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Home / Projects / Cabinetmaker’s Unfitted Kitchen

Cabinetmaker’s Unfitted Kitchen

Kitchen_1

It took a few years, but I finally finished our kitchen. It’s a warm, eclectic jumble reminiscent of my favorite English kitchens in the ’70s and ’80s and clearly influenced, at least in terms of its unfitted character and focus on comfort, by the thinking of Johnny Grey. There are, of course, some distinctly American twists: the storage cabinet at the left of the stove, which is based on a 1927 pattern, the Big Chill retro fridge, and a Hoosier cabinet made from an elm tree salvaged by the City of Bloomington Urban Lumber Recovery program.

10Balanced(Warmer)(s)

 A shallow cabinet painted classic 1930s green stores cookbooks, decorative pottery, and dictionaries for dinner-time etymological reference, as well as more typical kitchen fare.

Kitchen_2

The farmhouse table does double duty for dining and prep work. It’s also my favorite place for drawing.

Kitchen_plate rack

The cypress plate rack is a nod to my first cabinetmaking employer, Roy Griffiths, whose 19th-century-inspired kitchen dressers were signature products of his Crosskeys Joinery. The base cabinets here are ash with salvaged hardware. The framed enamel still-life on the wall, a gift from my great-aunt Elizabeth Sunderland, is by Karl Drerup.

kitchen_3

 (Yes, I’m aware of the missing dishwasher trim. I’ll get to that one of these years.)

Photography by Kendall Reeves, Spectrum Studio of Photography and Design

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Shout out to @cardinalspirits ! The people at our Shout out to @cardinalspirits ! The people at our locally owned distillery have been extraordinarily resilient in response to the pandemic — making hand sanitizer when none was available, cocktails and kits you can buy in stores, and keeping their excellent kitchen in business even when the distillery is closed for dining in. These pork belly tacos that Mark had yesterday looked beautiful, and the corn smelled divine. And here’s to a food business that serves carry-out in food-safe compostable containers! So rare. And so important. Thank you, Jeff and Erica!
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#snowday #hikeinthewoods #goodfood #cardinalspirits #yay #goodpeople #indianabusiness
I am so grateful to have this man as my partner. H I am so grateful to have this man as my partner. He recently found this ridiculous photo from 2007. We both look a lot younger! As @chbecksvoort49 says, life is so lovely when you have a good partner. Mark is a gentle, caring soul. Incredibly resilient. Deeply thoughtful. An excellent builder and carpenter. Loyal friend. Spoiler of domestic animals. Occasional annoying dude. Altogether a wonderful human being with whom I am blessed to make a life.
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#throwbackthursday #tbt❤ #grateful #gratitude #marriage
Nap time for Piggy. While I have chemo drugs drip Nap time for Piggy. While I have chemo drugs drip into my bloodstream, Tony has laid claim to Joey’s fleece. More dangerous is that he’s sharing the fleece with the pig, which has become Joey’s favorite toy. Fortunately Mark is monitoring the situation. 

And while this post is not about work, I am working on my laptop, writing post for the @finewoodworkingmagazine blog and a letter of recommendation for someone I admire (a lot).
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#dogsandcats #work #ilovemywork
A day packed with drawing time and calls with a cl A day packed with drawing time and calls with a client in Rhode Island. There’s nothing like having historians as clients during interesting times. At the end of the day I found Mark chopping wood and had to catch this image with the hillside glowing in the background.
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#saturdaywork #kitchendesign #thankyouteachers #historiansrock #ilovehistory #thisishistory #historyiseverything
By hand. This is how I draw kitchens. My drawings By hand. This is how I draw kitchens. My drawings are of course terribly prosaic compared to those gorgeous colored renderings by @johnnygreystudios but they do the job. Despite their arguable advantages, CAD images leave me cold. It has been super rewarding to get back to this particular kitchen design, for clients in St. Louis. I’m also working on another set for clients in Providence, Rhode Island. So fun! Another highlight of today: I completed a blog post about @furnituremaking which should be up at Lost Art Press this weekend and took delivery of materials for the next shop job, which will occupy my next good week (after chemo week...). A big thumbs up to good days.
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#customcabinetrydesign #cabinetmaker #customkitchens #drawings #byhand
This is the look of a cat who has become thoroughl This is the look of a cat who has become thoroughly spoiled by living in the house, after a day of suffering the terrible conditions of the shop for just one day. “Don’t ever do that to me again! I need my woodstove in winter.” 
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#catsofinstagram #shoplife
To celebrate the new year we went for a misty hike To celebrate the new year we went for a misty hike up the hill. Today we saw a beech with especially cool bark and, thanks to the precipitation, found a lost stream pouring into a &cave where we had previously seen only dry ground. So marvelous! We came home and made a fire for Grumpy. My new hand knitted scarf from HAM was perfect. @anissakaps 
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#2021 #newyearhike #southernindiana
A few glimpses into the year that’s been. No woo A few glimpses into the year that’s been. No woodworking pics!  One of the happiest discoveries this year is that we have a fantastic woods behind our place, much of it owned by the Karst Conservancy, where Mark and I have been hiking.  Another gift is that my sister now has a kind, responsible, thoughtful and loving man in her life. Mark’s lovely mother passed in December, a big loss. The greatest joys have been family and friends, too many to mention individually (and they would probably prefer to be anonymous here), despite the challenges of connecting during a pandemic. I am feeling thankful. Here’s to doing what we can to make the world kinder and more beautiful in the year to come.
New work. I’m writing from the hospital in Bloom New work. I’m writing from the hospital in Bloomington where I am getting my first infusion. For years I’ve been working sporadically on a collection of stories about animals and work. A few weeks ago I was faced with the decision whether to go for (or forgo) chemotherapy. The one thing I could imagine being a sufficiently powerful motivation to go through the treatment was the prospect of completing this book. Happily, Chris Schwarz thought that “Shop Tails” would make a good addition to the Lost Art Press line. I’m crossing my fingers and sitting in this chair with several others who are being treated for their own conditions. Nurses are the best.
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#chemotherapy #writerscommunity #shoptails #animalfriends #makingthingswork #adjustment #newwork #hopeful
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