The Kitchen Design

We have lived in this house for 4 ½ years and it turns out that, even though I wanted to remodel much earlier, this has been a great learning experience in what we really want and need for On A Whim to become the perfect island home for the two of us and occasional friends and family that come to visit. I say this because I had no idea that because of the way the house faces we get fantastic breezes – is this a bad thing you ask, nooooooo it’s a great thing, but we do get the African Dust and ash from Montserrat when the volcano blows, that come along with the breeze and therefore settling on surfaces – not a lot but enough to know that my kitchen cabinets would not have a lot of detailing on them such as raised panels and detail trim work. We have decided to go with Maple cabinets from Kraftmaid in the Thornton design (a Shaker style) and Dove White color. We originally wanted Cherry cabinets in the dark Peppercorn color but that was when the kitchen was to be bigger and the middle wall removed thus opening up the space so we decided to stay with white to keep it as open and bright as possible. Here is the new kitchen layout (after many a sleepless night and me redesigning and measuring and starting over) which includes an 18” dishwasher – wooo hooo – small I know but much better than what I have now which is me and a bottle of dawn detergent!!! The wall will have to be moved out 12” to accommodate the new design and for the pocket doors but the function will be so much better. 

You can see that we have moved the stove away from the wall on the left and onto the other side – hopefully this will be a much cooler spot to cook as it gets mighty hot next to that wall.  We have a small 18″ dishwasher to the left of the sink and the microwave sits above the 30″ gas cooktop which is above the oven 🙂

This is our refrigerator – unfortunately we can’t move it anywhere else so it will have to stay by the door but it is counter depth and next to it is a small 12″ “pantry” (but without shelving) to hold our telescope Our appliances are from Bosch and I was so fortunate to find a company in Florida that are supplying Bosch appliances to the Pond Bay development so she is very aware of the shipping process and they also offer a one year warrantee – almost unheard of on appliances here on St John. She also pointed out some problems with my design that no one else had picked up on and we were able to fix by ordering a European Oven not the standard “American” sized one that Bosch sells here in the States – so a big thank you goes out to Laura at La Cuisine Gourmet in Miami

Next up, backsplash tile, countertops, a bookcase, and bathroom vanity, sink and fixtures.