KITCHEN SINKS
“Sink Sense”
OK, I’m going to be honest about this. I really just clicked onto this site with copper sinks to do something a little different for our website. But the more I read about their product, the more sense it made to me. But, wait, I’m getting ahead of myself. So, let’s start at the beginning of the thought process that led me to this site.
One of the main features of kitchen design these days is simply doing something different, but the problem with that sort of thing, of course, is that the different kitchen design can be the unwieldy kitchen design can be the white elephant kitchen design. The best of different, for those who yearn for it, is to make different better.
Copper sinks are definitely different, and that’s what led me to Rachiele Kitchen and Bath Products, but my initial feeling was that I would find it to be the bad kind of different, simply because of the problems tarnish must bring to copper sinks.
Well, sir!
The first thing I learned from their site was that the natural finish (it does oxidize if left natural) is actually better because studies have found that copper can kill bacteria in as little as four minutes. There is still the aesthetics of it, of course, and that turns out to be the least of it. What you end up with in an unprotected sink is one with patina—and character.
Rachiele bills themselves as makers of “Sinks That Make Sense,” and they more than live up to their name. Let’s begin with their dissertation on the utility of single basin sinks, as it is something I very much want for our own kitchen, and never so much as when I scrub the BBQ grill. The problem with double sinks, really, is that they’ve had their day, but only a few of us seem to have noticed.
I can remember washing dishes as a kid in our Helena, Montana home in a single basin sink. No one had dishwashers in those days, and we always had to use a pot of some sort for the dish pan. Well, time marched on, and when we moved to a house with a double sink, we all thought a kitchen could get no better. A sink for soapy water; a sink for rinsing. What could be better than that? Actually, there was something better, namely the dishwasher, and it came so quickly, that double sinks remained in place, long after their main function (washing dishes) had been supplanted.
And what are sinks used for now? Filling pots, washing pots, washing anything too big and cumbersome for the dishwasher—and these are the very items that are also much too cumbersome for the double basin sinks most of us still have. But Rachiele, as they assert, makes sinks that make sense, so the most of their output is single basin sinks.
The other thing that really caught my attention with this particular manufacturer is the fact that they have gotten rid of the center drain for the sink. In one of my very early blogs for this site, I waxed ecstatic about a design concept for kitchen sink cabinets I came across that enabled them to be utilized for drawers by rearranging the plumbing.
The standard kitchen has a standard sink with a standard arrangement on the plumbing that tends to take up most of the space under the sink. All one can really do with the little space that is left is cram in some cleaning supplies and, perhaps, a few bags for the trash.
In the solution I wrote about, they simply arrange the sink plumbing so the pipes occupy only the top drawer space and come down just a few inches before running to the back of the cabinet, where it turns sideways, makes its usual “U” assembly for the drain trap, and escapes out the back of the cabinet. The rest of the plumbing is situated at the back of the cabinet, and the result is a cabinet that will now accommodate drawers that are twenty-two inches deep.
It’s a terrific idea, but I now find that Rachiele has made this simple concept work even better. They simply put the sink hole at either the left rear or right rear of the sink. Now there is ample room for a double trash bin under the sink cabinet, which puts it closer to where most of the trash originates, especially the drippy, messy stuff!
Finally, I just wanted to give the dimensions for the sink at the top of this blog. It’s 39″ wide, 22″ from to back, and 12″ deep. Our wretched kitchen (I’ve described it at length on Thinking About It) is only going to accommodate a 31″ sink, but I’ve shorted out my keyboard twice this morning from drooling over their picture of what they rightly describe as a monster sink. Man, I could wash the car in that sink!
Joseph
OUTDOOR KITCHENS
“When You’re Here, You’re Family!”
I have written about Kalamazoo Outdoor Gourmet™ before, and will probably do so again because they have a lot of innovative products for outdoor dining that I find particularly interesting. Maybe it’s because, with all I did for our back yard, I just keep having this thought that it could have been an elaborate outdoor kitchen instead. And with the regret we always have when the train has irrevocably left the station, we find ourselves wishing we’d waited for another train instead. All you can then do, I suppose, is remark on how nice it is to be going where you’re going, rather than fixating on where you wish you were going—if I’ve not stretched that metaphor too far.
Be that as it may, while I cannot say I am unhappy with the yard I eventually made for us (I talked about it yesterday, and also at length on my own private blog), there’s just an occasional twinge of what might have been. If you’ve ever watched a movie where the whole extended family is gathered around a table like the one at the top of this blog, there’s just such a feeling of, well, family that is hard to get in any other setting. Maybe I’ll just make a big table!
But seriously, an outdoor kitchen has a lot to recommend it, and really, when you think about it, an awful lot of us have such a thing. We just don’t think of it that way. Got a BBQ and a picnic table? You’ve got an outdoor kitchen. Now it’s just a matter of how elaborate you want it to be, and that brings us back to Kalamazoo.
These people have an entire line of outdoor kitchens that can be put together in any number of ways. They even have a hybrid grill that allows one to cook with charcoal, wood, and gas—all at the same time! One of the reasons I have always stayed away from gas is the flavors one only gets with charcoal, but if I just had a grill like the Kalamazoo 900 Series Hybrid Grill—almost sounds like some kind of space craft, huh?—but, oh, the things I could cook on such a grill! Now, if I can just get the wife to buy that!
The other slick thing—no, let me rephrase that—another slick thing (face it, these people are loaded with outdoor kitchen concepts) is their line of outdoor kitchen cabinets made of stainless steel. To make sure their cabinets hold up to the weather, every door and drawer opening is surrounded with a seamless rain gutter, thereby creating a weather-tight vault. They’ve even included stainless steel legs for their cabinets, because anything short of that is just going to eventually rust away.
Nothing in this world could get me to re-do our back yard, but if I were starting on the project today, I would most definitely be thinking in terms of a backyard kitchen, and Kalamazoo is a cutting-edge company I would undoubtedly be looking into.
Joseph
BACKYARD PARADISE
“It is my sanctuary, a place of refuge where I can be at rest from the wars. I endeavor to free this corner from the public storm, as I do another corner in my soul.”
—Michel de Montaigne
On August 14th of this year my wife and I will celebrate our 32nd wedding anniversary, and in a nice bit of symmetry, we have been in our home for half of our marriage. At the time we got this house I had already made an elaborate double pedestal computer desk with hutch, using only a skill saw and a drill. “If I had a table saw and some other tools, I could make for us a paradise,” I told Christine. “And if not another thing happened, that would be enough for me.”
So she agreed, and I got some tools and set to work, being in those early years entirely self-taught. In the first two years we had the house I made a walk-in closet for her and an armoire for myself, along with a window seat and furniture for the living room, but I felt I was spinning my wheels in a lot of respects, because there were so many things I did not know. So I started taking woodworking classes at Palomar College, taking, in all, some five years of instruction. And it was about that time that I began working on a fantasy for our back yard, thinking that I would require no more than two years to complete the project.
Well, as it turned out, I spent a total of ten summers in that yard. Sometimes, depending on class projects and the like, I would not begin working on the yard until June, once even as late as July, but the year always ended about October, excepting the casita, which was a project that required one entire year of my labor to complete. I did have some professional help on the casita, totaling about 15% of the finished project, and I had help raising the posts for the two raised decks. All of the rest of the work, including the overheads on the decks (those long beams under the awnings are twenty-two feet long!), I did myself.
Had I known what I was getting into, I would not have done it. I would have gone to work on the house first, made all the things we wanted for the house, then started my business and hired someone to do all the things in the yard. Maybe. My guess would be that it would have cost $100,000 to $150,000 for professionals to go back there and do the work. And I doubt that they would have done some of the things I did, the benches and reading porch. And who the heck would want to shell out that kind of money? But on the other hand… ten years!!!
But it’s finished now, and that’s the main thing. And I have to say that we have enjoyed it quite a bit and expect to really enjoy it this summer. Already, Christine has been back there on a frequent basis, looking at the growth of the plants and such, and enjoying every minute of it. (For more on our yard—and more pictures—please go to Thinking About It.)
We have featured a lot of backyard kitchens on this site and will do more in the future, as it is an idea that is becoming increasingly popular, as is the concept of a yard as elaborate as the one I designed in a moment of insanity and then pursued for much too long a time. It is not, I hasten to add, a line of business I want to get into myself, but I thought I would share some of my ideas with our readers, along with what I have found along life’s byways… and the Internet.
Joseph
NEXT: “When You’re Here, You’re Family!”
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