yeah, if 18 or 21 is preferable. Kevin 46:06 Okay. All right. Paul McAlary 46:09 How about so if you're doing a single door full height is the nine inches enough to fit most your your stuff is that like a six and a half inch opening. It's a six and a half inch opening, it's a little bit narrower. Like with your stove, you could have it be a 15 inch. On the left hand side. If you wanted to do that, you know nines a little narrow, but a lot of times you're stuck. So when we're stuck, we'll just use the nines just because we're stuck with nine inches. Because we want the cookie sheets and trays and cutting boards, they'll work in a nine, it would have been nice to have them with 12. But if we made them 12 And it made your pots and pans drawers 27, then that wouldn't be worth it. Gotcha. That's not a good trade off. So the if I did a 15 inch for trays, would I'd want to eliminate the top drawer and make it a full height or going to keep the top drawer Well, trays actually it makes them more accessible by not having the drawer. But the reality is is almost all your trays and everything else will fit below the drawer. So you measure that drawer. And you could use that to where it would also be more attractive probably because then you'd be more symmetrical, you'd have a drawer on the left side of your stove and drawers on the right. And then you can order the cookie sheet and trade dividers in for the inside of that cabinet. Don't order that from fab you would, you can order that stuff online. They're like $10 of ECE for stainless steel tray dividers, and they just clip into a cabinet very simply, if you Google it, the company that makes them is Rev a shelf, ar e v a shelf, and it will come up on Amazon. We ordered them for customers all the time and order it from Amazon and have it shipped direct to them. Mark Mitten 47:59 Okay. Paul McAlary 48:03 At some point in my design here, I was putting this stove a wall oven next to a fridge. And I thought that's a bad idea. Because not only was it next to a fridge, but on the other side would have been a pantry cabinet. If you try to avoid putting wall on and next to food storage or next to a fridge. No, if you think about it, two things that we do or I do all the time, is do exactly the opposite of what you would sink where peep customers would think, is that they don't want to put a wall oven in a doorway. But the wall oven is the least used cabinet in the kitchen. So and if it's Thanksgiving and you're cooking the most detailed meal of your entire life, the door to the wall oven, because it's hot when you're using it is probably only down for a grand total of 60 seconds or 100 seconds. So we actually try to put wall ovens right next to Doorways because it opens up the doorway. So you know if it's Thanksgiving, you got 120 seconds of oven door being down. If you put a pantry there, people will be rooting through the pantry blocking the doorway all day and all night long. The same thing with the refrigerator. So that's sort of the one thing that's the opposite. And the other thing is is temperature thing that everybody worries about. So you know the outside around your oven is not that hot, right? Even when your ovens working. Maybe it's warm, right? But it's only While the oven is on. So really, in the summertime if you didn't turn your air conditioning on your whole house might be around here at least might be 85 degrees. Well, if it's the wintertime and your oven is on, I guarantee if you put a thermometer next to the oven cabinet, it's probably around 85 degrees. So it's not like it's 115 degrees next to the oven cabinet. That would be every time you went near the oven. You'd be practically burning yourself right? So the ovens Hold heat pretty well. So your refrigerator works a tiny, tiny, tiny bit harder. And I don't think if I was had my oven cabinet there, I would keep my wine next to the oven cabinet, that wouldn't be smart. Because your wine shouldn't be 85 degrees either. Keep your wine in your basement, but just general food and stuff for the few hours that the oven is on. If the outside of the ovens 85 degrees the inside of the cabinet next to it. Maybe it's 80. Right, so it's not that big. Okay, on one of the podcasts you mentioned, they were using a 24 inch sink bass in Nice. And I could be wrong, but I think you said you can use a 24 inch thing in the 24 inch sink bass undermounted. And it's actually better because you can sit it on the framing of the cabinet. Yeah, it'll never separate. Yeah, does that hold true? Along the whole? Like, can I put a 27 and a 27, or 30 and a 30? Yes, the lip on the all of these sinks tends to be about three quarters of an inch, right. So if your sink was 31, with including the lip, you couldn't get it in a 30. But if the sink, including the lip is the same size as a sink base, it all works. Okay, and I'm I'm going to be chipping out any of the top of the the framing of the cabinet deepest thing get in there, or should it just, I guess the only time that you would really have a problem if you're design for your kitchen, and they're not going to have this in your design anyway. But somebody had a design, if the seam for their quartz or granite countertop was right in the middle of the sink, that might be a little bit problematic. But barring that, you would never have to trim any of the cabinet because the flange on the sink is under a 16th of an inch thick. And so it's within the deviation that you're allowed between the cabinetry and countertops. And I guess over time it will settle in a little bit into into the cabinet essentially. Kevin 52:12 Okay. We were looking at doing an AMA he might have an opinion about this, but we were gonna go with the white Galaxy froth uppers. We were going to do the newest galaxy is the timber that would own thing. Have you seen the timber in person? Yeah, like we were gonna ask your opinion. Because, you know, I liked the look of the white uppers with the the timber lower. But I don't want to have I don't I don't want to turn prospective buyers off in the future about having a woodtone cabinet and not being a good brown or clashing with other things. I don't think the base missing either doing the timber in the base or the nickel on base, and then wanting to try to avoid a painted cabinet in the bottoms. Well, what would you do with your refrigerator wall? Because you'd have to pick one. Yeah, that would be one bird. Would you do the white? Paul McAlary 53:15 White? So yeah, so you either can do the bottoms that way. Or the other thing that you could do is you could do you know, white cabinets on the refrigerator, white cabinets on the stove side and timber for the island. That would be the more conservative way to do it. Right. To have two colors. Kevin 53:35 Yeah, and because our sink is not going to be on the island. You know, I'm worried about all the drips in the in the you know, it seems like the timber would handle all that better than a paint. Oh, infinitely. Yeah. Paul McAlary 53:49 But even with the white cabinets nowadays, I don't know. You know, around here, there's a whole industry that sprung up for furniture refinishers that touch up people's painted cabinets, because painted cabinets are very easily damaged with by water by chipping by scratching. The stained cabinets are much, much, much more durable. So now that timber could you you know if we wouldn't hold timber in the whole kitchen with white countertops. Kevin 54:21 You know, I've seen your kitchen and I liked it quite a bit. Paul McAlary 54:26 And you know which one that is? Yeah. Can you mentioned on the podcast? Oh, okay. It's a nice. It's a nice maple. Yeah, so, you know, that's a that's a good example of compromise. I mean, I probably wouldn't have picked that color. I'm definitely happy with it now, but my wife was never getting a painted cabinet. So she didn't want it. Okay, I didn't want a hood over my microwave hood over my stove. I wanted a mic right roar. We had to compromise on that. So it's a lot of compromise. But when it's all done, right, you know, I think it's fine. And now you know that to 10 year old kitchen, now the timber color and the natural colors are starting to come back was not popular when we did it. But it certainly was always going to have some longevity. Because natural or light colored woods are always going to, you know, have some popularity, just as white things will always have some popularity. Does timber fall in that category? Or is it too dark? It's a tiny, tiny, tiny bit darker than my cabinets, but not really very much. I like it. It's not just me. When we got the sample, everybody in the office said, Oh, that's nice. So we all thought it was nice if we did that, and we did sort of a white quartz with a little bit of grain brown veining in it. And then we did white molding, like a frost molding? On the crown molding on the cabinet's. Yes, I wouldn't do that I would make my crown molding the same color as my cabinets. Okay, okay, I'm just trying to think of a way that maybe I could could I like the I would do wood because it's more durable. Kevin 56:07 My wife is leaning more towards the painted, because it looks, you know, nice and fresh and engraved. Right. So the compromise would be doing the lowers, where there might get a little more banged around with the timber and OPERS in the payment. Yeah, I mean, you could do that too. Paul McAlary 56:26 But when you're doing the uppers in the painted, and if you would do in the refrigerator area in the painted, then you have the three OPERS and the cabinet over the stove, and the whole refrigerator wall and painted. Yeah, that's a nice thing to do, too. That's fine. Okay, and, you know, if we did timber everywhere, would I feel like I'd be turning off potential buyers, like, some people just wouldn't like that. Well, right now, it's definitely not that popular, but it's coming back fast. So who knows? I'd have to guess I have already guessed wrong. I never thought that white shaker cabinets would remain popular. Something like 60% of our sales are white shaker cabinets. That has been the case for almost 10 years. For 15 years, the most popular door style and finish has been a white Shaker Cabinet. So it's starting to people are starting to rebel against it. But it's taken way longer than I ever would have thought all of these cabinet companies to and they've suffered because of it American brands, because the Asian making the painted cabinets overseas is what you can do very effectively and inexpensively. It's the wood ones that are hard to do. And get the finishes right, they're actually starting to do it now in the West Coast is ship wood overseas to make cabinets and then ship it back. If you want to cherry kitchen, that everything the wood and the cabinets and everything is going to happen in the United States. Kevin 58:00 Would you say that under cabinet lighting is worth it? You know, I'm going to DIY the install would you install under cabinet lighting over by the window or since I'm by the window and just we've got an island Paul McAlary 58:16 you can install under cabinet lighting. I think people really like it. It's nice to have. The one thing is that I haven't really done the research. Because it's not what we really do. Most customers are getting under cabinet lighting and it's being installed by the electricians. But there are certainly now led portable lights that you have three UnderCabinet Lights, right. Yeah, you'd have you wouldn't even have to run an electric line. Probably if you had some kind of LED light. You might even be able to. Yeah, battery powered, you might even be able to operate it with some kind of control. Somebody's going to sell it. And I'll bet yeah, you get with the batteries and the LEDs. I wouldn't be surprised if you get 100 hours or something like that without having to change a battery. Or maybe I'm just talking out of the top of my head. Okay doesn't exist right now. It's certainly going to exist very shortly. And I wouldn't be surprised if nobody's undercabinet lighting is going to be actually wired in a few years from now. Kevin 59:29 Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, I'm going to I'm planning on installing this kitchen myself and I this whole concept of the two part molding on the top when I turn that baseboard, but the first molding upside down. What do I attach it to Paul McAlary 59:45 this, what do we really into? If you look at our blog, one of the blocks has a picture. You're going to have a block in back of the cabinet and then you're going to have another block that is in back of the frame of the cabinet. Then you're going to have like a fair ring strip that is the same thickness as the cabinet. And then you're going to have another block on the ceiling. The six inch piece is going to go from the front of the cabinet to the ceiling, it's going to get nailed into the lock that's on the ceiling. And then you would nail it into not the cabinet itself, you would overlap the front of the cabinet a little bit, but you'd nail it into the block that's in the corner on the top of the cabinet that usually people would put in with a screw from inside of the cabinet. They put like a two by three on top of their cabinet, then just put some screws on the top of the cabinet holding it in place. And then they put a fairing strip in front of it so that the blocking was even with the face of the cabinet. Kevin 1:00:42 Okay, and Paul McAlary 1:00:44 supply that I just I go get that myself, you go get that yourself. One of our blogs. I mean, one of our podcasts number 12. So if you go to podcast number 12 There's actually a picture of how the crown molding gets done. Okay, actually, the way you're gonna do it. Kevin 1:01:07 Okay, I'll look at that. My when I went to the kitchen cabinet designer, she was asking if I wanted to pony wall in the island for wiring. And I had never heard of that. But basically that's the wall between my 12 inch deep and my 24 inch feets. It's like a little gap, I guess. Unknown Speaker 1:01:29 Where I run whining is that yeah, I mean, who needs that? You have? You know? How old is she? You got? Um, I don't know, maybe Paul McAlary 1:01:40 my age? I don't want to think I saw ancient probably ancient like me, I'm 65 She would be between me and you somewhere? Okay. Well, I would say once I hear the word pony wall. That's a that's a term that's a little bit from from an older generation of designers usually. But don't, I would think you don't need it right, you have the cabinet's, you kind of have to have two outlets in your island, at least actually, you're going to maybe have one in the on the side, you're going to probably need to have depends on who the building inspectors are. But you're certainly going to probably need at least one on each side. Okay, but I just run the wall, I just run that wire up the side of the cabinet, and then put the outlet in the box on the side in your island. If you have like a drawer base on the end, then you can get a shallow box, and the shallow box doesn't hit the track on the drawer. So on the drum, even realize you have an outlet in that cabinet. And you don't see any wires or anything else. Okay. And if you're feeling doing all this for yourself, then if you're not going to run conduit for the wires, I would use like exterior Romex just so that that stuff is so heavy duty you couldn't you couldn't erase it. If you had like stuff in your drawers with like knives or things like that, that you wouldn't be able to cut through the the wiring. Unknown Speaker 1:03:13 Gotcha. Kevin 1:03:15 Okay. Let's see what else I got here. If you if you were doing a single basin sink, what what do you think is the minimum or what standard and you know, for my case, if I'm putting it in an eight by four Island, what size sink would you use? That's nice to have the sinks be big. If you want a really big sink. Yeah, you could actually get a 30 inch sink and your sink inside of your sink would be 27. That's maybe a good compliments. Mark Mitten 1:03:50 Okay, all right. Paul McAlary 1:03:53 But a little bit bigger than normal is sort of good. That way you can put like cookie sheets in trays. Once the sink is wider than 24 inches. You can put anything that you're going to have turkey based errs, cookie sheets, trays, all those things fit in the bottom of your sink without sticking out the top, you know, try to try to get at least put together wider than 24 the bowl wider than 24 so that that would be like a bowl that's like 27 would be perfect. I think then you wouldn't want it exactly 24 Because it tapers a little bit and everything else. So a 30 inch sink with the exterior with 30 We'll have a bowl that's 27 or 27 and a half or something like that. And and then it will fit in a 30 inch sink cabinet. Okay, even though the manufacturer tells you it doesn't. Unknown Speaker 1:04:47 Yeah. When you attach a dishwasher Do you prefer to attach it to the top or the sides of the cabinet? Well, they used to always be attached to the top but now everybody does it to the sides. They have like Paul McAlary 1:05:00 straps that go across, or there's, you know, ends on the dishwasher. The models come in different ways. But if you had, if you attached it to the top now, it wouldn't be attached to the countertop the way it used to be. Now there would be a strap coming across that it would get attached to, but I guess it would depend on the model. Kevin 1:05:19 Okay. And then one more just back to the, to the window wall. I think you mentioned that I wouldn't necessarily need to use fillers on the side there. I was planning on it just from what I've heard. Paul McAlary 1:05:38 What were your thinking there as far as being able to avoid a filler potentially, because I am definitely strapped for space there. Yeah, I mean, you don't have to have a filler. There's doorstops that you can buy. They're called hinge restrictors. They go inside the hinges that you'd have to you can Google that too. And you can buy a bunch, but they're called Blum hinge restrictors. They're little tiny pieces of plastic that stop your doors from opening past 88 degrees. So you wouldn't have a problem. If it's really tight for space, you can put the cabinet up against the wall, the wall will never be perfectly level. So one place the cabinet will be touching the wall. Maybe in the other place. It's a 16th of an inch away. You just caught the seam and then when you paint the walls, it gets painted, but you don't have to add fillers against the walls. But if it works out that you need them then it's to make them small. Kevin 1:06:33 Okay, okay, well, that's all I've got. I feel like Paul McAlary 1:06:37 you've talked your ear off. Yeah, I probably should go because I've been looking at my phone and I got a couple other calls to make. So yeah, we do stuff Kevin. So it was good talking to you. Thank you. Alright, take care. Bye bye. Alright, okay. Mark Mitten 1:06:52 Thank you for listening to the mainline kitchen design podcast with nationally claimed Kitchen Designer Paul maxillary. This podcast is brought to you by Brighton cabinetry, high quality custom cabinetry at competitive prices. For more on kitchen cabinets and kitchen design, go to www dot mainlined kitchen design.com Transcribed by https://otter.ai