Appliances at Lumenhaus

As I mentioned, the Lumenhaus website goes into exquisite detail regarding all aspects of the concept. This page describes the appliances in the kitchen and laundry. Notice the Fisher Paykiel Dishdrawer previously recommended in these pages.

Lumenhaus Kitchen

The photo on the left shows another great idea: natural light backsplash!

Green Masterpiece

I urge everyone who ia interested in green architecture to take a look at this article in The New York Times. Tom that means you! You can also just go directly to the slideshow. This house, built on a lot in Racine Wisconsin with a stunning view of Lake Michigan has many great features including a well-designed small kitchen (notice the 27" Sub-Zero on the right) built of sustainable materials. Some other highlights:

• This is a small house (that's a compliment incidentally), large sections of the cube are occupied by garage and decks. the living space is comparable to a typical suburban ranch.
• The geothermal heating system reportedly cost more than 100K. I love geothermal, but it is not for the faint of heart!
• Innovative cement-board exterior. Cement board (typically used as tile-backer or underlayment) is a very durable, inexpensive and accessible material. It can be used as weatherproof exterior shell. The challenge is to use it in a visually appealing way. Here the architects have succeeded admirably.

Apart from the technological solutions, this house evokes some of the best  principles of "naturally" green design:

• Site specific design
• Well-planned inside-outside transitions
• Not-So-Big (thanks Sarah)
• Extensive use of natural light
• Extensive use of natural ventilation

Another Small Kitchen

Here's a very compact "kitchenette" I built a few years ago using the GE convection/micro and the Wolf 15" cooktop. There is a Bosch dishwasher between the sink and the cooktop.  This arrangement with a small but adequate sink only occupies 84 inches. The cabinets were handmade and hand-finished onsite by your humble blogger. This kitchenette was part of a much larger guesthouse project.

Fabricating and finishing the cabinets onsite can have sustainability advantages if there's room to do it. It allows us to work closely with eco-conscious owners to specify locally sourced, non toxic materials and finishes.

The backsplash is travertine and the countertop is granite. Not shown is a 27" sub-zero refrigerator-freezer  and a 15" trash pull-out. The entire kitchen occupies 10' along one wall but could have been designed as a 7' by 7' galley. The Sub-Z 27" series just came on the market a few years ago and is a good compact choice if an undercounter fridge is just too spartan.

Appliance Tips for Tiny Kitchens

Someone recently asked me for appliance recommendations for small kitchens. This is another of my favorite topics and was I ready! The four appliances below are my favorites for coaxing maximum function from a minimum of space without sacrificing design or quality:

1. GE Advantium over-the range-type combination convection oven/microwave/ventilator  
2. Two-burner Wolf gas cooktop
3.  Subzero under-counter refrigerator-freezer-icemaker
4. Fisher-Paykiel single dish-drawer dishwasher

These are all high-quality appliances (not cheap) but they can save a lot of space  Arranged properly, these appliances can provide you with a high-functioning galley kitchen in the space of a sizable closet: 5' x 7'. Yep believe it! All lined up against one wall they can be arranged to take up less than 7' of wall space. I'll go through them one-by-one:

GE Profile Advantium 240

GE Advantium 240: This is a great appliance, I don't know why kitchen designers don't use it more often. Convection oven, microwave, ventilator...three appliances in one. That's a lot of function in a space that's 30" x 16". What more do you need to know? Used as shown you can put a cabinet above it. If you have more headroom than legroom as apartments sometimes do, you can put a substantial cabinet over it. The fan can be vented or unvented with filters. As a cabinetmaker, I know that this type of appliance can be fussy to install (especially in frameless cabinetry, it depends on the cabinetry for some support and you can easily rack the cabinetry out of alignment if you're not careful) but the results of a careful installation are well worth it. To design a very small kitchen: put the Wolf cooktop to one side of the 30" space below this oven and use the remaining 15" for some of the space needed for a sink. The bad news: it costs around $1,000.00.

Wolf 15" Gas Cooktop

Wolf 15" Gas Cooktop: This is not a toy. the Wolf cooktop is the type of professional-level cooking appliance found in the larger Wolf  stoves but in compact form. It is heavy-duty and well made. It can be shoehorned into a 15" wide cabinet (it takes exactly 15" of space) but you will not be able to put a drawer beneath it. The remaining space in the 15" cabinet is a good place for a trash pull-out.

Sub-Zero 24" Undercounter Refrigerator

Sub-Zero 24" refrigerator-freezer-icemaker: Another triple-play. A well-made, highly functional appliance that is designed to take up a minimum of space. There are other undercounter fridges but they don't play well with others (difficult to integrate into the cabinetry). Save yourself the frustration, get the sub-z. After all you're saving money by having such a small kitchen right? This isn't a dorm fridge. It can give you a refrigerator, freezer, and icemaker in 24".  The best part about this appliance is that it doesn't use up any counter space as most all refrigerators do. This one attribute allows a much smaller kitchen.

Fisher-Paykiel Single Dishdrawer

Fisher-Paykiel Single Dishdrawer dishwasher: This is such a great idea I don't know why it took someone so long to think of it. OK it's been around for a while but it should have been a standard long before now. This dishwasher is 24" wide just like any other but it's only18" high. That means it can have a substantial 12" high cabinet drawer below it for more storage space. The Fisher-Paykiel is also a nicely made appliance that integrate well into either standard American style or European style frameless cabinetry (think IKEA).

So there you have it dear reader. A mini-kitchen that can handle the demands of the most discriminating kitchen designer as well as a gourmet cook. If you want some more tips about how to design with these units just ask.

Small kitchen renovation

Tiny, I mean really tiny, low budget kitchen renovation in an older brick row house in Holyoke Massachusetts. I love this kind of project: no matter how small the space or the budget, thoughtful design is the magic ingredient. Open shelves instead of cabinets is a great idea for small spaces, it keeps the space from feeling closed in and lets light into every corner of the room. See the whole project.

Before

After