robyn

I don't know how much of the weekend you want to spend battling traffic on I-95 (it's murder) - but I suggest staying in the north and central Palm Beaches area if you want to have a reasonably relaxing time. There's certainly enough there to keep you busy for a weekend. Don't even think about Miami unless you want to spend at least 90 minutes driving each way. We get to south Florida about 3-4 times a year. I usually visit my parents near Boca - and have some business in Miami. The traffic has become so bad that we split up our hotel stays (a few days in the Palm Beaches - a few days in Miami). You didn't say how old you are - what kind of atmosphere you're looking for - or what you feel comfortable spending. So I'll dash off some comments. Feel free to ask specific questions. Of those restaurants you've mentioned - I've been to L'Escalier, Cafe L'Europe, and Chardonnay within the last couple of years. L'Escalier had a new chef when we were there last fall, and we thought it was excellent (best meal we had last trip). The room has a very formal feel - but the staff was very friendly. Cafe L'Europe is also very good - also pretty formal. In Palm Beach proper - you should also take a look at the new Cafe Boulud (it probably isn't in the guidebooks yet - but it has a web site). Didn't think the food was as good as that at L'Escalier -although it was very good - but we liked the ambience more (didn't hurt that they were having a fashion shoot in the courtyard the night we were there). We also enjoyed Echo in Palm Beach. It is more of a casual Asian fusion type place. Not sure you'd want to make it your "night in Palm Beach" restaurant. Haven't been to Charlie's Crab in a long time. There are better places in my opinion. Chardonnay is more of a high end "local" restaurant in a strip shopping center (in Palm Beach gardens or North Palm Beach - can't remember the exact town). It is fine - but it has never been as good as - for example - Mark Militello's original strip shopping center restaurant in Miami. Isn't in the same class as the Palm Beach restaurants in my opinion. For a fun girls night out - and especially if you're 20ish to maybe 40ish - you might spend some time at City Place in West Palm Beach. Lots of restaurants and places to have drinks. No great food - but a fun high energy place. If you plan to spend an evening in that area (and I recommend doing that) - also take a look at what might interest you in the Clematis street area in Palm Beach (restaurants/bars/clubs/etc.). Further north - we like Carmine's in Palm Beach Gardens (casual but not inexpensive neighborhood place) - and for good deli for breakfast/lunch if you hanker for some - TooJay's in either Palm Beach Gardens or Jupiter (the one in Palm Beach Gardens is right down the block from the Palm Beach Gardens mall - very nice mall - and what would a girl's weekend out be without at least a little trip to the mall). As for microbreweries - haven't found one that's worth a detour - much less a trip (we have much better in Jacksonville). I think you can safely skip Brewzzi's and Hops. We've found a couple of "Irish pub" places in the area that are ok - but none that is worth a detour if another is closer to you. By the way - you definitely want to spend a little time in the Norton Museum. After its recent expansion - it is now probably the best art museum in Florida. Robyn Whoops - Clematis Street area is in West Palm Beach - not Palm Beach.

If anyone is interested - there's an article in today's New York Times design section about kitchen renovations - The Ready Mix Kitchen The website is free - but you have to register if you haven't already. Robyn

I guess I've only had the privilege of going "behind the scenes" at local joints. They can't afford granite . I like the look of black granite in a "city kitchen" that is used mostly at night. Very elegant. So the Alain Ducasse kitchen must look great. In Florida - during the day - when it's sunny (and that's when I do most of my cooking) - black granite makes your kitchen look like a relic from Miami Vice in the 1980's. It's hard in Florida to get any type of suitable surface for baking/pasta whatever. Everything is too warm and too humid. So I don't even try to do stuff like bread. When my husband and I make pasta - we use wax paper to minimize sticking. Cooling elements would probably work - but it doesn't make sense installing $1000 worth of cooling elements for the $25 worth of pasta we make a year . Take care, Robyn

OK - I understand your disappointment. I never thought Corian was cheap compared to granite - or "better". Just a different look. With somewhat different characteristics. I agree that granite is somewhat tougher - and that Corian scratches more easily (my current counters are 8 years old and they have some fine scratches on them - but the finish is still shiney). Both can chip if you drop things on them (not always but sometimes). Particularly with light colors - I think it's easier to get stains out of Corian if you're the kind of person - like me - who sometimes doesn't get around to cleaning up for 12 hours after making a mess (like last night - my husband thought he would be nice to me and make me a milk shake because of all my dental work - but he didn't screw the blender together properly and everything wound up covered with chocolate ice cream and strawberry syrup - which I cleaned up this morning). I've seen some pretty badly stained light granite counters in friends' houses. Unlike you - I have to categorize myself as a "light user" of my kitchen. I use it a lot. But there's little in the way of "banging and whacking and clanging" except in the sink when I'm cleaning up. I've never had to refinish any Corian counter I had. Once had to repair a chip in a counter in another kitchen - and that was a relatively easy proposition. My installer in this house did tell me - like you were told - that he could come back to "redo" the counter if I needed it - and that it would be easy. Of course - he then moved 1500 miles away - so I doubt I'll be seeing him anytime soon. With the pace of construction in most parts of the US today - it's hard to get anyone decent even to install something - much less fix/repair something. I think the next time I need a major appliance repaired - I will simply throw it in the trash and buy a new one. Considering what you say about how you use a kitchen - for your next kitchen - you might skip all the "residential" finishes and go straight to a commercial setup - like stainless steel - with specialty areas for things like baking. That will of course have its limitations too. It is easy to keep clean (and very sanitary) - but sometimes hard to keep from spotting unless you keep wiping it down. It will develop a patina of scratch lines over the years (I like stainless steel sinks - but they do develop a patina of scratch lines very quickly). I suspect you know enough chefs to ask to be taken on tours of lots of commercial kitchens that aren't brand new - so you can see what they'll look like down the road. If you want something that is very heavy duty and functional though - I suspect real commercial materials will make you happiest. As for aesthetics - perhaps you don't like what you got because you were trying to "imitate" granite - and what you got was "real Corian" - i.e., fake looking granite". I have taupey gray flecked Corian counters in my bathrooms. I like the look - but never thought about whether they looked like real stone of any kind. I just went in to look at them. I suppose you might mistake it for stone if you gave it a quick glance - but I think I'd be unhappy if what I really wanted in the first place was stone. I had a similar but worse experience with marble. This was for a bath counter in a master bath - maybe 12 feet long. It was supposed to be a monolithic slab. First the contractor drilled the sink holes in the wrong places. Then he got the sink holes right in the next slab - but the slab cracked in half during installation. So now we have 24 linear feet of marble and no counter - and the contractor is going broke on our job. We wound up cutting up those slabs into smaller runs - so the counter had 3 seams instead of none. They were grouted - and could be easily seen - but they didn't bother me. Still - I developed a phobia about marble cracking - and never used it again (for that reason - and also because it wound up covered with ring marks which were impossible to remove). By the way - I always like a full bullnose on residential counters - no matter what they're made of. Gives them an elegant look in my opinion. And I'd be careful about concrete. From what little I've seen of it in other peoples' houses and their discussions about it - it seems like an architect's perfect dream surface (i.e., one which photographs beautifully but isn't really designed to be used). It's good to talk about mistakes. My current kitchen is the third one I've done - it was built when we built this house - and I still have mental notes of mistakes that I will correct next time. You'd think I'd be able to get it right by now! Robyn

I agree with Robyn on this point, and not only for those on a budget. Fluorescents are often overlooked in the overall lighting package, I suppose because they have a connotation of cheapness. But with the latest bulbs, they can be extremely effective at general lighting (and task lighting, when used under cabinets) for a fraction of the installation and maintenance cost of incandescent or halogen, and when properly deployed, they can be almost invisible. Anyone who thinks all fluorescents are cheap will disabuse himself of that notion if he looks at the Artemide website. You know your budget is in trouble when you're looking at "luminaires" - not "lighting fixtures" . Likewise - all halogens aren't "high class" - far from it. Incandescents of course are all over the place - you can even use halogen floods in a lot of can downlights. I find lighting a very exciting overlooked area in many design plans these days. People have to start with basic questions - what am I going to use for general illumination - what am I going to use for accent/task lighting - do I have any particular problems like needing wall washers to deal with a large painting. And then how can I integrate everything I need in terms of light colors and (possibly) mood changes through things like dimmers. In the kitchen - I always found that general illumination was most important. In another kitchen I built (not the one I currently have) - I had fluorescents installed under the cabinets - but found that I had enough general illumination that I rarely used them. Robyn

My favorite spot would be directly on a counter. I think it's the safest space for one. That's why I also said it could fit right on the countertop across from the fridge, right there in the corner on top of the wine fridge. I'm used to designing small kitchens - so my favorite spot is above the cooktop. Works out fine for me since I like Barbara Kafka's Microwave Gourmet and wind up doing prep work in the microwave which gets thrown into a pot on the stove. Also -I cook smokey, greasy things outside - not inside - so the dinky exhaust fan on the microwave doesn't bother me. Robyn

My husband and I used to eat offal (which includes brains) when we could get it cooked properly (both in the US and Europe). After mad cow surfaced in England - we stopped. You probably don't have a great chance of catching it - but since it's 100% fatal - and there are so many other foods - why take a chance? Mad cow isn't the only issue. We have a friend who's a neurologist at the University of Kentucky medical school. His area of academic interest is AIDs dementia. He's done research about another form of (invariably fatal) dementia he discovered in Kentucky - and he traced it to eating squirrel brains (which is a popular dish there). Anyway - you might think twice before ordering if you see brains on a menu. Robyn

Actually, this might easier with the open shelving Varmint's considering. Presumably, such a unit can be cheaply built by hand. It just needs to be somewhat shallower and shorter than the standard cabinets, with a false back and top to hide the hardware. You may well be right. And if he tends to use the same X number of pots/pans all the time - it would be convenient too. Whatever Varmint decides - I'd advise measure 5 times - cut once. And even then you can run into problems. I wanted to put all my knives in a knife drawer under the cooktop. Ordered a cooktop which gave me the necessary clearance below. When it arrived 6 months later - it was the next year's model - and my knife drawer wouldn't close. Wound up pulling out the cooktop and tracking down a "last year" model which fit. Luckily - the last year model was also a touch bigger - so I didn't have to ponder the question of how to make the hole in the counter smaller. Robyn

You could get some shackles and chains anchored to a slab of concrete. Make the chains just long enough to go from the sink to the dishwasher. He decided to go the fancy route - he's using granite instead of concrete . Robyn I see Dave beat me to it on this one. By the way - is there any way here to just delete a message - not simply modify it (I've looked for one and can't find it).

Robyn - What are these fixtures? I still haven't done my kitchen lighting and am looking for energy effiency and good light. I have a small solar electric system and it would be nice to run the kitchen lighting from it if need be. (I can transfer load from grid to solar.) Do you have any links to learn more - or a google term to search for? Thanks Nick - Dave saved me the time of looking up a picture (thanks Dave). My fixtures are Lightolier (which is now Genlyte). I don't know if they're the best - and they're certainly not the only manufacturer - but the Lightolier/Genlyte web site has a lot of technical information. See, for example, this description. By the way - the reason I used these fixtures (in my kitchen/laundry room/closets etc.) doesn't have anything to do with money. I have absolutely terrible eyesight - including developing cataracts - and I just like to have enough light so my fingers don't wind up in the bowl when I'm chopping onions - or I don't walk out in blue pants when I meant to wear black. Robyn

With your budget - and your large pantry - I think you want as plain vanilla as possible. You don't even need a lazy susan (put large things in corner cabinets). Do however try to get the following in cabinets if possible: Upper cabinets which are full width - and where the shelves can easily be adjusted at lots of different heights. As for lower cabinets - I am a big fan of the configuration with a utensil type drawer on top - 2 drawers underneath (preferably with full extension). Anything that is buried in a lower cabinet is almost worthless in my opinion. Don't know if you want a pullout for garbage/recyling. One of my favorite lower cabinets is a "cutting board cabinet" - with vertical dividers - where you can store cutting boards - baking sheets - muffin tins - etc. Items like this can be stored much more efficiently vertically than horizontally. Take all of yours out - stack 'em up - leave some room for dividers and "wiggle" room - and that's about how much space you need to start. Add a little - it's always more fun buying this stuff when you have somewhere to put it . Think of other items you might want specialty storage for. We're not talking fancy hardware here - just different sized drawers. Like a drawer for placemats if you use them a lot. What are you going to do with the granite? I somehow thought that this was a big standalone stove - not a cooktop. If it's a cooktop - remember that there is stuff under the cooktop including the electrical line (or gas line? - I don't know anything about gas) - and you'll need something to conceal that stuff. Robyn

OK - the food shrink is in . If you really love Prego mushroom sauce - why do you bother to make sauce yourself? When I was younger - I always bought sauce in a jar - Ragu Traditional - and I doctored it up with carrots and onions and celery and chopped meat and wine and herbs and a bit more sugar - and I thought it was tastey. Then I got fancy - started making stuff from scratch - got one of those things where you put the tomatoes in on the top - a tomato pulverizer. I thought it was ok - but my husband plain didn't like it. So after a while - I said shoot - why should I waste time making something that I don't care a lot about - and my husband dislikes. So I'm back to my doctored Ragu now. I happen to prefer another sauce I make - a roasted red pepper cream sauce. And it's really fast because I use roasted red peppers out of a jar. I could spend the extra time roasting the peppers - but the incremental improvement isn't worth the time to me. So go my child - and eat your Prego Mushroom sauce without guilt . Robyn

Don't be sorry - I don't much like islands either (which is why my kitchen doesn't even have room for one). I am just trying to figuring out a good place to put a really big stove - and give the cook enough room around the stove so he has handy access to everything he needs - without knocking the whole house down . Where would you put the stove? The "L" with the little sink looks promising - but I don't think you can stick a stove in front of a whole wall of windows (and now I've forgotten whether those windows exist now - or whether they'll be created in this project). If those windows don't exist yet - putting the cooking area there would get all the hot stuff out of harms way. Robyn

That's an excellent point, and one that I had not fully considered. But of course, they'll have total access to the sink and dishwasher, which is there appropriate spot!! Let me consider the island option again, although I don't like islands' ventilation that much. Assuming you don't wind up using the "L" with the little sink for something else - you might put in some counter space which is a little lower than the rest for the kids (I don't know how old they are - but if they're L'il Varmints - I suspect they're my size or smaller). Even when the kids grow up - a lower counter can be used for certain specialty things (I seem to recall that bakers like lower counters). Note that counter heights can be important for adults too. This is your family kitchen - so make it for you (unless you're 6'5" and your wife is 5'0" - in which case I'm staying out of that discussion ). Robyn

Here is one way to save money when it comes to lighting. Use a couple of "floating look" fluorescent fixtures for now. Maybe a rectangular one along the "galley" and a square one in the middle of the left hand area. They are cheap -energy efficient - and will give you tons of light. There are "warm bulbs" which emit a light color which won't make the kitchen look like a garage. Robyn

I am in your camp when it comes to cooking things that are very greasy and smokey. Outdoors is the way to go. That said - I have read some interesting articles about kitchen design for people who do lots and lots of wok cooking (which most people don't want to do outdoors ). This is a custom design problem in most parts of the country. But in areas of the country with large Asian-American populations - standard builder houses are designed for the way most of the people who buy those houses cook. A hunt on the internet might turn up some of those articles. Also - if someone is going to do the kind of cooking indoors which requires a commercial quality hood - it would be a good idea to look into commercial or high quality fire extinguishing systems. They can be important. I once worked on a case where a BBQ place put in all kinds of fancy new stuff in its kitchen. First night they fired up the stove - it caught fire. The fire system failed - and the restaurant burned down. Needless to say - it was a good case and settled quickly. Robyn

Off the top of my head - I would like to take the cooktop off the wall (use that wall for something really shallow) - get rid of the peninsula to the right of the dishwasher - and float the cooktop in a big island in the middle of the room. Robyn

I agree with Marie-Louise about the stove. Rather than discuss/argue here - I think you should try something. I don't think you've decided on the stove you want yet - but pick a likely candidate. Get a big sheet of architect's paper from your father-in-law. Cut it to the size of that stove area. Draw in the stove. Put the piece of paper on something like your dining room table. Then add a typical mise en place and other stuff you frequently use on both sides. And get the feel of it - go through the motions of how you cook some of your favorite meals - keeping in mind that with your new floor plan - (I think) you've eliminated some counter space that used to be within handy reach of the stove. In other words - give a paper mock-up a little test drive. And see if you like it. Robyn

I don't want "sexy" appliances, Robyn. I want high performing appliances. Ones that kick out the heat and suck out the smoke. My two objectives of this remodeling are function and space. Everything else is secondary. Looks will come later. I agree - you have clearly said many times that looks will come later. All I'm saying is I'd probably have somewhat different priorities. Not that mine are right - and yours are wrong - they're just different. Robyn

A silver sink? Did you have Dennis Kozlowski's decorator ? Tell me about silver sinks (I saw there's a web site on German silver sinks but I had a lot of dental work today - am loaded with drugs - and couldn't slog through the technical specifications). By the way - I don't think a person with an English Country Cottage kitchen and a person with a mid-century modern kitchen should try to have a discussion about aesthetics. No matter where we start - we will wind up in a dead end. I think we will have more fun discussing fixtures and materials - like silver sinks. Do we have a deal? Robyn

Nothing a quick squirt from can of Painless Stainless couldn't fix. Well - just about everything in the world can be cleaned (except stains on marble ). Doesn't mean I want to spend most of my life cleaning. I also dislike polishing silver - so I don't own much of it. We went to the Bulthaup showroom last time we were in Atlanta and I spent some time chatting with the sales staff about new trends in kitchen design. They told me there's a reasonable backlash these days against all of that stainless because it is a pretty high maintenance "look". This reminds me of part of a book I read - about kitchen storage. You know those arrangements where everything is out in the open - and the pots and pans are hanging on the wall or from the ceiling? Well they work fine for restaurants - and home kitchens where people are using everything all the time. But for someone who doesn't use all of their "stuff" pretty regularly - they're just dust magnets. And those cabinets with the glass fronts? Great for people who have tons of great looking stuff that they always arrange very carefully. Not so great otherwise. Still - the important thing is that the customer picks what he/she likes with as much information as possible about the advantages and disadvantages of his/her choices. Designing a kitchen (or any other room in the house for that matter) simply isn't a "one-size fits all" endeavor. Robyn

I don't know about granite first hand - because I've never used it. I can say that natural marble sometimes has natural faults - and that it can fracture (based on personal experience). One thing I would suggest for people contemplating any type of expensive purchase like this is to look at the contract the supplier or contractor makes you sign. In my case - the marble supplier contract had a "cop out" clause (natural marble can have faults and it can crack when it's being transported or installed and we're not responsible for anything once it leaves our warehouse). So our contractor had to eat the loss. Which wasn't so terrific because that ate up a fair amount of his profit on the job - and he kind of lost his enthusiasm for finishing. I later found out that the marble (which had been spec'd by our architect) was a relatively soft marble - and more prone to fractures than other types of marble. It was very beautiful - but probably not the right material for the job. So I guess another suggestion is review material specifications - try to learn about materials you're not familiar with before you buy them (which I guess is what everyone is doing here). Sounds like you've had some personal bad experiences with Corian. What were they? Robyn

I got a jar of Rao's vodka sauce at a Christmas party "grab bag". It was really delicious. Unfortunately - the pasta shaped like little tennis rackets wasn't as successful. Robyn

I haven't had problems with scratching or repairs (and I use trivets and don't put cigars on it - so I haven't had problems with burns). Yes - it's expensive - particularly since I had a Corian fabricator working in my house for about 3 weeks and had him put full bullnoses on every piece in the house. Note that I am a pretty neat careful person - I don't have kids - and I don't give big parties where my house is full of strangers who don't care about my stuff as much as I do. Your mileage may vary. Depends how you (or anyone else reading this thread) likes to work in a kitchen - and what your lifestyle is like. As for "artificial in appearance" - it goes great with my Saarinen table and chairs in the dining room (open kitchen/dining room) - and my white Poggenpohl cabinets with stainless steel handles (also went great with another set of German cabinets I used in my last kitchen). Like I said in an earlier message - it's a particular "look". I don't think it would go well with Douglas fir cabinets. And I'm not about ready to tell anyone what they like or don't like in terms of design. But for someone who wants "white on white" - a very retro mid-century modern look - it works fine in my opinion. There are all kinds of compromises in life - and kitchen design. E.g., stainless steel appliances drive me nuts because of the "fingerprint factor". Perhaps that doesn't bother someone else nearly as much as it bothers me. Likewise - there are probably people who like not worrying about putting hot pans on kitchen counters. That's something I'm willing to live with. In Varmint's thread about his kitchen renovation - he wants sexy appliances - but is willing to live with an undone floor and repainted cabinets. That wouldn't be my personal choice - but it's his kitchen and his money. One size doesn't fit all in these things. The point of these discussions is to educate people - they know what *they* can live with - what kind of design they want - and what their budget is. An informed consumer is the best consumer. By the way - I was trying to upload a picture of my kitchen in another thread (to show someone how "white on white" looks). Couldn't figure out to how do it. Is it possible? Robyn