Mark Mitten 0:04 Do you have an old codger as old as the hills? Or you know pulse age? And she's designing your kitchen based on outdated 20 year old concepts without modern design tools. You better call Paul. Paul McAlary 0:32 Hi, Emily, can you hear me? Emily 0:33 I can't thank you. Welcome. Paul McAlary 0:35 Better call Paul. We have all your plans and drawings that you sent. I usually ask people do you want me to comment on them? First to do you have specific questions you want to ask? Or where do you would you like to start? Emily 0:47 Both? Either would be good. So why don't we start with your expertise? Okay, Paul McAlary 0:53 the first thing is, is the cabinets that you're getting are says semi custom in the box that's checked, but they're pretty much very custom sizes, and have some very custom attributes. So you're into a pretty expensive cabinet brand to accomplish this design. Okay. And I don't know that some of the things that you're taking advantage of certainly if you wanted a quarter sawn white oak, which is one option I say that you were at least considering you would have to be in a brand like this. However, if you're getting white painted cabinets or any kind of painted finish, is that your first consideration is some kind of painted cabinet because it says it's so often label. So the usually that will be a painted cabinet. Emily 1:42 No, I'm going to do a stain, we're going to do a stain simply because I wanted to go with the lightest cabinets without painting them because of the damage our kids do that they Okay, Paul McAlary 1:54 so then the box that's checked, it says wood brown soft the maple, I don't think you would want soft maple kafirs. Cabinetry, if you were getting a stained cabinet, you'd want hard maple. So regular, soft, soft maple is the kind of wood that's usually only used when we're painting the cabinets. The features that make this need to be custom, some of which I don't think are actually making the kitchen attractive. They're actually making the cabinets 52 inches high, so that you have this riser on the top of the cabinet, an extended rail on top of the cabinets that makes it more convenient for carpenters to install your crown molding, but also it's a pretty expensive custom feature. But the doors to your cabinets are all 48 inches high. Because you're getting a full overlay door style. At least they are in the pictures, right? Emily 2:48 Yes. Oh really Paul McAlary 2:49 48 inch door like a lot of your doors are less than 12 inches wide, or many of your doors are only that wide. And that's a really narrow, really tall door. So yeah, generally when we design people's kitchens, the ideal width of a cabinet door that we're trying to design the kitchen for is 18 inches wide. And then even with 18 inch wide doors 48 inches high is really high. Probably if you were to look at nine at 10 kitchens, and you had cabinets that were 48 inches high, you would not have a door 48 inches high, you would have a 36 inch high door or a 33 inch high door with little doors on top. And the reason is you can't even reach the top of these, when your cabinets are 48 inches high. If you were to get a 36 inch cabinet and have a 12 inch cabinet on top, the top of the 36 inch cabinet would be reaching eight feet. So you're not reaching the top shelf on these cabinets without a ladder. So you know, because you're not reaching the top shelf of the cabinets without a ladder. Many people would make that top shelf, an individual door, and then maybe put glass doors in some of them so that they could display something because it's never going to really be that usable space. And certainly as you get older, you never should be getting on a ladder anyway, right? I mean, I'm 65 years old, you know, the days of me being on a ladder, reaching for things and everything else should be ending soon, only because it's just the recipe for problems, right? So you try to make things more accessible to you. At any rate, you're spending a lot of money to get these very unusual sizes that are also not so attractive. I mean, it's just a consideration that you could do this same design with smaller cabinets on top. And certainly if you didn't have this extra rail, you could be in this expensive cabinet brand that you have and it shouldn't cost you any more. You wouldn't be doing some of the other features that are Making it expensive. Okay, so that's just one consideration how you would correct that there's a bunch of different ways that you could design it to make it slightly different. The only thing that's really locking you in to the 12 inch wide doors on either side or 11, and a half inch wide doors on either side of the window, where the sink is, is that lift up appliance garage. What was the plan for that was the plan was were you going to put a microwave in that or it looks like Emily 5:32 we're trying to put a microwave somewhere we use it frequently. I don't want a microwave drawer. So it's either there or we have a little butler's pantry walkthrough. Okay. Paul McAlary 5:43 So, I mean, the one thing about a lift up door and a microwave inside it is, I don't think that this designer hasn't really thought it through. But there is no microwave that's going to fit into a 12 inch deep cabinet. Right. So you're going to have to have the cabinet has to be 18 inches deep, at least, usually to fit a microwave. So that's going to bump out all the cabinets, and it's going to be a problem. So usually, if you see a microwave, that's why it's not behind the door, on a cabinet, it's on a shelf. And that's so that you can see the controls and you can see the timer, and that the microwave can actually project out past the wall cabinets a little bit. So like even if you have 12 or 13 inch deep wall cabinets, layer 13. Here, you'll need a shelf, because the feet of the microwave come out to like 14 inches, and then the face of the microwave. For every microwave, you'll start looking at individual models of microwaves, you'll see they're all coming out like the face of the microwave is coming out like 18 inches, putting it behind the door is not as easy as this person thinks, what's your objections to a microwave drawer. Emily 6:56 I just don't feel like it's safe with kids around the house. I don't want to do like would Paul McAlary 7:03 it mean it's not safe with like a two year old probably. Yeah, toddlers, things like that. Because they could put something a toy, they have a locking feature where you can lock it. But kids are ingenious. So even a two year old figures things out. So if you have little little kids around, then they could put a toy truck or something in the microwave, turn it on. And then what would just happen is you might destroy your microwave. But maybe the pantry area is a better place for the microwave, or have a microwave shelf and then the microwave will be on display. And then it won't look as built in. But at least all your wall cabinets would all be in the same profile. But that microwave cabinet, if you did put the microwave there, that's sort of forcing that one cabinet on one side of the sink to be a 12 inch wide cabinet. Okay, Emily 7:57 so that's the problem is even if we forget the appliance cover list, we would have to still have a 12 inch wide cabinet next to it. No, Paul McAlary 8:08 you wouldn't, you would do everything in your power not to, in fact, you're going to have trouble finding a microwave the right width, because the width of the interior of the cabinet, I think it might be almost 30 inches wide. So that should be fine width wise, but then you have the depth issue. But once the microwave is out of there, you would divide it up differently. If you had 42 inch cabinets, maybe what we would do is we would do to 21 inch wide doors, right? Instead of 112. And then on the other side, you'd have another 21 inch wide door. And then when you're at your sink, all the doors when you're standing at the sink would be opening so that they were opening for you to have access to them. Like right now you have a double door on the right side of your sink. When you open those cabinets, you can't reach into it from when you're standing at the sink or on the side of the dishwasher. Because the door is opening and preventing you from doing that. So you have to step around it, your dishwasher can't be down, your dishwasher has to be up you have to step around to get into that cabinet. All of these things are trade offs. So you just really have to decide what the trade offs are that you would want. But I definitely think 21 inch wide doors with smaller cabinet doors on top would be much more attractive than all these very tall, very narrow doors. Maybe what I'll do is I'll send you a picture from one of our blogs of a 45 inch high door in that and you can sort of see that in real life when you're looking at these things that gigantic the size of these doors so that you know that's a couple of the general things and then Emily 9:54 if I could, that the microwave other option for it being me between the oven which is supposed to be on the far left, and then the pantry and then the refrigerator on that one wall, having the microwave in the middle, takes away pantry, like a full pantry. Paul McAlary 10:14 Having a microwave that you love what, Emily 10:17 in the middle of the like, I'm gonna call it the appliance wall. So I, our plan isn't up to date quite up to date, but it would be in between the refrigerator and oven, the single oven. Paul McAlary 10:31 Actually, your single oven is another problem that you have, you have a lot of issues with your designers not thinking some of these things through I think, like they don't know the depth of a microwave, apparently. And the single oven that you're getting is 42 inches off the floor. So if you think about it, how tall are you? Five, eight. So you're five, eight, so you're you're almost my height. But even at my height, I'm going to burn my arms when I open the oven doors. And then I want to reach into the oven to grab like a turkey or something like that, and a turkey pan at 42 inches by my elbows. That's how high my elbows are. So my elbows, I'll measure myself right now. And we'll say you're the same as me, my elbow when it's down is 41 and a half inches. So the door to your Europe, the bottom of your oven is not at 41 and a half the bottom of the oven is at 42. But when the oven door comes down, that means the bottom of the oven door, the scalding hot oven door is 44 inches, right. So when you try to reach into your oven to get something, it's going to be a big challenge, not burning your arms. So your oven has to come down, right so you can't have your oven in the location that it's in now. But you could also have two ovens, you could have a lower oven, and an upper oven that was your microwave, you could put your microwave above the oven, instead of in the pantry cabinet on the side. That's what most people would do. Emily 12:09 Well, I put it up there, I asked for it specifically to be at standing height, waist height, kind of because we have a double oven right now, we're not using the bottom oven. So I wanted to same placement as if there was a second oven below, but there isn't. So you recommend moving it down? Paul McAlary 12:26 Yeah, well, that's not 42. So if you measure the height, if you're I don't know if you're where your oven is now, but the other upper oven is probably 36. If you lower that oven down the 36, the microwave is not anywhere near as high as a full oven, right. So you could lower an end, if you got a regular microwave with a door opens from the side and doesn't open down. Right, if it was just a normal microwave, that only takes up like 18 inches, and that could be mounted at the same height of the refrigerator. And then that would move your lower oven down to 42. That would make your bottom oven 24 inches off the ground, which is pretty convenient. I mean, that's really what most people do, it's not a second oven, if it's a microwave and you could also move your microwave up to a little bit more than 54 inches, you could make the bottom of your microwave a tiny bit higher. I mean, that would be the better place I would think for the microwave. And then even the oven, up to 24 inches off the floor 36 is ideal, I guess so that when the oven door comes down, then it's just that countertop height, were actually a little bit more less than 36, like 34 would be when the oven doors down, you're right countertop height, which would probably be the most convenient. But we're only talking about lowering it eight inches below that so that you can get a microwave above. And then you have the best of both worlds really, right. You have a microwave oven controls are totally at your eye level. And you can reach up to get it and it can be an inexpensive microwave and it can look built in. Emily 14:11 Would you recommend a drop down handle for that if we do that microwave above there, because it's a crush on that Peninsula. Drop down a drop down handle on the microwave versus one that opens from the side? No, Paul McAlary 14:26 because if you do the drop down handle, you have the same problem you have as you're robbing, right, it's too high. So it has to be one that opens from the side, which if it's a drop down one it will be a speed oven too. So it will be a microwave a convection oven combined at least but once the door opens down, it has to be lower. I mean what you could do is you could put this I don't think that's a good idea either putting it below the other oven, you're better off having it be on top and having it be a door that opens from the side and you can even get Speed ovens where the door opens on the side, it's just that once the door opens down in a hopper like fashion, or whatever down, it's suddenly a $2,000. Rabbit. And it can't be a $200 oven and a $200 trim cake. I think that's a better use of the space, and it makes the microwave built in, and it's less expensive. And then 24 inches off the floor is not a problem at all, you got some other measurement things like it looks like they're leaving 71 inches from the floor to the top of the refrigerator. Because I guess maybe you pick the model that's exactly 72 inches. But you always want to leave a universal space so that if your refrigerator dies, you can get another refrigerator, or that if the refrigerator is leveled, and you have a little bit of play. So this the universal space that always, if you're getting a counter depth refrigerator that you're supposed to be leaving is 72 inches, you'd never leave 71 inches, even if you're getting custom cabinets, you leave 72 inches for the refrigerator, so that you have the ability to get different models to have the ability to level the refrigerator. Right never put 10 pounds of sausage in an eight pound wrapper. But also I would say to is, I don't know the wall that you have on the right side of the refrigerator is that that's there now. Yeah, it's there. Now, you'd have to explain to me why that would be necessary. Is there something in that wall that you think you need? Emily 16:40 Well, we don't know if it's got a beam in it or or what? Paul McAlary 16:45 Is there a closet there now or something or? No, it's just like a three inch wall. Yeah, I would think that it's not really doing anything now. And the reason that it's there is that's the old fashioned way to do a kitchen. And the problem with your refrigerator door is if that wall comes out 27 inches and you get a counter depth refrigerator, your refrigerator door is going to be hitting the edge of that wall and getting dented. What you could do is pull all of these cabinets forward, but you're still going to have another problem is when the cabinets are 27 inches deep. The profile on the molding that we picked, looks like it projects exactly three and an eighth inch, right. So the walls are 27 inches deep. And your molding projects three and an eighth inch, the edge of the molding is just going to be sticking out an eighth of an inch past the end of that wall. So you know, that's another I don't know that that's a crisis. But if you got rid of that wall, then you would be freeing up a bunch of space, so that you had a bigger space between the cabinetry on the sink side and the refrigerator. But also then the moldings could wrap around and die into the wall instead of having the refrigerator door be a problem because you can't really pull the box of the refrigerator forward. All because you know the wall is ending at 27 inches and you need your moldings to be diving into the sides of the wall. You follow that? Emily 18:23 Yeah, that sounds like a better idea with the molding wrapping around. Paul McAlary 18:27 Yeah, it will look better too. And then you'll be looking at the side of a cabinet instead of a wall, which will be a little bit nicer. And then also, they think if it's me, I probably might put the refrigerator in this in the oven, I might switch those two things. So the ovens and Emily 18:48 that's where we are now where we have it now. But because it just makes a walkway between the peninsula and the refrigerator, very narrow the end of the peninsula. Paul McAlary 18:58 Well right now your refrigerator might be much deeper, right? Emily 19:02 It's a full depth. That's right now and we are going to get a full depth refrigerator. Paul McAlary 19:08 Well that's a problem then Right? Because that's going to make the whole kitchen look terrible when you get the full depth of frigerator because your refrigerator side or your refrigerator is going to be sticking out six inches from all this expensive custom cabinetry. Okay, a full depth refrigerator is 30 inches the box is 30 inches deep. Your cabinetry is only coming out 24 inches, but you've got to spend all this money on custom cabinets and then have a refrigerator that sticks out the the black box side of the refrigerator sticks at six inches. And then the stainless steel front of the refrigerator or whatever you're doing with whatever kind of front you have on the refrigerator is sticking out an additional two or three inches. So that's nine inches of refrigerator projecting out. So I would tell you that in this design the way it is it really has to Be a counter depth refrigerator. Emily 20:02 Okay? All right, Paul McAlary 20:03 the only way the counter depth refrigerator would be, you'd have to recess the refrigerator into the wall in the back of it. And then I don't know what room is in the back of it, but then you'd have to pack out the wall on the other side. Emily 20:21 Okay, so Paul McAlary 20:23 you won't have this problem, too. Once you get rid of that wall on the side, and you brought the oven cabinet that's much narrower now than the oven cabinet that you probably have. Because the designer wisely in this case has made the oven cabinet 31 and a half inches wide, instead of 33, they could really make it 31 inches wide instead of 33. Then if you put the oven on the side, and you got a counter depth refrigerator, the refrigerator will be you know a little bit farther to the left than it is now. And since it won't be projecting so far, it would be okay. But it's still okay to leave it the way you have it, it's just means that when you're at your oven, that you have the refrigerator in between you and the stove, it's not really a crisis, if you like it with the refrigerator on that in, that's fine too, especially since your microwave is going there. So you can leave it that way. But I think you really want it to be a counter depth refrigerator. Emily 21:20 Okay, counted up. All right, then we need more refrigerator space. So we might have to do what people do, which is like, keep a second refrigerator in their garage. Paul McAlary 21:28 It's not that much different. By the way, the counter depth refrigerators, 20 to 23 cubic feet depends on the model that you're getting. And the full depth refrigerator, I guess you can find models that are really big that are 27, but most of them are only 25 and a half or 26. So it's not like it's a huge amount of difference in space, like a sub zero refrigerator is only 19 cubic feet of space. So a camera depth can be a bunch more. Most of the common counter depth refrigerators are 22 Something cubic feet of space. Other issues that I see the sink that's on the right side of your cooktop, that is creating a bunch of problems. So first of all, it's really making that workspace unusable on the right side of the cooktop. If you're going to actually work at the cooktop, you only really have the left side of the cooktop or you can skip over the sink and use the peninsula. But it's really convenient to be able to have two sides on either side of a cooktop. And then the other thing that that sink, when you put it there is doing is it's making the corner that you have open in the other direction underneath the countertop, right? So that you have to crawl underneath your countertop to get to that cabinet that's opening from the wrong side. If it was me, I would move my cooktop to the peninsula. So I had more workable space on either side of my oven. And then I could also have an easy reach or another Lazy Susan cabinet in the corner so that I could be accessing all the cabinets without having to crawl underneath the countertop. Emily 23:18 Okay, well, we were going to take FSA for that corner cabinet to fix sort of that having to crawl under, we're going to do like a built into shelf. So cut into it a little bit with that shelf on the other side, underneath and below the counter on the other side. That's going to do what, like three shelves, three built in Shelves. So take part of that. But you're sitting there, right? Yeah, but we end up using it for storage more. So we would give up a seat. But I would be fine with that. Paul McAlary 23:54 So you would have it come all the way out to the end. So you'd pull the cabinet forward to the end so you wouldn't sit there. Emily 24:03 Um, I was just thinking, No, I was gonna have it like recessed into the cabinet Paul McAlary 24:09 shelves, so recently in the shelves so that you could sit and still sit in front of them. Yeah, yeah. So I mean, again, the countertop has to overhang a foot for stools and stuff like that. So it's just harder to get underneath there. It's not really that usable space, and it's underneath the countertop, the countertop is projecting 12 inches, and also if you're going to have stools and and a how many stools that you would have, but a lot of times what people would do is maybe have two or if even if they had three stools, I don't know how many that you wanted, but really the most your fit is three. But if you had three stools, one would be in front of that tube. So you'd be pulling the stool out of the way to access that cabinet. So if it was me, I mean, I would just go back to making things simpler and having an easy reach or a folding door cabinet in the corner that the name of that type of cabinet is called an easy reach cabinet, because it makes it the easiest way to reach into that corner. So whether it's a lazy Susan, when that door folding door opens, or some other kind of cabinet, sometimes if you really want to get fancy, some people might make it some kind of fancy LeMans or magic corner where there's all kinds of interesting folding out things that come out of the cabinet, in which case, you'd make like another drawer base, maybe to the right of the cooktop, and then have the blind cabinet be a LeMans that would have to or magic corner that would have to pull out from that. But again, they'd all be accessible from the working side of the kitchen and not have a countertop that was in the way, then if you did all this, then your sink would go into the end of the peninsula, or you know, towards the end of the peninsula, you're always going to have this it says you've got a 15 inch overhang too. So when you have a 15 inch overhang that's that much farther that you have to go to get to the stuff that's underneath. And then the other thing I'd say is I tell my designers this all the time, or some of the older designers and even though I'm the old, the oldest person in the company, the knickknacks shelf that you have on the end of these cabinets, is sort of out of date. I mean, it's just a style thing, but it's not so popular anymore. Yeah, the fact that it's rounded is making it worse, it might be better if you made the doors 18 inches wide, if you had 18 inch wide doors, and we'd have to figure it out. But if you had a little bit more space, maybe what you could do is have like a floating shelf that wasn't rounded on the end. And even the rounded thing on the end, the I guess the way they're addressing it, they're just making them floating shelves that have a rounded thing on the end. And then the crown molding is coming around. But if the shells were a little bit longer, and they were square, at least it's a more contemporary kind of look, then rounded shells, but that again, that's just the style complaint. So like knickknacks shells. And you know, some of the other things that we did a lot 20 years ago, pretty much we don't do anymore. And then I guess the other area where the desk is, and what you're going to do over there. I mean, those are nice loading shells, you know, that desk area, that's going to be the office that somebody's going to use full time or is it going to be like a part time sometimes use desk area. Emily 27:42 It's mostly like an arts and crafts desk area. Paul McAlary 27:45 So it's arts and crafts for like the kids to be working. Yes, so I was just gonna say then the lower height is probably good if it's for kids. But the issue with when it's at the lower height, that countertop is not useful for serving off of or anything else. So a lot of times if it was adults that were going to be sitting there, we would make it regular kitchen countertop height. And then that way, if you weren't using it as a desk, you just have a stool that would be a little bit higher six inches higher than desk height. And when you weren't using it as a desk, you could serve off of it, you could put food out, it will be a much more usable thing for your kitchen than when it's at a lower high desk area. It's really too low to be serving off of and but it makes it more convenient to work at but an adult probably wouldn't usually sit at it, they might if they were going to work on a computer or something like that, grab their stuff, and then plop down on the peninsula and sit there first before they might sit at the desk. Even though they have a window in front of them. They might want to be in the kitchen. But if it's going to be kids depends on how old they are. But stools and chairs have adjustable height. So it depends really little, the lower high desk areas is going to be better for them. But once they get to be teenagers, or you know above 10 or so yourself, it's not gonna be a big problem for them if it's a stool height. Emily 29:17 Okay, say we move it to the higher countertop of the regular countertop height. Even though it's a walkway, it would still be useful to have it as a serving area. Like Paul McAlary 29:29 where is this in relation to the kitchen? Emily 29:33 Okay, there's a big kitchen area. This is like a connecting hallway or walkway into the dining room. Paul McAlary 29:39 Oh yeah. So then it's totally perfect, right? The good thing is, is let's say you are having a big party in your dining room. Well then you can be putting food out on the peninsula possibly. You could be putting wine or glasses and things like that on the countertop going into the dining room. If it's on the way to the dining room, it's really more of a butler's pantry than a desk area, right. And if it's going to be an arts and crafts area, too, once you make it the higher height, you could add another refrigerator. On one side. It's really big. Like right now the drawers that they have in the middle, are really leaving a big space. So were you thinking that two kids would sit side by side there? Or was it still going to be one? Emily 30:28 Yeah, I was thinking too. Paul McAlary 30:29 So let's see. So that's 48 inches. So 48. So two little kids could sit there, but it's a little even tight for them, because you're only giving them I guess, 24. Giving them it looks like 24 inches each. So you can take a tape measure and put 24 inches and 24 inches and it's totally doable. But as people get bigger, it's really becomes a one person area, it doesn't quite make it as a two person area unless you sort of divide it up a little bit in some way. But if you were to commit to a one person area, well now if you do raise it up to 34 and a half, then you're going to be able to have a wine refrigerator or something like that below the countertop because now you're at the higher height. And the good thing is, is if you're in custom cabinetry, you can still have the file drawer thing. And the other things and the drawers underneath the countertop and everything underneath for the desk area, you could have still have all of those things because you're in custom cabinets. But since you're at the higher height, you'll just be able to get another you know, beverage refrigerator or something out of it if you want it. Great. I guess the only other thing I'd say is, and this is again, personal preference. Less and less people do trash compactors nowadays, okay, a lot of times what people would do, instead, you want your dishwasher on one side of your sink, you want your trash on the other side of the sink. But most of the time people might have a trash can or pull out trash can, with recycling in back of it on their left side, people want to get rid of trash as fast as they can. The recycling the trash compactor works really well for paper products and stuff like that, because it you know, keeps on compressing them and everything. But you don't want to really put regular garbage in it because it's going to get all stinky. That's sort of why more people use a pull out trash can with recycling and back of it. They can empty the trash can out however often they want. If you got you wanted smaller ones, 35 Quart trash cans, you'd have a drawer on the top over your trash can. Or if you wanted it to be bigger, you need a 21 inch wide cabinet. But then you'd have 250 court trash cans one for trash, and then the recycling and back of it. And they'd be a soft close mechanism. Emily 32:54 Use it as both trash if we wanted. Right. Would you say? Paul McAlary 32:59 Oh yeah, he's both treasurer. You could use them as both track if you wanted to. Emily 33:05 Okay, great. Paul McAlary 33:06 Yeah, I mean, and not only that, that the trash compactor too, is an expensive appliance. And it again, it's just, it's just something that like Knick Knack shells and a trash compactor. We're in every expensive kitchen that anybody designed 20 years ago. Nowadays, those those two things are just like, can I ask, Is your designer? My age like 65? Yeah, yeah. So it's a she would say, hey, well, I guess I'm on my younger 65. So, or at least a little bit more up with trends and stuff. But this would be something that all of us would have been doing 20 years ago, that doesn't really happen that much anymore. Unless our customers are our age. And if our customers are our age, sometimes they get these things too but you're not you're younger. So you know, younger people are going to like the convenience of the trash thing. And then that you don't also don't have a an expensive trash compactor that when it breaks, you got a problem you're going to have to get a carpenter in and then I have to reinstall the whole thing. Emily 34:18 Yeah, that's true. Paul McAlary 34:21 Okay, and then if you got a bigger trash compactor, if you really wanted bigger doors, then the drawers that you have on the side, over on that left hand side too are going to get bigger because maybe you have wider drawers and then just a wider cabinet. Emily 34:36 Oh, that's true, that would be beneficial. Paul McAlary 34:38 So then you also have just noticing one other thing that I didn't notice before that in between your dishwasher and your lazy susan cabinet. You have a very narrow cabinet that is either a pullout or It's gonna be cookie sheets and trays or something like that. It looks like it's five and three quarters inches wide. So yeah, Emily 35:10 we had that. I did that because we have one there now, and I. And it worked. We actually didn't discover it for like 10 years. And now that we have it, we're so excited to have a tree storage. But sorry about the background noise. You you recommend just omitting it? Paul McAlary 35:33 Well, the problem with it is in the picture, you see how in the picture, it's a like a frame door like a Shaker Door. Right? And if your thought was it was going to be on a hinge, and you're going to open it and then have it like a narrow place for some trays or something. Yeah, well, the problem is, is that nobody's thought through the fact that the way the hinges work, the side of the frame of the door has to be two inches wide. Right? That's so that the cup that the hinge goes into, is wide enough to fit the hinge. And that means that the middle part of this door that it's drawn in the picture, because this is done, you know, in an old fashioned way, it's drawn into the picture like, you're going to have this middle panel that's the same width as the it's called the the styles, but the frame of the cabinet has to be the same width as the EQ will accommodate the smallest change, which is really two and a quarter. So we're two inches at absolute minimum. So because you got a two inch minimum, the middle panel on this cabinet is only going to would only be three quarters of an inch wide or something like that, right or, or if you made it to four, it's really two and a quarter in the cabinet is five and three quarters. And then there's actually a half inch on each side that you're losing the middle recessed panel in the middle of your door is going to be only three quarters of an inch wide, which will look really silly. Right? So what will happen is if you have this cabinet now, probably the reason you didn't discover it, it's just a solid wood panel. Is that what it is? Yeah. So it has to, it's going to end up being a solid wood panel again, even though it looks like it's not in the picture. Emily 37:24 Okay, Paul McAlary 37:26 it's not that I don't like it, it's that it's misleading, that it's making you think you're gonna have a cabinet that looks like all the other cabinets when it's just going to look like an overlay filler. So what you wanted to do with that, you could depends on the sink that you're getting, when you're picking out your sink cabinet right now it looks like it's 36 inches wide. If you wanted to get a large single bowl sink, most large single sinks actually fit in a 33 inch wide sink cabinet. Even though the sink manufacturer tells you, it needs a 36 inch cabinet. You know, as kitchen designers, we push the envelope on this issue all the time. So if you did make your sink a 33 inch sink cabinet, instead of a 36 inch cabinet, you pick up another inch and a half. And so that little cabinet that you have on the side, instead of being five and three quarters would be seven something. And now you really couldn't have it be recessed in the middle, that would probably be a good solution to that. Emily 38:34 Yeah, that's a lot of stuff for you to absorb. But it is a very important thing. So and Paul McAlary 38:41 I will tell you the biggest of all of these things, is I'll send you that the picture of the 45 inch high doors, but really almost all kitchens that people would like, cut and paste on Pinterest or on house or something like that, where they're where the ceiling is 108 like your ceiling. Almost all of these kitchens all have the little glass doors or the little doors on top, that you're not going to go all the way to the ceiling, because it just looks funny. Emily 39:15 Yeah, we got until it's funny. Okay, Paul McAlary 39:18 so I'll send you the picture and you decide if it's going to look funny, but that's also the one thing about these two is you don't really have 3d renderings of this. So this kitchen designer that's doing this, they don't use 2020 or any kind of kitchen design software. Okay, so I guess they're really so I mean, they're talking. Well, I'll ask him, so probably not. He probably doesn't know how to use the software or I mean, this is really old school. So I mean, I'm 65 years old, but for 30 years, we've all been using the kitchen design software that everybody uses is today. So it's really the only the people that started before 30 years ago that did these kinds of drawings, the rest of us are using the kitchen software for two reasons. One reason is that it's so much faster and you can make changes so quickly. And the biggest thing is, is we can show you what your kitchen is going to look like in 3d. That way, when you're doing the doors, I can show you in 3d a picture of your kitchen, and you can go oh, gee, the doors really do look really tall and narrow. And the other thing too, is, when you're doing kitchens like this by hand, and you don't have the software, it almost draws everybody into custom cabinets, because now you're doing all these things in unusual sizes and everything else. When you're using the software that most kitchen designers use, we're actually designing it in the catalogues of the cabinet companies, so that when we're designing somebody's kitchen, its pricing it out at the same time that they're seeing it. So we can tell you exactly don't have to wait two weeks to get back to you with how much the kitchen is going to cost. We click a button and we tell you how much the kitchen is going to cost us. And then we can design it in sizes that aren't custom. So that we can sort of better regulate what kinds of sizes you're getting and everything else. So it just sort of an antiquated way to work on kitchens is to have you know not have the software that will kitchen designers use. That's, you know, I know I'm being mean, everybody's doesn't need custom cabinets. Some people need custom cabinets to get the things that they want. I mean, if you want to light maple kitchen, you don't have to be in custom cabinets at all, you could be in a less expensive brand. And you don't need a lot of these unusual sizes and everything else that are being created, you can be in a more standard cabinet brand, and saving a lot of money. Emily 41:59 Okay, okay. All right, well, I'll keep looking around what I can, for Paul McAlary 42:03 whatever it's worth. I mean, there's there'll be lots and lots of cabinet brands. So I don't know if you've got, where are you located? Again, you're in? Emily 42:12 Ohio, Cincinnati, you're in Ohio. Paul McAlary 42:13 So I don't think Ohio is that much different in price than Pennsylvania. So like I'm looking at your kitchen and your desk area. And in custom cabinets. You might be something like $40,000 in custom cabinets for a relatively reasonable custom cabinet brand. And there's no limit, you can keep on going up from there. Emily 42:40 I can't get anybody Pat like lower than 80,000. Maybe for Paul McAlary 42:45 the cabinets alone, or the cabinets alone. I think you're really maybe want to find another. I'm sure they didn't release all these drawings without you giving them a big deposit, right? Emily 42:57 Um, no, I haven't, I haven't had to give them a big deposit. They're willing to work with me. Most cabinet brands and most designers won't do to me anything less than 1000. On average. Paul McAlary 43:09 I mean, $80,000 is really a lot of money. For this kitchen. It's not that big. It's not that big a kitchen. So I mean, even in the most expensive custom brand that we carry, you still not up to 80, you're still probably in the in the 60s. I mean part of this is also that they're doing stuff like that making that the top of the cabinet, the rail that's on top of the cabinet five, and there's much higher height, that's sort of an expensive thing to do. There's some other expensive things that they're doing. But that's a really expensive kitchen. And you could take this kitchen, and there's going to be tons of dealers that are going to sell cabinet brands like KraftMaid or you know, a cap that brand that's more middle of the road. And you could sort of get somebody to do it in one of those kinds of brands, and maybe with a little cabinets on top, even at a home center and get a price for like a KraftMaid kitchen. Or if you go to Lowe's Lowe's sells Schuler Schuler is a higher price brand that will do these toll doors to Schuler is the same thing as medallion. It's a brand that's just below custom. But if you did it in Schuler, it might be closer to a $40,000 kitchen or something like that. You know, I don't know that you're gonna be able to tell. It depends on the stain and the door and everything else. You know, 40,080 $1,000 is a lot of money. It is. There will be cabinets that you will have a hard time differentiating between Schuler at Lowe's. Although I don't know that the designer is going to be that great at Lowe's, that will be the problem. But at least you can sort of Get pricing to sort of know what you're looking at. And then if you find a cabinet dealer that sells custom cabinets, and semi custom cabinets like medallion, or fieldstone, or star Mark or other brands that have a light maple finish, I mean, all of those brands are not going to look very different, and gonna be way less expensive. Okay, just as well made, by the way, it's not a construction thing. We have inexpensive brands that would be $30,000 or less, that are still well constructed. Emily 45:35 That's good. Yeah, I Paul McAlary 45:37 mean quality of construction. That's not what you pay for, what you're paying for, is the ability to do unusual sizes. And that's what you're taking advantage of in this design, with this riser on the rail on the top of the cabinet, and wall cabinets that are unusually tall, 48 inches high with this riser and everything else. But it's also making the cabinet's much more expensive. Even in a custom cabinet company, it's costing you 1000s of dollars to take advantage of that. And I don't think it makes the kitchen look better, it actually makes the kitchen look worse, it will be nicer to have the little doors on top and have wider doors. I agree. But yeah, so a lot to think about. And maybe what you can do is sort of like shop around a little bit and maybe get to see the kitchens at some place done in 3d. So you can sort of understand what you're sort of like a little bit better. And then you can always call in again. And we can take a look at what you got and how it's changed and what you think Emily 46:33 would be great. Yeah, I would like to have, if I could, after I've looked around again, and maybe review it with you guys or Yeah, Alan Howard, do consults with some sort. Another console. Paul McAlary 46:47 Yeah, maybe what I'll do too, is I'm gonna send you the drawings for just the 45 inch doors, and I'll print out a copy of your floor plan. And I'm very messy, I will hand drew up because it's just so much faster, just hand drawn like a different wall cabinet sizes in and base cabinet sizes in so that you can sort of see one way to do it that's a little bit different with locating the sink in a little bit of a different place. And you can sort of get a better understanding of how it could be laid out. Okay, great. I love to see that. Okay, what's it going to be sloppy because it's going to be from the top when I send you the link, or maybe I'll send you another link to cabinets that are a 36 inch cabinet with 12 inch cabinet with glass doors on top. So you can sort of see what that kind of looks like. Emily 47:39 Okay, Paul McAlary 47:40 so Okay, good talk in the mid which said, Bobby Emily 47:45 is fine with me it will take Paul McAlary 47:49 Alright, so no problem and I'll send you that stuff. Emily 47:54 All right, looks forward to it. Thanks. Bye. Bye. Thank you for Mark Mitten 47:58 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 mainline kitchen design.com Transcribed by https://otter.ai