Not long ago, I was assigned to a kitchen project on Miami Beach. It was the island next to Star Island. Without giving out too much information Star Island is where Gloria Estefan has a mansion.
My client, a Cuban born attorney had spend many vacations in France. She loved French design and decided to do her home renovation in old world French styling. This was a total renovation. The only original part of the house was the slab and 1 wall. That's the minimum needed to be 'grandfathered in' to old tax laws. Any less of the original house and they wouldn't qualify... the county would assess the taxes at a higher rate. That said, they were free to choose how appliances would fit into the overall plan.
She showed me renderings from an artist and photos from French kitchen design books and magazines, asking if I could implement these designs into her kitchen. well, the answer was yes!
Keeping it as authentic as possible, my boss researched a company that recycled wood from barns and houses across America. They painstakingly dismantled old buildings from farms that faced foreclosure or were in various states of distress and abandonment. The company who reclaimed the wood often kept history of the boards that were reclaimed. These boards came from a barn that was over 100 years old.
We needed Wormy Chestnut and they had a few aged pieces complete with worm holes, cracks nail holes, rust stains and other signs of wear. Well, the client loved it! She actually had choice (by photographs) which boards were to be used in the main display.
The cabinetry was built-in and looked more like furniture than 'kitchen cabinets' We hired a Haitian artesian to do the wood carvings... she wanted roosters carved on the arched headers of the cupboard shelves. We made a giant hood to go over her four foot wide country-style stove, complete with stucco finish to make it authentic. The refrigerator had custom made panels and it was built-in to a surround that made the entire unit appear to be an armoire or pantry cabinet.
I had forgotten about this project until a few weeks ago, when my cousin came into town. She lives in the Tahoe area and often collects boards from dilapidated farm houses and barns (with the owners permission) and takes photos of the local scenery. She goes to a woodshop and has them cut the boards into picture frames so she can mount her photos to the frames and sell them at the local market/gallery where tourists like to shop.
What a cool way to preserve a part of history... and make a few bucks on the side for doing so.
Thanks for reading my blog.
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read more blogs!
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realbigboy
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Jun 22 @ 4:03PM
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Would love to see photos but I"m sure that's a no no, the cabinets sound awesome!
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chatillion
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Jun 22 @ 4:12PM
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I can probably post the photos of the kitchen, my cousins scenery photos are copyrighted.
I'll go through my photo archives to look for the French kitchen.
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KnittinKitten
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Jun 22 @ 6:46PM
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Glad ya asked, I was gonna ask the same thing. I'll patiently await the photos that can be posted.
Fondly,
KK
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missliss78
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Jun 22 @ 8:49PM
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Chop, chop, chat....we are all waiting on the photos of the Cuban lady's lovely French style kitchen!
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chatillion
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Jun 22 @ 9:03PM
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OK, here's a quickie. I snapped this on the first day of installation.
The painters were in the kitchen the day before doing 'faux' finishing to make it look 'Old World'
The tall cupboard cabinet has wire mesh in the upper doors.
I'll do more photos later... they need resizing and contrast adjustments.
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graywolf
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Jun 23 @ 9:28AM
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cabinet work is awesome, 
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chatillion
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Jun 23 @ 10:13AM
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This unit was built by a 70 year old German cabinetmaker named Klaus.
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