Haines Contracting Inc.Remodeling Blog

    My customer came to us looking to remodel their existing dark & dingy kitchen into a charming working country kitchen to fit into their historic  home dating  back to 1790.  They both enjoyed to cook and work from their garden with their home grown vegetables and produce. They wanted   to make the kitchen flow & be aesthetically matching with the traditional elements in the rest of the home & keep things "green". The things they didn't like about their existing kitchen was:

• It was the coldest room in the house
• The traffic didn't flow well with the zig zag traffic flow through the doorways
• the windows were small & the room lacked sufficient natural light
• the refrigerator was in another room , so the ergonomics of a large working triangle was poor
• there was poor prepping area for cooking and work space
• the sinks were small and didn't give much room for washing their vegetables & produce off
• soffits closed in the upper room space making it feel smaller than it is
• There was no gas available to cook properly
• The electric room lighting was inadequate

   A decision was made  to go with a custom kitchen cabinet company from their home country of England because of some unique cabinets  they offered  and the cabinets were constructed with quarter sawn english oak, which matched their antique furniture in their home. They had  worked  with the kitchen designer for 2 years in getting all the details just right.  The cabinets were all custom made in England and were shipped over to  the US in a container.  There was a 3 month lead time from final measurements through construction. The project needed to be started  before  the cabinets were ordered in case any framing needed to be altered. Once the framing was complete the dimensions were finalized & the cabinets were ordered. 

    To solve the customers desires:

• A existing corner bathroom in the kitchen would be removed to free up more cabinet space.
• The rooms wall coverings would be gutted to reveal whats behind them. It turned out there wasn't any insulation in the walls and they were made up of 1x3 furring lath & crooked 2x3's. The existing walls were stone and masonry and they were not insulated, nor where they square & plumb. To give us enough space to insulate & get all the walls square & true, the walls were reframed with 2x4's. A soy based urethane foam was sprayed in place to insulate the walls & ceiling and radiant heat was added beneath a new tile floor which complemented their existing flagstone floors.
• The existing windows were enlarged to let in more natural light. Energy efficient traditional double hung wood windows were used with a true divided insulated glass option. The interior trim was matched to rest of the house & along with traditional colonial williamsburg paint colors.
• A new doorway was opened up to make a straight passage through the room, the original door was was reused.
• A Large fireclay kitchen sink was chosen to allow ample room for washing of the garden vegetables & produce.
• New wood wainscotings was added to the interior gable walls & matched in a light colored colonial williamsburg yellow making the room come alive with brightness.
• Energy efficient appliance were used and the old ones were "recycled" through donating to Habitat For Humanity Recycle Store
• The new cable lighting was unique to the room with little flying bee lights added to accent the tastes for their hobby of raising bees and harvesting their honey.
• A custom made table was locally made & matched to a late 18th century design featuring a butcher block top , which added more prep area for larger meals.
• A cozy corner nook was created for siting in the natural light to eat, read a book, or work on the P.C.

(Click on the photo below to see slide show of the award winning kitchen renovation)