DESIGN: With your heart. Is the kitchen a symbol or your soul?

FASCINATION: Fibonacci Numbers and 62% Golden Proportion

HEALTH: From infants to infirmed

TRADITIONAL: Classical without cliché.  A sense of comfort and a feeling of homecoming.

MODERN: New Shapes, Variety. Unique or unprecedented innovation.

FUNCTION: Custom for user and site.

FORM: Movement and Vitality. Not staid

PHILOSOPHY: Eliminate Predictable, Boring, Sterile

METHODOLOGY: Time is an ally. We sell no kitchen before its time.

DREAMS: You never thought you could have and forgot about.

1. My personal style. I don’t see it in magazines. I don’t see it in door styles. Do you have anything that is one-of-a-kind that might lead to a second?
2. The ambience I want to feel deep down in my heart could be bright and cheery with light colors. Kind of like Scandinavian. Or, maybe dark and sexy suits my intensions. Medium tones might satisfy a real estate agent, but I should get what I love. If I sell this place, there is a good chance the buyer will have a similar taste where the kitchen is the feature.
3. Money should not be an issue in finding my soul in cabinetry. I’m not trying to impress anyone with over-the-top decoration or appliances. On the other hand, maybe showing off is me. Help me spend my money wisely.
4. Fibonacci Numbers and 62% Golden Rectangle, I’ve learned are essential to eye-pleasing design.   Cabinet proportions and placement are similar to the beauty found in Leonardo Da Vinci’s ‘David’, the Taj Mahal and Cathedral of Notre Dame.
5. Feng Shui, Biophilic design, Universal design and Living in Place all relate to my well-being. Please show me.
6. Traditional kitchens are inviting and timeless. If it is going to be classically traditional then I am going to challenge you to eliminate the clichés.
7. Modern ideas may be what my family wants. Not necessarily steel and glass, but not plain. An architect recently said: “Less is not more. Less is a bore.” Mondrian, Picasso and Kandinsky offered new shapes, unique and unprecedented innovations. What’s in your portfolio?
8. Functionality is priority, of course. The quirks in my kitchen have baffled me. Can you make custom, outside-the-box solutions?
9. Form follows function, as in this check list. No matter the style – definitely not predictable or staid. Movement and vitality are paramount.
10. Opinions are important. I might articulate concisely or be unsure of our new idea. You need to guide me with empathy and think through all the variations which will produce a more superior design.
11. Time is an ally. Like wine, please don’t sell me a kitchen before it’s time.
12. Completion of this project can be the dream kitchen I had forgotten about or never thought I could have.

CLIENT COMMENTS

• I’ve seen that before. Give me something new (said the movie director).
• I’ve been to many stores.  Yours is the first to have cabinets that talk to me and a salesperson who listens.
• We were apprehensive in your freehand drawing and not using a computer.  Assuredly, we got more than what a computer could have given us.
• We spent fully 50% more than originally planned and love every penny of it.
• I would love to cook a meal in that kitchen.
• I expected to do a simple, plain white, modern kitchen.  Your shapes have completely changed my mind. 
• My reply: “These words are music to my ears.”

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FUNCTION: Size + Placement = Efficiency.

1. If you rarely cook using more than two burners, a 24” stove placed against the side wall provides more work space on the remaining counter top. Tile or small filler will protect the wall.
2. Install a 12” or 24” cook top in a 3” thick counter top placed above the dishwasher.
3. A microwave/convection oven can sit on a small refrigerator.

4. If you don’t fry on the stove, a hood may not be necessary. A full height cabinet now adds more storage (protected on the bottom by sheet metal).

5. 15” deep wall cabinets increase storage which is the same nose clearance as over-the-stove microwaves.
6. Horizontal doors that lift-up, flip-up or slide provide access without swinging open in your face.
7. Pot drawers need open only 12” for access, whereas rollouts need fully opened doors.
8- If floor space allows, pull base cabinets forward a few inches for a deeper counter top.
9- Lazy Susans and specialty corner pull outs waste space, especially in base cabinets, and are expensive.

BEAUTY
Instruments in an orchestra are grouped together for the best sound. So too should cabinets for the most pleasing arrangement. A group becomes a sculptural form to be visualized as such. And, viola, we have art!
10- When the amount of appliances equals the cabinetry, a matching panel on the dishwasher or matching the cabinet to the appliances (with white, black, stainless steel or melamine imitation) will avoid the ‘missing tooth look’. The idea that a metal dishwasher is a machine misses the point. A small kitchen is not a miniature large kitchen.
11- Having the sink and counter top the same color creates a cohesive visual element by eliminating the big hole. Stainless steel, slate, solid surface.

12- To maximize an increased perception of length, horizontal doors and an open shelf relieve the predictability and monotony of all doors and lead to or becomes the focal point. “Less is not more. Less is a bore.” Robert Venturi.
13- To create height and highlight the refrigerator’s functional and physical presence, match the 24” deep upper cabinet material to the refrigerator. The remaining cabinets can be normal height as a horizontal contrast for decoration and not overwhelm the room. (Side panels and a small cabinet with crown molding atop a large stainless steel refrigerator resemble an Easter bonnet on a muscle man.)
14- Top doors of stacked cabinets should: (a) never be wider than high; (b) be square; (c) not more than 62% of the lower door height.

15- Kitchens can feel wider by varying the depth of the wall cabinets.

16- Flat panel doors designed with cut outs of various sizes and shapes generate vitality and movement.
17- Biophilic amenities should also include cabinet proportions with the Golden Ratio based on the Fibonacci numbers.
Behind the decorative façade are forms that have the same significance as the entire universe. “People are creatures of nature; hence an architecture which conforms to nature would confirm what is basic in people.” Frank Lloyd Wright.

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