Do You Know... How much hood and CFM's you need?

Home  Help  Shipping  Gift Registry  Gift Ideas  Leasing  Affiliates  Tidbits  Recipes  Map & Directions  Contact Us

Click on any photo to see a larger version.

From time to time, Select Appliance will highlight a kitchen remodel on our site. We hope to illustrate the variety of ideas that go into designing a great kitchen and to showcase the exquisite appliances we sell. It can be difficult to decide on professional style ranges and hoods etc. only from a picture of the product alone, this way we hope to show you how these products can turn an ordinary kitchen into something special.

This example is interesting because the kitchen size did not change, yet the homeowner was able to increase counter space and storage space, while also adding larger appliances and several functional "chef friendly" features.

Do we have your interest now?

The house is a typical one story California Ranch style home built in the 60's. The old kitchen design (seen here in several "before" pictures) incorporated avocado green wall and counter tile, electric over and under double oven range (GE), side-by-side refrigerator (Whirlpool) and dishwasher (Maytag).

The remodel became a combination of saving and re-facing half of the existing cabinets, while custom designing and building a set of new cabinets for the other half of the room. A conversion from avocado green tile and appliances with dark brown cabinets motif, to that of warm maple/cherry stained oak cabinets, red "Dakota" mahogany granite counters and stainless steel appliances brought this kitchen from the 60's "yuck" to contemporary elegance.

"BEFORE"
We start with the wall opposite from the range, which consisted of a knee wall with divider posts (in the background) to separate the formal dining room from the kitchen. The owner explained that they originally used a dinette table, but then replaced it with a butcher-block worktable to hold the microwave and provide a little more workspace. As you can see, it soon became cluttered with countertop appliances, cereal boxes and more. What you will see later is that by removing the divider posts and closing off the wall, a whole new custom wall cabinet, additional electrical outlets, huge lower pantry cabinet with full length counter and work center was able to go into the same space.

To the left of the old refrigerator, was a standard upright 24" deep pantry cabinet. Although the storage space was considered very important, often items would be lost in the rear portions of the shelves. Plus, the top shelves were difficult to get to. In order to keep a large amount of storage space but still accommodate a larger refrigerator in the same area, the pantry cabinet was essentially turned horizontal and placed in front of the filled in wall. More on this later.

The old range was an electric double oven unit that had two broken elements. Fortunately the house had a gas water heater and furnace. So, the gas line was brought under the floor (crawl space) and up into the wall behind the range location in preparation for the new professional style gas range. One of the owner's main considerations here was to continue to have two ovens. Although a cooktop and separate double wall ovens were considered, in the interest of storage and counter space, a 48" double oven range was decided on verses a 30" wall oven and 30" or 36" cooktop. This left room in the same general area for a new larger than before 36" refrigerator, the new range and an 18" wide "chef's" cabinet. This cabinet provides a landing counter to support the refrigerator and doubles as a work surface next to the range. The special cabinet feature built-into this cabinet will be highlighted later.

The sink and dishwasher area were preserved. The old cabinets were refaced to match the new motif and the dishwasher, sink and faucet fixtures were replaced. Another pleasing modification was the addition of slide out drawers under the sink and in the large shelf cabinet. This really makes the old boxes seem like new with very accessible pull out shelves. Also, a pivoting sponge holder was installed in front of the sink inside of the typically false front cabinet piece.

"AFTER"
Now let's see the results! First, take a look at the cabinet and counter-top colors. The client went with dark granite to contrast the rich, but lighter than before, cabinet color. The whimsical door pulls give a sense of motion, reflect light in an interesting way and tie together the stainless steel appliances with the cabinets. This first image focuses on the new 48" Dynasty range and Wind Crest hood, but you can immediately see the type of transition made here. The vertical lines of the custom mitered cabinet doors, adds visual height to the room along with breaking up the grain of these large size doors. The stain used on these oak doors is a blend of maple and cherry giving the kitchen cabinets a bold "fine furniture" quality.

Moving slightly to the left, you can see the new 36" Kitchen-Aid refrigerator in its built-in location. It was important to create a landing next to the refrigerator (for carrying in groceries) that also doubles as a work surface next to the stove.

The custom "chef" cabinet to the right is very unique in that it consists of a large full extension pull out compartment to hold cooking oils, sauces, rice, flour and other items that usually clutter up the counter while cooking. With this cabinet, everything is right next to the stove and goes away with the single push of one door.

Next, we can look at the new custom-built pantry cabinet and upper cabinet placed against the filled-in divider wall. This new cabinet is 30" deep instead of the traditional 24". This provides for deeper pull out drawers, which store more items than the previous upright pantry cabinet, but in a more convenient manner. The lower drawers are deeper for pots and pans while the rest of the drawers serve a variety of purposes. One is a pull out desk, slotted knife drawer, can food storage, appliance storage cabinet, assorted supplies (foil, snacks, pasta etc.) and the unit has a 30" x 8' granite counter top, plus a cool maple cutting board section for everyday food prep!

The upper cabinet has a pull-out shelf for a color TV and VCR, an open shelf for the commercial microwave, large double door storage compartment, open shelves for cookbooks, "hide-away" flip down carving knife holder, flip down cook book holder and even a special 14 bottle capacity wine rack behind the books.

The end result is stunning! More storage, more counter space, larger professional style appliances and still plenty of room to work, all in the same size room as before. With the addition of ceiling and under-cabinet lighting, the room sparkles.

Please consider the remarkable improvement to your home that you enjoy when upgrading to professional appliances like the Dynasty range. Your cookware will perform better, your recipes will taste better, you'll be the envy of your street and who knows, you might really enjoy cooking again.

More Information: Dynasty DGRSC-2-48-6CB - 48" Six Burner,25" Convection Oven,14" Oven,12" Charbroiler-Stainless Front Wind Crest WSL48SS - 48" Slant line wall hood - stainless All Dynasty Ranges All Wind Crest Hoods

Have you recently remodeled your kitchen? Submit your photos and we could feature your kitchen for everyone to envy!

Return to the Select Appliance home page