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Sunday, March 6, 2011

Details

Vanity framed on end wall of powder room. We could remove the tub shower
and install a feature like this on the back wall.

Another way to build on family room stair wall at right of wet bar.
This could house china and dining room storage.

Flush door for powder room with streamlined
hardware, diminishes bulk of existing wood panel doors. Lose the stripes.

Another end wall vanity with toilet in same place as our  downstaris bath.

Lighting treatment with shutter wall effect, white plastic reflects light
against dark stained wood

Ceiling treatment. Not to my taste but the dramatic lighting, framing
light color on ceiling dresses up the powder room

A large antique cupboard used as vanity with large surface area. Toilet is exposed, See other examples where
a divider screens the commode from rest of bath.


Wall sconces, mirror wall, large scale artwork,
toilet at right behind door in niche. Our vanity is where the toilet is.
remove the tub/shower at back, replace with vanity and move toilet across
room replacing the existing sink and vanity in niche.

Understairs powder room and streamline door with hardware.
Excellent use of confined space. 

Trompe l'oeil ceiling treatment wiht chandelier; toilet screened by half-height wall.

Another screened commode; this one with tile surround. This arrangment
could replace shower/tub with commode add divider and archway treatment.
I don't like a tile floor treatment for the powder room. 

Treatment for backstair closet at top of landing over family room.
Right now there is a tall narrow closet with no racks or shelves.
It would be easy to frame this in and use the open arch idea on top and add
to our book storage.  It would make a nice upstairs book stash for guests wanting reading material
but not wanting to go the basement library to find one.

My Partner has a huge armoire like this that we have to put in the basement foyer area at
bottom of basement steps. The ceiling is high here so a wall treatment in synch with the antique piece
to dress up the bare white drywall space. Maybe wood panels or wallpaper. Someting to make arrviing in the
basement more than the ordinary experience, continue through the cross hall and into the library. 

The laundry room has bad tile flooring or vinyl; either way it's butt ugly.
We will definitely replace with this black and white check florring. 

Microwave placement

The kitchen remodel on our new house was done well but it's only skin deep. I've already gone into the raw unpainted dark wood cupboard interiors that will involve a lot of extra work and expense on  our part. Another downside is the owners are leaving no refrigerator and there is no built-in microwave. So what? Well the fridge we can do something about. We obviously can use a countertop microwave but it takes up room, they usually look lousy and you're always wiping up around them. I did some surfing to find examples of microwave placement in kitchen remodels to get some ideas. One of the main points to emerge almost everywhere was that a kitchen microwave should be as close to the fridge as possible. Make sense? Yes. Other than melting butter and chocolate for recipes, the microwave is used primarily for reheating cold foods from the fridge or freezer so it makes sense to keep them together. Here are some microwave stories to pique my imagination.
Here's a framed=in microwave next to the fridge. I don't like having no
counter or ledge to set the hot food down after removing it.

This vented microwave is built in over the range. It's not near the fridge. 
Our Fridge area lines up with the hall entry with no separation.
I like this idea of a paneled wall section hiding fridge from the family room. Extra pantry cupboard not a bad idea either

This option adds a fridge-depth cupboard that holds
a microwave. Again, no nearby ledge.

Here the built in microwave is on the left of the fridge. Still no
ledge or countertop surface underneath


Here the microwave is small and at a greater height but still near
the fridges and this one was counter space below.

Here the microwave is placed near double wall ovens. Could work as we have the
same double wall oven placement. It's not near the fridge but it does have conterspace.

This placement shows no advantages, not near the fridges
no counter space directly underneath.


Counter model next fridge; at least it's partially concealed by a full depth framing of the refirgerator. 
This placement is unusual, plenty fo counterspace but nowhere near the fridge. Not ideal.

This ones looks squeezed in and seem to high up for my taste. I'm 6'2 so I could deal with it, but the elderly and
children would be cut off from microwave usage with a model mounted this high.