Maison Decor: kitchen

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Wednesday, September 23, 2020

Lakehouse kitchen cabinets

Merrilat

Our lake house plan is finally at the finish line!

The process of building a modular home is very different than

building a custom home with an onsite construction crew.

With modular builds, you select almost every single thing in the house, from

the kitchen and bathroom cabinet style and color, the countertops, door styles,

trim for the baseboard and ceilings, the staircase elements, lighting and windows.

This home has been completely customized and will arrive on flat bed trailers,

then put together like giant building blocks with all of the cabinets

and sinks and lights already installed!

The kitchen cabinet style and color is shown above in an image

taken from Merrilat Cabinet's website. Because we are having taller ceilings

than the "standard" ceiling height of 8', we will have most of the cabinets stacked

to ceiling height. Below you can see my notes with the kitchen I designed

for the lake where I added the top row of cabinets on one side of the kitchen.

Merrilat has a great kitchen cabinet design feature where you can put together your

dream kitchen. A Swedish style plate display rack was on my list among other things.

On the opposite side of the kitchen there is a bank of cabinets that will function as a secondary

station for microwave, food storage, coffee making, trash cabinet, pots and pans cabinet

and a bookcase for cookbooks. All the cabinets are maple in a painted white finish.

A kitchen by East Hill Cabinetry shows some double stacked cabinets with some glass front cabinets.

Our kitchen will be open to the main room overlooking the lake similar to this, but we will have a peninsula with the sink and bar stools creating a separation while still affording the view of the lake.

A kitchen by Julie Williams Design shows white painted cabinets to the ceiling but the ceilings

are lower so no room for stacking. My cabinets will be 42" with another 12" cabinet stacked

to take advantage of extra storage space. I am only having one large glass front cabinet for putting

some of my transferware on display. The others will all be solid front cabinets so I can stuff them

with my various random collections for holiday dinners etc. I know some people have lots of

glass fronts, but I know mine need to be more for utilitarian storage than for beauty storage.

And while I have been designing the house I also have been imagining the details of the various spaces.

I saw a mirror at a local auction house and thought it would be perfect for the powder room bathroom.

It has an elegant cottage look to it as if it once lived in a grand lake house.

This antique AntebellumVictorian mirror with its painted floral crest and

faux bois finish with gilded morning glories was just the ticket to give our new house some soul.

Flanked with modern golden bronze sconces, its the mix of old and new that I find super appealing.

That is why I love antiques and decorating with them. You won't see this mirror anywhere else...

Our lake house will be a blend of new and old and I can't wait to see it all

come together and share it with you on my blog.

The Lake cottage, White kitchens and the Wedding painting

source

The lake house is in the beginning stages of planning!

Our rustic unheated 1910 fisherman's shack is

going to get torn down and a year round home will take it's place.

I haven't blogged at all about the lake cottage, but that soon will be

making its way to my blog as we get ready for the next phase of life in retirement mode,

as we plan to move into it after selling our Boston area home.

White kitchens have always been a favorite of mine.

I think they are timeless and

so the new cottage will have white cabinets. While looking for inspiration

I found some pretty examples on Traditional Home magazines website,

so lets take a look!

Rarely do I see a French Country kitchen anymore, so this was surprising to see.

However our kitchen and cottage will likely be less "Frenchy", and

more of a blend of traditional, craftsman and cottage styles.

Another white kitchen from Traditional Home with color on the ceiling.

This kitchen is actually on a lake, and I love all the choices I see here.

A creamy white cabinet color with marble and butcher block.

Views to the lake is driving the design of our cottage

so we can take advantage of having a home on the water's edge.

You would never getting tired looking out of the window at the kitchen sink.

Double islands in a fun color in an otherwise white kitchen.

Our kitchen will be modest in size, but in an open floor plan

to the living space which will give it an open feel. We will have

an island and have toyed around with color ideas.

This is our current kitchen as seen in Nora Murphy's Country House Stye book.

Because it is in a contained space it feels small.

I painted my maple cabinets white years ago and still love the look.

They say you can tell the decade a house was built just by looking at

the kitchen cabinets. Knotty Pine, Golden Oak, Cherry, Thermafoil...

they all have had their time being popular, and then falling out of favor.

White kitchens are timeless! A quick change of accents and hand towels,

and you have a whole new feeling for your kitchen.

Last but not least, the wedding painting!!

I wanted to show you the finished painting of my son Brandon's wedding

to his bride, Mimi. Live event painter, Sheila Foley started this painting during

the outdoor wedding we held in our courtyard under a tent,

and finished it in her studio and called me about a year later to say it was ready.

It was worth the wait!!

We now have a unique memento of a special day for our family, and it

captured the wedding festivities and mood so well!

The attention to detail, and capturing peoples likenesses was unreal!

Simply amazing!

This was taken an hour before the guests arrived for the wedding,

where Sheila had started the background of the painting.

To see more about the wedding day

and the painting in progress click here.

For more information on live event artist Sheila Foley, click here.

A true French Farmhouse Kitchen

This gloriously pretty French Farmhouse captured my attention, but truth be told, the

charming cottage style kitchen is how I found this beautiful home.

This enchanting kitchen was custom built by the homeowner to imitate the kitchen in

a favorite French hotel restaurant, La Mirande, which has a Chef's Table kitchen.

The open shelving with the decorative trim work, painted blue, is incredibly charming!

Here is a wider view of the kitchen, with the oak Chef's table in the center surrounded by ladder back chairs in French blue. Loads of copper hang from the walls, pot rack and over the Lacanche range.
Its just so charming!! Read more about this French Farmhouse and the beautiful renovation on the The Glam Pad blog here. I fell in love with the kitchen, and then the rest of the house!
Follow on Instagram with updates on the property @provencepoiriers for more images of this dream French farmhouse in Provence.

The Best Price on Copper Kitchen Aid Mixers

The iconic Kitchen Aid stand mixer.

I have never owned one and I do a fair amount of cooking and baking. A hand mixer was the way I handled mixing up batters and whipped cream and pie fillings for decades! But once I spied the copper colored Kitchen Aid mixer I decided it was time for me to get one. My sister has one, my son and daughter-in-law have one, and even my grandmother had one. Nana had the old Sunbeam Mixmaster, a stand mixer that predated these more powerful mixers by Kitchen Aid.

Once I decided to get one, I found that it wasn't as simple as picking a color, I had to pick a model first, as there are many models to choose from.

The engines that run the mixers get more powerful as the size goes up. The mini Artisan has a 3 quart capacity, the Artisan Tilt Head holds 5 quarts, and the Professional model holds 6 quarts. The capacity is what helped me make up my mind, as I might be mixing up a box cake mix, a batch of cookies or maybe even two loaves of bread, so I chose the Artisan Tilt Head model, which is the most popular choice of home chefs. The largest size would be more difficult for everyday mixing of normal size batches of ingredients. Next I would look for the copper color I loved.

Turned out there are more than one copper finish offered by Kitchen Aid.

The prettiest shiniest copper finish is the "satin copper".

A search on Kitchen Aid's website shows two mixers in copper.

The largest was a 7 quart Professional Limited Edition Pro Line Series.

The price tag was a hefty with $999.99 and was unavailable on their site,

but I did find it at Williams Sonoma. Below you will see what Kitchen Aid

shows when searching "copper mixer".

The same pretty "satin copper" finish is also available in the Mini Artisan,

but this model is just too small for my needs.

After more searching I found the 5 quart mixer in the "satin copper" at Crate and Barrel for $599.00

However the price was also too steep. The other range of colors were offered around $399.99, and an upcharge of $200 seemed unfair. Amazon revealed a Copper Pearl finish in the 6 quart size for $399.99, which is a great buy, but I wanted the Artisan 5 quart model. Still determined to find a Kitchen Aid mixer in copper at a price I was happy with, I pressed on and continued my online search.

Everything Kitchens

Everything Kitchens, an online retailer for many major brands, carried most of the Kitchen Aid models and all of the copper finishes in the 5 quart sizes. They had it in the "satin copper", the "copper pearl" and the "antique copper" finishes. Ultimately I decided upon the Copper Pearl finish. The price was right at $299.00! I hoped the color would be coppery enough.....I would just have to wait and see. From everything I researched I had read nothing comparing the copper finishes, only that the metallic series featuring the shinier "satin copper" was it was showing wear and scratch marks after repeated cleanings. Not a good thing. So I placed my order and waited....

The day it came, I excitedly got it out of the box and set it up on the kitchen sideboard.

I was really happy with the color! These mixers are usually too tall to put on the counter if you have upper cabinets, so make sure you have a place to put your beautiful mixer. I wanted to look at it as a part of my kitchen decor, so that was important that it have a place to sit everyday. This quick Instagram pic shows the finish, and although it is not as shiny as the real copper items you see next to it, its pretty darn close.

And here under the glare of kitchen lights, it gleams with the copper look I was hoping for....

Reeve loves to sit and watch me cook in the kitchen, and now with my new copper mixer, it gives us more reason to have fun in the kitchen together.

I am very happy with the Artisan Tilt Head mixer in Copper Pearl, and was excited to find the Everything Kitchens website that offered such a great price. ( This is not a sponsored post by the way, its just to help anyone who like me, was obsessing on the new Copper colored Kitchen Aid Mixers!)

Do you have a Kitchen Aid Mixer? What color and how do you like it? Was it a gift or something you decided to buy for yourself? I would love to know!

Copper in the Kitchen

Copper cookware and accents used in kitchens is nothing new in design, but as trends come and go, this is one that has stuck around. My first kitchen in my very first apartment was outfitted with copper accents. I had a big copper pot rack and it hung above a second hand copper colored Tappan range. Copper canisters and a copper colander and a few other copper accents made my kitchen the country kitchen of my young dreams.

Fast forward through a series of house moves and over time the copper disappeared from my kitchen decor. Maybe I just switched my attention and copper lost its fascination for me. Well, I am here to say I have fallen in love with copper all over again! It seems as if I am not alone, as it is appearing in kitchens of some of my favorite designers and bloggers.

Martha Stewart has led the way in setting trends and making certain antiques popular once again when she uses them in her own kitchens and on her baking show. I spy two (!!) copper Kitchen Aid mixers and measuring spoons and copper molds on the wall. The copper looks beautiful with the marble and the breadboards and the rustic potted herbs. I developed a fixation on Martha's copper Kitchen Aid mixer, and the next thing I knew, I was researching the models, the color finishes, and am happy to say I found one at a very good price. My next blog post will be about my mixer and all that I discovered, as soon as I take some pictures of it in my kitchen. Until then I am sharing some amazing copper in amazing kitchens that hopefully inspire you as much as they did me.

Martha Stewart's Bedford, NY Kitchen

In Martha's New York kitchen she has a wealth of copper molds and pots and pans displayed on the walls in this huge industrial space. I also did a lot of research on copper cookware, and was surprised to learn what I found out...you might be interested in learning that good copper cookware is expensive, and the copper will discolor when used on the stove. Reading the reviews that are posted about different manufacturers will tell a lot about a product line. Copper cookware from different manufacturers vary in quality. I love the look of copper pans hanging in a kitchen, it is very French, so that adds to the appeal for me. (More on that in my next post, as I share the cookware I did purchase and the reasoning behind my decision.)

Martha Stewart's Turkey Hill Farm, CT Kitchen

In her former Connecticut kitchen, an oversized pot rack matches the equally oversized island

and holds a shameful amount of copper pans. It is both obscene and inspiring! If you look closely you will see a stainless pot sitting on the cooktop, making one wonder if this collection is purely decorative. Even so, I have to say the copper looks amazing!

French Country Cottage
This cottage kitchen belonging to Courtney Allison of the French Country Cottage blog, is
just beautiful! The copper pots appear to be new and hang from a rod suspended inside
the range hood positioned over her blue French LaCanche range.

French Country Cottage Blog

Another peek at Courtney's kitchen....just a few well placed copper accents give this kitchen the French cottage charm I love. Her kitchen also gave my obsession over copper fuel that I was on the right path. My collection has grown after searching online antique listings, antique shops, thrift shops, Marshalls and HomeGoods, which are all great places to find copper. Target and Kohls carry copper accents, so if you are like me, once you start looking for it, you can be certain you will find it.

Switching over to copper has me taking out things and playing around with some of my "new" pieces, like this tin lined copper mold of a pineapple. I brought it home from the thrift shop and hung it up above a ceramic mold and loved the shiny coppery color. Now I have a big collection of old and new copper including mixing bowls, shovel scoops, measuring cups, colanders, pans and molds of many shapes and sizes....

and that fabulous copper Kitchen Aid mixer!

I promise I will be back soon with some photos as soon as I finish hanging things where I want them.

Having a lot of fun with my on again off again obsession...can you tell?

Our Home Tour 2017

Our Home Tour
I recently updated the photos to show how our home looks now.
My rooms are always being redecorated for one season or occasion,
or simply because I am rearranging my furniture!
Can you relate?
I hope you enjoy the tour of our home~
From the courtyard and garden shed, to our small front yard,
take a walk around and come on in!