Mark Mitten 0:05 Are you a trained engineer? Who's getting a new kitchen? Have you done all the calculations? Well, you better call Paul. Shazia 0:18 Shots. Yes. Can you hear me? I can hear you. Hi, Paul, how are you? Paul McAlary 0:22 Good, nice to speak with you again. Welcome to better call, Paul. anybody listening to get us up to speed you were told in a week, a couple of weeks ago. And we had I had looked at your measurements and everything else. And we talked, and then you got your design, put on to a computer. So now that we can look at the renderings, and then give you maybe some more advice and get you to the next step from where your work before everybody's up to speed. I mean, I notice that the designer that did this didn't put the table in, you know, it's difficult to know exactly how much room again, we're leaving for the table, but we thought you had enough space in the version that you had before. In the design you sent me. I guess they're not going to use that note for anything that yeah, that whatever you're going to use for the wine area or whatever. Or I didn't see any can No, Speaker 2 1:31 can you me in that little corner? There? Yeah, I don't know what really to put there. I think for now I've left it empty and add some for like, you know, a console or something if we need for entertaining, but day to day? I don't know, I think we don't need anything there. Unless I'm missing something in the kitchen at this point. Paul McAlary 1:54 Okay. Do you have anything you want us you want to discuss first, or you want me to sort of look at it until you give you some critique on it, or things that I might do differently? Speaker 2 2:06 Yeah, I'd love to hear your feedback. First, I think I've been staring at this for too long, I've definitely learned how important it is to have a kitchen designer, because after talking to a few weeks ago, Paul, just to let folks know who are listening. I mean, my design did not look like this until after the conversation with you. And I was quite proud of myself and thought, Okay, I'm coming in with something good, but after your original feedback, and helped me to see that the expertise of a kitchen designer is really helpful, versus you know, just an idea that I might have in my mind as a homeowner. So I'd love again, to start today with your feedback, it was really helpful last time, and I'd love on this iteration to just start there. Paul McAlary 2:46 Okay, so thank you that, you know, you're, you're it's very helpful to us that as a kitchen designer, having somebody say that, especially but having said and recorded, it makes me very happy. Because it's the never ending battle that we have. My quote on the topic is just by you wouldn't cut your own hair, especially if you're getting married or something like that you go to professional hairstylist, you wouldn't just start working on your car engine, you would know that you would need a professional to do those things. So when you're spending all this money on this expensive kitchen renovation, it just so frustrating for kitchen designers that most people really come into it thinking that we don't really bring anything to the table, anything that can be thought of, they will think of it themselves by examining the space. And of course, it takes a really long time for us to get good at our job. So even the people that do it professionally, if they're not very talented and haven't been doing it for very long. You don't get good until a lot of stuff happens. And you also have to make mistakes so that you make the mistakes and then you find out what the mistake was and you learn from it and then you don't make it again and it's a long process at any rate thanks. I think that so that everybody could hear it's the first time I think on the podcast at least anybody's ever said that. Speaker 2 4:09 Oh, well I'm coming you know we're having our second conversation. I'll just add to that to me. I definitely slept better after her conversation let me say because running is so stressful. But just that one tip that you gave about the window, you know that long window we had in the corner and saying just make it shorter really was a game changer for our kitchen and really helps to I think it's the best design for the space because we do have a blank slate but I still thought blank slate meant we had to keep the window as is and that was making our kitchen smaller versus now we're really working the full you know, 23 foot by 30 foot kitchen to make okay, we've got this space. Now what do we do? Paul McAlary 4:53 So now we've got a kitchen that totally works and the layout is good. We don't have the table in the picture. If you work for me, one of my biggest pet peeves with the designers that work for me is they don't put the table in the picture. So go back to your designer, and you know what if they you'll be doing them a favor, it's sort of a pain in the neck and hard for the designers to learn how to put tables in the pictures, because the software got changed recently. And they made it more complicated to you can't just grab tables off the software, you have to go onto the internet to grab tables. And most of the internet tables are terrible, and they don't look good. And but there'll be doing every one of their customers going forward a favor by putting tables in the picture, because you can't really appreciate how tight it's going to be, or what it's really going without the furniture that you're going to be putting in. So the next time you go back to whoever did this, which they did a fine job, sort of just say, Listen, before I come in, could you put the table with chairs around it? So we can just sort of judge and understand and be able to click and say how much distance do I have? From my table to the countertop? On my island? How much distance do I have, like we talked about, if you put your table up against the wall to the left, that that would give you a ton of space for five people, right? So then and they could put the table in different locations. So you can sort of experiment with this and say, You know what, I'm okay being tight seating, six, but I think maybe I'll do what Paul said. And on a daily basis, I push my rectangular table up against the wall. So it comfortably sits five and limits leaves me a really big corridor to walk in and out of the workspace. But it's good to have it on the on the plan. So that would be my first advice, just to help everybody, including the kitchen designer that's doing it make good decisions is put the stuff that's really important into the picture. Okay, then beyond that, the basic plan I like, but you have some issues, the first issue is just that with the refrigerator, up against the wall, it's not a crisis, the refrigerator door is going to open only 90 degrees on the right, that's not a problem, your vegetable drawer on the right hand side won't be able to fully open. When you're cleaning the refrigerator, you're going to have to pull the left vegetable drawer out probably and sort of disassemble the refrigerator a little bit to clean it. But certainly, if you're if you could afford to lose a little bit of countertop, you could put a pantry on the right side of the refrigerator. And then your refrigerator door would open across the pantry and open 180 degrees, or I guess most of them open about 150 degrees or 45 degrees so that you'd be able to open the refrigerator all the way and really access it better. And it would also make the refrigerator look more built in. I think you want to do a 15 inch pantry at least so you'll lose the countertop. Speaker 2 8:09 Okay, and if we what would be the minimum amount of space you would put there. Paul McAlary 8:16 The minimum amount of space to Speaker 2 8:19 on the right side of the fridge just like so you're saying we could do a 15 inch pantry. But let's say we do a filler or something. Yeah, everybody thinks inches Paul McAlary 8:31 doesn't help you. Even if you figure out the mathematics, no filler allows it to open 90 degrees, a four inch pillar will allow it to open 94 degrees, right. So it's doing you really need this thing. You need it to really be able to open all the way and to open all the way you literally need 16 inches or something like that, or almost each one of these doors on your refrigerator is 18 inches wide. So you almost need the full 18 inches you don't need the full 18 Because a 15 inch pantry is actually going to probably have a little tiny sliver of filler on the side it will be 16 inches and the door doesn't open quite 180 degrees. But you really need a 15 inch pantry to really get the refrigerator door opened as far as it should be. So the little filters don't really help you. If you made it six inches or seven inches or something like that, it still wouldn't help you very much but it would be horrible looking. Because it'll be too wide. Okay, what you can do too is if you can get a French door refrigerator, but you can never get a side by side because side by side refrigerator. Each refrigerator door is so much the frigerator and the freezer door are so much narrower. That you need the door to Oh open all the way otherwise you can't get stuck in it. So the worst case scenario would be somebody that has a refrigerator and a freezer and they put their eight against the wall in the freezer on the left hand side, then that door opens. And then the side of the freezer door actually has racks and things sticking out. They can't even get a loaf of bread in their refrigerator, there's not enough room. I mean, in their freezer, sorry, because the freezer is the left hand side, a refrigerator side is a little bit better, but it's still arrow. But a French door is okay, because the whole compartment up above is all open for refrigeration. So you'll open one door all the way and the other door will only open 90 degrees. If you didn't do the the pantry on the side. But if it's me, it also makes it look a ton better. So I put the pantry on the side of 15 inch pantry, move the refrigerator down 15. And maybe you make the countertop on one side of the your stove that's necessarily symmetrical, and have a big piece of countertop on one side and a smaller piece of countertop on the other side of your range. But that's just one consideration. So I think the second thing I would say is your ceilings are nine feet high. So the designer has elected to get you to nine feet by stacking cabinets to eight feet six inches and then having crown molding, that six stacked crown molding that six inches high going to the ceiling. So that was good that they did that. And the fact that they didn't put one piece of molding on top and leave your three inches away from the ceiling shows that they sort of know what they're doing, which is which is comforting. But they did the thing that's the most popular with among kitchen designers is when they're stacking cabinets to the ceiling. They used a 30 inch cabinet below and an 18 inch cabinet above. I would tell you that that looks way less nice, right? It's so much less attractive than if you used a bigger cabinet below and a smaller cabinet above you have many choices depending on how expensive the cabinet brand you're predicting are. Are you doing this in a less expensive brand or a more expensive brand? And what kind of brand cabinet are you thinking about using Speaker 2 12:30 so we were looking at both so she was looking originally way point was the option but when I asked about a better brand, she had recommended your RO phone. I didn't see that on your list of cabinetry but they are a frameless company and they can do a lot more but they are about 30% higher in cost. Paul McAlary 12:50 Well, I mean if you're doing a Shaker door style that's this is in the advantage of a frameless cabinets. It's not as anywhere near as made as well as a frame cabinet, the advantages and it's more streamlined looking. And if you're doing very contemporary kitchens like slab doors and things like that, it makes a big difference. But in my mind, if I'm getting a Shaker door style, why not get a better constructive cabinet? So because it's not really detracting from the look here because you're not really going ultra modern. You know, if you're getting a slab door, then it would be a benefit to the looks of it. But when there's not a benefit to the looks, why get a frameless cabinet. Speaker 2 13:34 Yeah, that's what it so that's why I started going back to waypoint after reading your article but waypoint doesn't have I think I might have to look at other cabinet makers because waypoint can't do like if you see the appliance garage that she put that back door that lifts up, it doesn't do that it's a little too basic. So okay, Paul McAlary 13:54 well, there's ways around that too. But there's lots of things in between waypoint and other brands. You know, waypoint is a very inexpensive version of essentially American Woodmark or Shenandoah at Lowe's or we sell timber Lake waypoint is sort of the least expensive version of timber Lake. But timber Lake is more waypoint is like the same price generally as Fabula wood where some of the sort of import American lines would be and those lines some of them like Fabbi would will have way more choices and be way way nicer than waypoint. So some of those brands are better suited maybe to your design, but even in the waypoint, you're not going to be able to get for example in a less expensive brand 39 inch high cabinets with a 15 inch cabinet on top, or wait what am I saying here? 33 inch cabinet with a 15 inch cabinet on top to get you to the same height, stacking cabinets, because 33 is such an unusual height, but you should be able to do a 36 with a 12 on top. So that's a way better look, and much better for you. Because those top little cabinets are almost useless. Unknown Speaker 15:21 Yeah. Paul McAlary 15:22 So if your bottom cabinet is 36, the doors will be much more attractive than the 30 inch doors that are sort of the inexpensive looking stock cabinet size, the 36 inch doors will be taller, and the little doors that are on top that are twelves. Well, they're not going to be as useful as eighteens might have been. But it's way better to have the bottom cabinets that you can reach. And you're using every day be bigger, and the Lux is far superior. So kitchen designers that really aren't that sophisticated, we'll always generally gravitate towards 30s and an 18 on top. But if you go to our website, and you look at any of the stacked cabinets that you'll see on our website, almost every designer that works for me is using if they're in an inexpensive cabinet brand, they're using a 36 bottom and a 12 top. Speaker 2 16:18 If your preference, if you were to pick out of all of them, you would do a 33 plus 15. Paul McAlary 16:23 But once you go 33, you're suddenly going to be in like a custom cabinet brand. So you're all of a sudden, putting yourself into a brand. And you know what, even when my customers get custom cabinet brands, a lot of times they choose to do a 36 and a 12 anyway, because they just don't want to do the little cabinets on top, they don't care anything about even if they're if they're making glass doors or something like that. They just want the doors to be glass and there to be an opening that's lit up. And they're not even displaying anything up there. Or they're displaying something a bowl or you know, something very minor in that little cabinet, they don't really care. They just want the look. And they want the function. So if they wanted a combination that made their upper cabinet big enough so that it was a good cabinet for display, then I would recommend a 33 and a 15. But in this picture, you're not even making those top cabinets, glass doors. So if you're not making them glass doors, then it's a no brainer. I just go 30 Six's and twelves Speaker 2 17:31 got it. Okay, yeah, we really tweak yet to get that those decorative elements. But this is really helpful because one of the things is I want the kitchen to be functional. But I do want it to look custom and high end if we're doing all of this. Yeah, we want it to look like a spectacular kitchen at the end. So this example on the Paul McAlary 17:50 Yeah, maybe you want to make them glass doors then and on top, and then make them 30 sixes and twelves to keep the price down. And then they won't be amazing for display because the opening in the middle of a glass isn't going to be so big. But really the thing that you want is to light them up so that you know you're illuminating that thing. And if you don't get the best view of whatever bowl or platter or thing that you're putting up there who really cares. It's more the light that's on top and the glass that aren't tied up, that it's making it look good. It's not that you can examine and you know, it's so high up that you're not really getting a good view of anything that's up there. Speaker 2 18:35 Sure, sure. Okay, and I want to make sure to as reading about the golden ratio, too. And, you know, want to make sure our kitchen matches that to where you don't understand why it looks good to the eye but it just does Paul McAlary 18:46 because that's the 30 That's the 30 Six's and the, the 36 high ones are going to be much closer to that. Because it looks like the doors that she put here are four I'm saying she was a woman designer a man, wasn't she? Yeah, so she's using it looks like 36 inch cabinets on either side of the stove. So that's good. Those are we're trying to make as many doors as possible. 18 inches wide. So that's all good as a 36 inch door those proportions will look much better. There'll be two to one at least. But the third is definitely just look squat. And then so you have to first go up really decide about the pantry. But assuming you're doing that thing with the pantry, you know you're gonna be faced with you know, you're losing 15 inches. So it's sort of strange to me to the one cabinet you have coming down to the countertop. That's supposed to be a lift up door. Speaker 2 19:52 Yeah, so so that would be the appliance garage. And so she had done a lift up door there but we could do it The kind of iteration I mean, it's just store, you know, the coffee machine, pot, the blender, things like that. Paul McAlary 20:08 Maybe the better use of the space is, what if we keep everything symmetrical on either side of your stove? And just get rid of that cabinet? And we get rid of that cabinet completely. And then we make the maybe that cabinet looks like it's about a little shit. It looks like it's 30 inches wide. Actually. The two other ones are 36, which will be typical. So Speaker 2 20:40 if you did, I think actually she made that 36 If I remember correctly. 36. So they have but I did want it to be 30. Paul McAlary 20:50 You didn't want to make it a 30. Speaker 2 20:53 I did. I did want to make it a 30. Yeah, it doesn't have to be 36. I think I can't tell you might be right, it might be 30 to 36. I'm going batty looking at it. Paul McAlary 21:03 Yeah, it's definitely proportion wise, it's narrower than the other ones. The other thing about the countertop, to the left of the refrigerator, when we put your pantry on the right side of the refrigerator, well, when you open the paint that refrigerator door, it's going to cover 18 inches of countertop to the left side, right. Mm hmm. So a solute solution to this might be to put if you got rid of your your appliance garage or cabinet completely and shifted everything down. You could put an 18 inch pantry or a 15 inch pantry to the right of the refrigerator and another one to the left of the refrigerator. Now your refrigerator doors will open completely. And they won't be covering any countertop. And your refrigerator will only move 15 inches. So it still will have a completely you know you can still be you won't be have the island in front of it. So you'll still be able to step back from the refrigerator and not walk into your island. And then there'll be a 15 inch or an 18 inch cabinet to the left side of your refrigerator. But that cabinet is where you could keep all of your appliances. And in some respects, putting all your appliances in that cabinet really almost works better than an appliance garage. Because like let's say it's a Kitchenaid blender. Well, that thing if you have it in appliance garage, you'll open the appliance garage will pull the thing out, you're gonna then slide it down on the countertop and then plug it in somewhere you won't be using it. The countertop that you have in front of this door when it's opened is only 12 inches deep. And you know, it's not really deep enough to use very well. So you kill that countertop by having an appliance garage. And what's actually probably less than 12 inches deep because she's got the appliance garage cabinet coming out a little bit more. But if you put it in the pantry, now you open the pantry door, and you take this heavy KitchenAid blender, you're going to put it on the shelf, that's the height of the countertop, so you're never lifting it or doing anything with it. And then you just pull it to your body and walk to whatever other countertop you want to work on. plop it down on the island or on next to the stove wherever you want to work. And then you plug it in, and it's really not that much different than your appliance garage cabinet. What you know now you have really the same amount of countertop anyway, because the countertop in front of the appliance garage was really ruined by the appliance garage. And and even the appliance garage when it's open. The wall cabinet that's on top can't open, right, because this this door is going to fold all the way up over the front of the other two doors. So you can't use that cabinet when your appliance garage is up. Whereas now you got these two deep pantries that are two feet deep instead of 15 inches deep. They go all the way back. It's tons of storage space for food and for everything else and you put your appliances on the shelves, you know in the pantry that's to the left. Speaker 2 24:28 Let me ask you a question about that. Go ahead Paul McAlary 24:31 and then everything then shifts down you when the appliance garage is eliminated. Then now your countertop on your left side of your stove will be connected to the countertop under the window. So it will be continuous countertop, use that unbroken up. If you want to roll pizza dough or something, you can, you know do anything that you want because you have you know you'll have it A whatever that is eight foot long piece of countertop. Speaker 2 25:06 Okay, so then let me ask you about balance, let me not even say, symmetry, but also balance ribbon, it would be really heavy on the right side, but very light on the left side, I thought we had to balance fridge and appliance to like, just have the weight balanced each other. Paul McAlary 25:26 That's only the case, if you're bracketing and the thing I would say, when you have the pantry is on either side of the refrigerator that makes the refrigerator look built in. And then your refrigerator is its own thing, that refrigerator pantry area is its own thing. And then we're gonna keep the symmetry that she created with the wall cabinets, and just slide it all down. So now you'll have the Whole Pantry thing on the one side and the windows on the other side. And yes, it's heavy on the right side, oh, built in there. So I'm really judging this just by the middle section in between the built in area, and then between the window area, and it will be completely symmetrical there. Speaker 2 26:13 You know what actually was that idea, you know, what it could do is it could balance the window. And the fridge could be the symmetrical end pieces almost and not exactly the same. But they're kind of creating that tall balance on each side. And then in between those now we've created symmetry. Paul McAlary 26:30 When you look at it to everybody's natural instinct, this is the other thing we battle with our designers for, like Chris is the vice president of our company and a very good designer, but the beginner designers, they want everything to line up. Unless you know you're not grasping everything. So what we know as kitchen designers is we want the tops to all be symmetrical the wall cabinets, and to have things bracketed equally. But the bottom cabinets and the top cabinets don't have to align as your designer doesn't have it aligning here, right, she's got one small bass cabinet on either side of the stove, that's a full bore. But she does have it being completely symmetrical like 36 inch cabinet, 12 inch pullout, 12 inch pullout 36 inch cabinet, even all of that symmetry isn't necessary, you need some of it. If you're better served with a different cabinet, once you get past the first 12 inch on each side of the stove. Once you get past that I'm not freaking out. If the cabinets I'm really designing for function at that point, as long as the cabinets are symmetrical. So all of these things you have, you're sort of weighing against the other. But the good news is, even though you're not a kitchen designer, when you see it, it you'll know if you like it or not, right? So when you look at this, you'll be able to go oh, that doesn't bother me as much as I thought, you know, and if it does bother you, well, it's your kitchen. So don't do it. If it bothers you, you know, sometimes things don't bother me, but the customers are. So it's so important to them to have things more symmetrical, that it does bother them. And then I would say listen to it, you know, it's your kitchen, it's not my kitchen. So if it's bothering you, just because I don't think it's an issue. And you know, I think it looks better the other way, we're down to stuff that isn't that important anymore, right? Once you get to a good design, think that that's what I would do. Only because it's more functional, you're still keeping all the stuff that you you had before that made it all symmetrical. And then your refrigerator opens, you have more storage space because you have the two pantries on either side. And then not only that, you have these refrigerator doors open 180 degrees don't open across your countertop, and the whole refrigerator area just looks so much more built in. Speaker 2 29:01 Got it. So just for clarity, I'm an engineer. So I'm like trying to make the numbers work too. I just want to make sure I know. So we do 15 and 15 on each side of the fridge. How much space is needed for a 36 inch fridge with the panel like it's not actually just 36 inches, what is the space needed including the panels, which power 36 inch wrench on the panels that go around to create the box around this is not going Paul McAlary 29:27 to need any panels now. If that's a 30 inch cabinet there that she's got on the end, which it may be then you got 15 and 15 the pantry cabinet itself will be the panel right you won't need a panel at all. Speaker 2 29:42 Yes. Okay, got it. So we won't need panels but how much space do we need? Paul McAlary 29:47 You leave a 36 inch spacing? Yeah, you leave No, you don't need any your Are you getting a counter depth refrigerator? Speaker 2 29:56 Yeah, it's the cafe series. Why it's countertop have it already, Paul McAlary 30:01 it's made to vent from the bottom. So you can, you don't have to leave any space. So the space that you leave refrigerator should be 36 inches wide. And then the cabinets that you're buying, if they're not custom, you have to get, the top cabinet will be at 72 inches. And then you'll just end up with a gap in between the bottom cabinet and the refrigerator, the cafe is going to be tall, so the cafe is probably 71 and a quarter inches high or something like that. And so you'll be left with a three quarter inch gap on top. But it's not venting from the top. It's venting from the floor. Unknown Speaker 30:44 Okay, even though we had Paul McAlary 30:47 interesting to let you know to is even if people get refrigerators that aren't made to be built in, and we build them in, we still don't vent them, we don't vent them, because it makes the refrigerator work harder when it's not venting from the bottom, but not so much hot, not so hard that it destroys the refrigerator just so hard that it's as if your whole house is just a little bit hotter, and you never had air conditioning on. So your refrigerator works a little bit harder all the time. But you know, you live it saying if you live in New York, now you're living in Virginia, right? So you're, it's not like it's a huge deal. It's not like it's going to the refrigerator is going to break. So we build in the non counter depth refrigerators all the time. And people's refrigerators don't die any anytime, noticeably shorter. Speaker 2 31:45 Okay, that's good to know. Because we were told you have to pull it out a few inches. And so that was bringing our counter depth fridge out 33 inches, which then it it looks like a regular like a regular fridge. And I'm like, but we bought it to be countered that that's, Paul McAlary 32:01 that's crazy. But you might want to pull your counter depth fridge out so that the box is out 26 inches, and then the annual pull the pantry is out too. So they're out 26. And then maybe you put a do put a panel on the side of the pantry, or a skin on your pantry to close it in on the side all to bring it out 26 inches and why you're bringing it out. 26 inches has nothing to do with ventilation, it's so that the countertop dies into the side of the pantry. And it makes the countertop look better, because it's dying into the side of the pantry. And then the advantage with your counter depth refrigerator is that if your contractor, as most contractors are isn't thinking and doesn't put the plug in the perfect place, if you don't put the plug for this counter depth refrigerator in the correct place. And when you go to plug in your refrigerator, the back of the refrigerator could be hitting a plug and preventing it from going all the way back. Well, you don't have any of those problems if you're bringing the refrigerator at 26 inches. So bringing the box out 26. But I mean, it's funny, but a lot of this stuff is nobody's training anybody for any of these things. And so much information just gets passed down, sometimes some designer to the designer, and people make up wild stuff. Like all the time, people are worried about having their oven and refrigerator next to each other because the heat from the oven is going to make the refrigerator work too hard, or the refrigerator venting and all of these things just that really don't come into play as to just say you're an engineer. As an engineer, that's as a former engineer myself, engineers can be the hardest customers for us. But the one thing we actually have a funny video on that. Have you seen our engineer video? Speaker 2 34:06 No, I need to watch it because I think about all the details and like everyone's talking about what's gonna look good, but I need to really make sure it works. Paul McAlary 34:15 We have a funny, we have a funny engineer that's supposed to be the actually the person that's going to be editing our podcast is Mark Hamilton. He's a former computer programmer, and he's the engineer in our video. So I was an engineer. Both of us were in the computer studied computers. But engineers for kitchen designers can be the toughest customers. So he's the cat. He's the person playing the character of the engineer in our video. And it's an inside joke to kitchen designers making fun of engineers because we all have problems with them. And then it's also a joke and we have in our office, the way this video starts The engineer walks into the showroom. And he says, I'd like a kitchen. And then he pauses and raises his eyebrows knowingly and says, I'm an engineer, right? And then I ended. And I've done all the calculations, and then a bubble, which is a whiteboard that has the calculations, right? So we have that whiteboard in my office over where my desk used to be in our offices. And every engineer that comes into the office asks what those calculations are for. Speaker 2 35:38 Oh, my gosh, I'm laughing that could so be me. Because I'm over here. I've got my grid paper, I already have five iterations of a drawn, I'm already asking you tell me like the dimension, because I'm gonna go draw it and look at it and make sure like, you've got to make sure every inch is accounted for because you don't Paul McAlary 35:55 the calculations that are done on the the bubble, or the hideous, he's what the engineer says in the video. I'll send you the link to the video after you get off the podcast. But it's very funny. The engineer says, I don't want any cabinets, just dishwashers. I'm sick and tired of taking the dishes out of the dishwasher just to return them to the cabinet just to return them to the dishwasher. I've done the calculations I need eight dishwashers. So the calculations are the proof or mathematical proof that you need eight dishwashers. So it's all gobbledygook. But it looks very official, if you look at the mathematics of it. Everybody in the video that's making fun of this, at least is you know, even Doug Mottershead, Doug Morris had studied engineering at Drexel University. So even the two kitchen designers in that video, myself and Doug matar, said, We were both engineering students. And Mark is a computer and computer programmer. So at least all of us making fun of engineers, sort of what were engineers or graduated with engineering degrees or studied engineering, and or computer science? So it's not. But yeah, you can take a look at it. And you can see what you think. But it's funny, when the people come in our office and ask this question. I always say, Oh, you're an engineer. And then they admit that they are, because they ask, and then I tell them the story about this is a funny video. And this is what it comes from. And I said that some of my engineering customers will come to me and ask me how many cubic inches are in the cabinetry the way I designed. And I'll say, I have no idea. I know I'm maximizing the space. But I'm not I'm trying to make it functional. I'm trying to make it look good. I'm not calculating and maximizing per cubic inches. So I can't tell you how many cubic inches I have. And then the designer will the engineer will say, Well, I have 6457 cubic inches, or something like that. And when I tell that story, a lot of times the engineer that's sitting in front of me or when I used to sit at that desk, the engineer would say 7424 They have done that same calculation, where they got that from Speaker 2 38:26 Oh, my goodness, that is too funny. Oh, my gosh, I, I love it. Okay, I Paul McAlary 38:31 got to this, I got to this engineer conversation all because when you think about some of these things, and pulling the thing forward, and everything else, just don't believe the things people are telling you because as an engineer, you can sort of do the mathematics in your head to sort of realize that, you know, what, if I have an oven, what's going to be the temperature on the side of the oven, if it's next to the refrigerator, it's not going to be 100 degrees, maybe it makes the refrigerator the area next to the refrigerator at five degrees. And that's only when the when the oven is on and J even if it's Thanksgiving, it's only on for three hours that day, or or four hours that day. How can putting the oven next to the refrigerator. If you do really think through the the temperatures and the math and everything else, of course, it's not going to ruin your refrigerator over an extended period of time, right? We if it did, it would have to be so hot, you'd be burning yourself, your whole kitchen would be too hot. Somebody tells you something and it sort of sounds silly. If you think it's through yourself, you should be able to sort of realize that that whatever you're being told is sort of silly. Speaker 2 39:43 Yeah, yeah. So that's good, too, because I don't want the fridge to be sticking out there like 33 inches gotta be held on like, oh my gosh, that's like, Why did I just by standard for inch, you know, at that point. So okay, so if we're working than the other way. So now we've got about 63 Six inches with fridge and pantry is on each side. So our we've been moving the island down because we need to now create the symmetry, the question I keep looking at is the symmetry between the island and the backs and the back wall. Paul McAlary 40:17 I don't really care about that, personally, you're going to have a metrical countertop on either side of your stove, which is going to look good. We haven't discussed your island yet. But your sink in this design isn't in the center of the island, that probably makes it a little bit more functional. But you know, as this whole thing moves down, you might want to decide to flip your sink. So that it's, you know, it's more on the left side instead of the right side. But it really doesn't matter. Are you really going to get a true double bowl sink that we talk about that at any point? Because if the double bowl is not going Speaker 2 40:58 to I was going to do one big thing I was granted 30 I think it's a 32 inch. Yeah, one bowl. Paul McAlary 41:09 So yeah, so single ball was much more double sinks. The only reason double sinks makes sense is if you're trying to create a kosher kitchen, and that's and you want to do it with a double bowl sink. But beyond that a double bowl sink is senseless. It's really a holdover from the 50s. Before dishwashers really, people put the stuff in the dishwasher the dishwasher uses less water than and less energy than you would use if you weren't hand washing your your dishes. So having one big sink is so much better than all the cookie sheets and trays. Nothing sticks out of the top of the sink. So I don't know why the designer used to double bowl sink in the picture. But that's always a mistake. Unless you're going for kosher. Speaker 2 41:55 Yeah, no, we'll definitely do. Yeah, I hate the double bowl thing. I mean, exactly for what you said. So this time, we're gonna do double bowl because we're not washing the dishes all the time either. So it can just be hidden this thing for a while until we get to it. Paul McAlary 42:09 How about the hood? What kind of what are you getting? Speaker 2 42:12 So I think for the hood, we're looking to do a plaster in terms of style, so and then I had read somewhere to do it so that it extends six inches on each side of the oven. So we're looking at doing let me ask you this question, do we have to do a 36 inch? So? Or could we get away with a 30 inch, Paul McAlary 42:39 I had a friend that I didn't sell a kitchen too, because it turned out he was an idiot and sort of I sent them away. I never charged him for the plans. But I said go buy your kitchen from somebody else. He was a friend that I used to share a shore house with. And when it finally got down to buy his kitchen, it was too annoying for me to sell in the kitchen. But he made a funny comment. And his comment was, it takes so long to buy a kitchen from you. Because you have to listen to the same stories over and over again. And he's sort of right. But what I said back to him was if you're hearing the same stories over and over again, from me, me telling you a story is a way that of me telling you, you're doing something stupid. And here's, here's a nice story for me to try to get you to understand that without telling you that right? Telling stories is, you know, sort of the way that we sort of communicate a lot of these things. So going back to your question was, is a 30 inch stove. So my story about that would be that when I sold kitchens for 20 years, were almost 20 years, maybe 15 years, before homeowners started buying professional ranges. No chef that I ever designed the kitchen for ever got a 36 inch professional range. They've been shooting into it now by homeowners, right, you can't be a chef and not have a 36 in professional range in your home when all of your friends and family might have 36 inch professional ranges. But the reality is, nobody needs that thing. I mean, you have to be an octopus to need eight burners and having them all going at the same time and really to make it all work in a professional setting. It all makes sense. But in a residential home, you're really doing it for the looks, you're not doing anything other than that, you know, unless you really wanted the griddle or some part of that or something like that, that you needed to have it be 36 inches to get but if it's just going to be burners, then you can have a 30 inch stove and have the hood be 36 inches wide so that it's six inches wider and all of that will totally look good. Just make sure you get a stove that has no back to it that it's Lighting range, and it will look very similar. And if it's 30 inches and not 36, you might be saving yourself $4,000 Or something. $5,000. Speaker 2 45:10 Yeah, that's six inches is literally double in the cache line is quite a substantial amount. Okay. So yeah, okay, I like what you said, though about no back, I know what you mean, sort of the more, I guess, the regular oven, they'll have the back, the back versus on the front, Paul McAlary 45:32 you want it to be a sliding so that you just have the backslash, coming all the way down to the countertop with nothing from the oven jutting up, really, you know, in the professional range, they could have like an inch of something jutting up, but you don't want a back sticking up 10 inches with a clock in it with a timer and all that kind of stuff. Right? You don't want it to be that kind of back that just ruins the whole hoods log. Speaker 2 45:58 Got it? Yeah. Okay. Got it. So yeah, the hood, we were gonna do wide, or we were gonna do plastic to create the drama. And the kitchen. And so that's where I was thinking a lot about symmetry, too, is that our opening is that 13 feet, we've opened up the kitchens of that 13 foot opening. So I was thinking to kind of center ish to that, that's what I've been hung up on is just creating whatever final layout we do, just making sure that when you look at it, you just say, Wow, that's what I want. Paul McAlary 46:31 Yeah, but that both that being centered on this is the opening between the two horizontal walls that are in like from the living room or whatever looking in. That's not important. And the reason that it's not important is it's all dependent on the perspective from where you're standing. Right. So you're standing a little bit to one side or the other, all these things and their relationship to each other is completely different. So it's only if you're sort of exactly centered in the middle of the room, like a referee going to, you know, that you're trying to line all these things up, right, it's, Unknown Speaker 47:09 you know, tell you I'm an engineer. Paul McAlary 47:14 By the same token, you know, you want the cabinets on either side of the hood to be the same size. You want the hood wider than the stove that's underneath it, that's really important because otherwise it doesn't feel right, you want all of those things are really important. And then you also want the sink to be you don't it doesn't have to be centered on the stove at all. Some people insist that it's centered on wherever their stove ends up, they want their sink, some people want their sink exactly centered in the island certainly is centered in the island that looks the best for the island. But it also with a little bit less functional, it's a little bit more functional the way it is in your drawing, where you have the garbage can pull out or something on one side of you. And then you have this extensive larger amount of countertop on the other side of you. So you can be working more at that bigger countertop. But any one of these things that you do will look fine when you do it. If you're you had it lights over your island or you're thinking about doing that. Unknown Speaker 48:16 Yep, we'll have two pans in lights. So if you have Paul McAlary 48:19 to pendant lights over the island then that looks a little bit better with the sink centered but even that I sent to the pendants. You don't want the pendant closer than a foot you want the outside of the pendant no more than a foot from the end of the island so that people walking past don't have a pendant in their face. And if you're getting two pendants, you have one foot in the outside of the pendant from each end of the island. And then if the sink is centered, it maybe looks a little bit more perfect. But in my mind it doesn't look bad. If the sink isn't centered. Maybe I have it a little bit more than one just that one cabinet in just somewhere close to centered so that I don't have the pendant too close to me when I'm at the sink. But put the pendants in the picture if that when the designer puts the pendants in the picture then you can look at it and see if it offends you or not. Speaker 2 49:16 Okay, where are we putting the microwave? Paul McAlary 49:23 Well, once all these things are moved down your choice will be your island looks like you got a double big double bowl sink so that's going to be like a 36 inch cabinet. You need a 36 you're going to have a 24 inch dishwasher. You're going to have an 18 inch pantry pull out I don't know how exactly how long your island is now Speaker 2 49:46 so be 54 inches with the overhang. Paul McAlary 49:51 Oh the depth of it. Oh, and that's another thing from your picture. I think that you sent me originally. Are you having cabinets on the backside of the island Dion's got to be 54 inches? Yeah, you're gonna have 36 inches of cabinets. And then an inch and a half overhang on one side would be 12 inch deep cabinets on the backside of your island and a 12 inch overhang, right. So that's how deep it is, how wide was it going to be? Do you remember? Speaker 2 50:23 So we've been playing around, I know that you had mentioned when we talked a few weeks ago, we could go as big as 120. I think the kitchen designers is 108 I believe is hers. It's either 102 or 108. Somewhere around that. And that that sounds good to Paul McAlary 50:43 the 108 is fine. If you do the math here, you got to 3624 the team, those are the things that you need. You got 78 inches of cabinetry spoken for a three foot, same cabinet a 24 inch dishwasher and an 18 inch fresh can pull out. So if you got a 24 inch wide microwave base cabinet, that brings you up to 102. So you could put it in the island, a microwave, if you want it or it could go back over on your other wall may be when you move all these things down, you can have a cabinet is that's going to be a bar refrigerator that you have under the window. Yeah. So maybe if it's me, I put I get my bar, I buy my bar refrigerator, I make it a hinge left bar refrigerator. And then I put it all the way to the left. And that's so that when my bar refrigerator opens, I can take the things out bottles of wine or whatever on refrigerated, put them on the countertop, and the door can be open and I have an extensive amount of countertop. And then that will give you more cabinetry space to the right of it. And then to the right of it, you could put the microwave after one another cabinet, you don't want two appliances next to each other. So you put the microwave, you know you've had the bar refrigerator or if a filler, were actually a n panel bar refrigerator to the left, then cabinet then your microwave cabinet. So either along that wall in the bottom, a microwave drawer cabinet, or I put a microwave drawer cabinet in the island. Got it. Okay. And there's one thing that you could do is what i like i like it even though I like the looks of it better. But if you combined your pantries, then it would save your money. But then you could have a panel on the left side you force your refrigerator down a little bit. So that was a slightly behind your island, which I don't like but then you could have your microwave in the top or built into the pantry cabinet. You would Speaker 2 53:00 do a built in to the pantry not actually putting it inside of the pan. Oh, Paul McAlary 53:04 you don't ever put appliances in pantries and then plug them in and you know, that's just the fire waiting to happen. Like that, that I would just get a microwave drop personally. Speaker 2 53:15 Okay, and they're cool. I think. Yeah. So either an island or under ish. The beverage station. Paul McAlary 53:23 Yep. And they make them out and they can be microwave drawers. They can be speed up microwave speed ovens, that are microwaves and convection ovens to give you a second oven. They could be microwave convection ovens with air fryers all in one. It's like a 20 to $100 Microwave, but it's all underneath your countertop and it gives you all those options. Speaker 2 53:49 Yeah, because if you use the air fryer that could be worth it for us. Okay. Great. Okay, and how about PrEP think so I would like to prep think any recommendation of where you would put that at the beverage station? Paul McAlary 54:02 Oh, yeah, well, that's perfect then. So now you got your beverage refrigerator, you got the panel, the beverage refrigerator goes to your left, so that it's not in your way, then I would put my prep sink next, so that you could put stuff to the side on the left over the top, and then it would be in front of the window. And if you really wanted to get a little bit anal, you could make the prep sink, whatever size it needs to be to get it centered under the window. Unknown Speaker 54:32 Got it. Okay. Okay. Paul McAlary 54:37 And then oh, then your microwave or tablet afterwards, but that would be pretty and then you know, the other thing that you could do is you put your main sink under the window over there. And you put your dishwasher even over there, and then you put your prep sink in your island. A lot of people do this now. Is your create a cleaning area and a separate cooking area. So your prep sink is in the island, that's not your main sink, that's just your prep sink. And then your other sink is over in front of that window over there. And that's where all your cleaning and everything takes place. But you're having a table right there. So I think for Europe, you're better off probably keeping it, it would be nice to have a bar area over there and to have a smaller sink in front of the window. Speaker 2 55:26 Yeah, I think so too, because, well, we already moved the plumbing, I don't think we can knock up more concrete, it would take it all the way across the room. So I think we can for the prep sink, just pull there's like a water line for the fridge over there. So I'm hoping they can just pull that water over. But that won't Paul McAlary 55:43 help you because they still need a drain. Unknown Speaker 55:48 Sorry, excuse me. Oh, gosh. Okay. So Paul McAlary 55:54 in order for you to get a prep sink, you need a drain. So if that's up, you're on a slab and they haven't run a drain line. You're not getting the prep sink over there. And it makes no sense to have two sinks in your island. Speaker 2 56:08 Yeah, no, no, I don't want that I was just thinking it'd be helpful to have a think there. But okay, I love to talk to that contractor. I don't know if it's going to be worth it to do all that Paul McAlary 56:18 just for pressing, they'd have to end the slab goes underneath the entire kitchen. Unknown Speaker 56:26 It doesn't end it, meaning. Paul McAlary 56:30 It does like like sometimes people slab only goes underneath half of the kitchen. But your whole kitchen is on a slab. It's not just like half of it. And then you have a crawlspace or something underneath the other half. Speaker 2 56:44 No, I don't know if I totally understand what you're saying. But it's all concrete. It's all concrete. So Paul McAlary 56:49 it's there's no there's no basement underneath any part of your kitchen. So it's all just come No, Speaker 2 56:55 no, because we're in Dallas. So there are no basements here. Paul McAlary 57:01 So once you have that, then you've got no choice. The only way they would get a drain line over there is the jackhammer up the floor and run the new drain line. Speaker 2 57:11 And I don't think that's worth it for practicing. I mean, how about that? Yeah. Okay. Okay, so then that's out and then okay, I'm gonna go back and kind of play with this new iteration of the pantry. I think that's a really nice idea and see how that looks. Yeah, the last thing I just wanted to ask you was regarding custom paint. So our our the cafe series, they offer certain paints that really work with the white of the fridge. How can I get custom paint on pre on semi custom cabinets? Do they do that? The company Paul McAlary 57:50 may custom paint like what color are your cafe cabinets to the white or there? What are they? Speaker 2 57:56 Yeah, so they recommend to do against the appliances they recommend you and Sherwin Williams pure white is the option. I like that. Paul McAlary 58:05 And this is what the appliances are white, you're getting white appliances. Yeah. No, I really, again, I don't think that that matters that much. And if you're going to have cabinets custom painted, then they're going to be much more expensive. You'll be spending a lot of money for a very subtle if you're trying to match the appliances to the white, but I don't know that they need to be matched. I know I'm going to ask the question and you're going to tell me because you're getting very trendy here. So you're gonna get a white quartz countertop too, right? Unknown Speaker 58:42 Of course. Well, Paul McAlary 58:44 your white quartz isn't going to match your appliances either. Not even close. So getting the whatever the standard white is in the cabinet line that you're in will match well with the countertop and maybe tie in the appliances in the countertop, trying to matchy matchy everything too much. We've never even had anybody color match the appliance. Did you come up with that idea? Or did the designer come up with Speaker 2 59:10 oh, it's no on the cafe. So on the cafe website, they are for paints that coordinate because the white of the cafe series is a it's a very like icy white, so it doesn't actually look good sometimes in an all white kitchen because of because of undertones that they offer for paint colors that work between Benjamin Moore and Sherwin Williams. And so I didn't know if semi custom cabinet companies if we could say hey, we actually want it to be Sherwin Williams pure white, which is a very standard I mean, it's not Paul McAlary 59:45 it's not First off, you know, cabinet thing isn't the same as the paints that the cabinets are painted with is not the same colors or anything else that are the Sherman white colors. They're recommending the appliance people by the way. They are totally don't know what they're talking about about anything. As far as design goes, anything that literally imbeciles, and not only that, they'll kill you for $5 GE Cafe, you know, can make an extra $100 or $5. For each customer, they'll poison you with gases, or exhaust fumes or anything else in the world. And they've done it documented, done dangerous things knowingly for decades. And style wise, they designed the appliances nicely, I think, but they know nothing about cabinetry or anything else. So you could be a better judge put the cabinet next to the appliance with the countertop that you pick out and see what you think I wouldn't listen to. But the way, if you wanted those colors, you wouldn't say to any cabinet company, this is the color I want. You would say I want the Sherman Williams, what White was it again, Unknown Speaker 1:00:58 pure pure white, you're white. Paul McAlary 1:01:00 So then the cabinet company would get you'd send them a swatch or give them the Sherman Williams cabinet number. And then they would color match that color. And the funny thing is, is most of the paints that go on cabinets are a lot of them are made by Sherman Williams, but they have no relation, they have no relationship to the colors that homeowners are using to paint their houses. So even the cabinet company has to literally scan, they have to go to a Sherwin Williams paint fan, find the color you picked, scan it into their settings, and then mix a batch of paint to match that color. Then they send you the color back for your approval. And then they'll paint your whole kitchen that color match. But if you want to match that color that you got from the cabinet company, you don't go to Sherman Williams and ask for whatever that color number was. You have to take your cabinet door to Sherwin Williams paint store and have them scan that the color that the cabinet company made your kitchen in and have them color match that color. Because the process is so completely different either way that these colors will never be exact. You have to color match. Speaker 2 1:02:17 Ways to involve that so involved versus using their what they have in their white whites and left that. I was just gonna say I've looked at Europa now waypoint, Belmont, Thomasville and KraftMaid. And they all had a bunch of whites. I mean, it's not like they only had just one white. Yeah, I Paul McAlary 1:02:40 mean, I would pick the white that I like the best for the price. And then you have to pick out your countertop too, because you'll notice that the countertops usually have a lot of gray in them. Cambria, which is the most expensive countertop company is probably the whitest of the quartz countertops. But that's why the cabinets aren't really that bright white, none of these bright cabinets are very bright white, because it would look funny with the countertops, because the countertops, they can't get that way. So the appliances and everything, that wouldn't really be an issue. I mean, we've had lots and lots of kitchens done with the white appliances, GE Cafe appliances, and you know, with the gold handles and the whole nine yards and appliances and the cabinetry or I'll send you Lauren's kitchen, Unknown Speaker 1:03:29 please. Yeah, Paul McAlary 1:03:31 she's got these appliances in one of her kitchens. She did recently that I know where that is. I'll send you pictures of that kitchen. And I'll also send you the engineer video. Speaker 2 1:03:42 Perfect. Oh my gosh, today was so helpful. Paul, thank you so much. We covered a lot of stuff this is this episode if somebody is like Paul McAlary 1:03:54 see him how much mark is it down but I know he'll be he'll mark will love the fact that we outed him and a younger version of himself because these me younger version of me, I should say too, because that video is from like 10 years ago, so or something like that. But a younger version of me and Mark are in that video, which is funny, but he wrote it too. So these aren't he's it's funny. He's retired now. And he's our delivery manager. So he's semi retired. So he's our delivery manager and he's our engineer and the video. I'll send you those things and then if you need more help, just call back another Friday. Speaker 2 1:04:33 I know where to find you Paul. Definitely keep you updated. Of course on the final in case I don't talk to you in between. I'll definitely send you what we did. Paul McAlary 1:04:42 Send me some pictures when it's all done too. I will but I haven't feeling I might call back in again. Will be a good call right? I mean you as your kitchen sort of progresses your story in itself right so people will learn the different stages. People will learn more about The next part of the process. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, thank you again. All right. Take care. Cheers. Take care. Bye. Mark Mitten 1:05:09 Thank you for listening to the mainline kitchen design podcast with nationally acclaimed Kitchen Designer Paul maxillary. This podcast is brought to buy 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