The Boss's Kitchen: Part 7 (Lighting)

This week's "Boss's Kitchen" will focus on what kind of lighting we use in our kitchen.

Recessed cans around our kitchen perimeter

Here is an overview of the lighting we used and why we used it. The goal, when deciding on how to light a kitchen, is to create the best task lighting you can without creating shadows. When I go into a lot of my customers' kitchens, most people have a central dome light in the center of their kitchen. While this type of fixture throws a lot of light, it always creates shadows as the person working in the kitchen is always in front of it.

To remedy this problem in our kitchen, we used "layered lighting". We start off the layers by strategically placing 5" recessed can lights around the perimeter of the kitchen. The lights are installed so that they shine down on the front edge of the counter. This keeps them in front of the person cooking so they won't create shadows. 

LED under-cabinet light bar

The next layer is task lighting for the counter under the wall cabinets. For these lights, we opted for some LED under-cabinet light bars. These throw a ton of light and use almost no electricity.

Pendants and directional lights hanging from monorail

The final light layer for our kitchen was the lighting above the island. This is a great place to use different kinds of light. We have a couple pendant lights that hang from a "monorail" light track. When using pendants, it is an excellent opportunity to bring in some different colors to help tie the room together. The monorail provides a great source for electricity for our pendants as well as directional lighting. The directional lights we use shine on our hood (was a darkish area due to no recessed can) and fridge. 

Next week will be our final post of this series and will focus on the appliances we selected for our kitchen as well as the sink and faucet. Thanks a lot for reading and as always hit us up on our facebook page or shoot us an email if you have any questions!

All the best,

Bill Hecht

President & CEO

David Hecht Custom Kitchens

The Boss's Kitchen: Part 6 (Counter Tops and Backsplash)

This week's "Boss's Kitchen" will focus on our counter tops and backsplash. 

To start off this post, let's tackle our counter selections.

On the perimeter of our kitchen we chose to use light colored Cambria Quartz counters. Quartz is a manufactured, non-porous product that consists of natural quartz, that is quarried from the ground, and a resin. The resin holds the quartz particles together and is what makes the product non-porous. Between its non-porous property and how hard it is, this counter can take a ton of abuse and not show it. The color pattern we chose is called Waverton.

For our island surface we selected soapstone. I just love the way soapstone looks and feels. It is very soft so it can chip and scratch if carelessly used but it has a wonderful feel because of its softness. We chose a black soapstone but it can come in various colors such as grey and green.

The last topic of this post will be the backsplash. We wanted something earthy looking to complement our soapstone island and our pendent lights (more on that in next week's post), so we chose multi-colored slate tiles with a tan grout. The slate has a slightly coarse feel to it and goes great with our brown maple cabinets. We elected to coat our tiles with a sealer and enhancer to both protect them from staining and to really bring out the various colors.

This concludes our post on counter tops and backsplash. If you have any questions, please ask us on our Facebook page or send us an email. Stay tuned for next week's post on our lighting!

All the best,

Bill Hecht

President & CEO

David Hecht Custom Kitchens

The Boss's Kitchen: Part 5 (Refrigerator Wall)

This week's "Boss's Kitchen" will focus on the refrigerator wall of the kitchen.

Here is the overall look of the fridge section. It is comprised of three parts: a shallow tall cabinet to the left of the fridge, the fridge and its enclosure, and the microwave section.

The shallow tall cabinet is simply a cabinet with adjustable shelving. I designed it to be 24" wide so that it would line up perfect with the front of our shallow refrigerator. We also kept it to 13" deep which is plenty deep to store most items but not deep enough where items will get lost in the back of the shelves. We store our nicer dishes and table linens in here as well as pitchers and vases.

Next we have the enclosure for the refrigerator. It is comprised of two long wooden panels down both sides, a 24" deep wall cabinet above, and a small wooden panel in-between the wall cabinet and fridge. All of this is used to fully enclose the sides of the refrigerator, so only the doors of the refrigerator are exposed, providing a custom, built-in look.   

Fridge and microwave section

Finally, we have the microwave section.  This section includes a wall cabinet that houses our microwave and a base cabinet with one drawer and two adjustable roll-outs.  The microwave cabinet has an opening that we sized perfectly for our microwave so we could get it off the counter top to free up space.  This counter is used for our coffee maker and the drawer in the base cabinet holds all of our various teas.  The cabinet with roll-outs is good storage for odds and ends that don't quite in a drawer (glass platters, placemats, etc.).  

This concludes the refrigerator wall of our kitchen. If you have any questions, please ask us on our Facebook page or send us an email. Stay tuned for next week's post on our counter tops and backsplash!

All the best,Bill Hecht

President & CEO

David Hecht Custom Kitchens

The Boss's Kitchen: Part 4 (Perimeter-Stove Wall)

This week's "Boss's Kitchen" will be all about the perimeter of the kitchen. Last week we tackled the sink wall so this week we will move onto the stove wall. We left off with the trash pullout so let's start this week's post off with the cabinet to the right of it, the lazy susan.

Lazy susan cabinet with door that tucks away when
cabinet is open and onions/potatoes storage.

This picture shows the susan open and illustrates how the doors rotate within the cabinet so that are tucked away when the susan is opened. This is great as you don't end up with a door hanging around when you try to get in and out of the cabinet. Spinning the susan farther will bring the doors back out of the cabinet and they center themselves correctly in the opening.

The cabinet to the right of the susan is where we store our onions and potatoes. This cabinet comes with three fiberglass bins that are very easy to clean. It is also a great cabinet as it keeps the root vegetables in the dark and handy to the stove and sink for rinsing and chopping.

Symmetrical cabinets on either side of hood.

Above the onion and potato cabinet is a nice wide wall cabinet. This cabinet is sized so that it, and the cabinet to the right of the hood, are both the same width. This makes the hood section look symmetrical. 

Custom spice pullout, opened.

To the right of the second wall cabinet, we have a custom spice pullout that we make and design at the store. When I moved our showroom to Waterford, I had an extra wide drawer left over in storage and figured out a way to invert it and turn it into a 24" deep spice pullout. Since then, we now make the pullout with adjustable shelves and have super strong tracks so it will always operate smoothly!

Below this cabinet, we have our pots and pans storage drawers. The drawers are 12" deep so they fits all our cookware very nicely. I installed a wooden divider in the drawer to hold the lids to one side in order to keep the drawer more organized and minimize the "search for the corresponding lid!" game.

Pots and pans storage drawer.

To the right of both the spice pullout and the pots and pans drawers, we have our deep tall pantry cabinet. This cabinet comes with five adjustable roll-outs in the larger lower section that we use for our baking goods. The upper section has an adjustable shelf and makes for nice storage for some of our pyrex dishes.

Tall pantry cabinet

This concludes the stove wall of our kitchen. If you have any questions, please ask us on our Facebook page or send us an email. Stay tuned for next week's post on the refrigerator wall of my kitchen.



All the best,Bill Hecht
President & CEO
David Hecht Custom Kitchens

The Boss's Kitchen: Part 2 (Island!)

This week's "Boss's Kitchen" post will be all about my island. I want to discuss my decision on the shape of the island, as well as some special features my wife and I included. 

Let's start with the shape.  We picked this "T" shape mainly because our room (as many of our clients' rooms) is not quite wide enough for a typical island width (usually between 24" and 48" wide). To allow for good walkways (42" wide) we had to size the island appropriately to fit between our counter depth refrigerator (more on that in a later post) and our counter with the sink. This only left space for 21" deep cabinets facing the counter with the sink.  

We knew that we wanted an open bookcase cabinet on the end of our island and, frankly, we didn't love the look of a 21" wide bookcase. So, we decided to use a 27" wide bookcase to give the island a larger look even though the rest of it was 6" shallower. Here is a picture of how it looks with the "T" shape and larger bookcase:

Moving along now to some of the special features.... We wanted a nice place to store a few bottles of wine. To do this, I created a 6" wide void between the island cabinets and made wine cubes out of cabinet material. Here is the finished product:

On the reverse side, we also had this same 6" void. By code, every island needs electrical outlets so this void gave us the perfect place to put our outlet (plus it's now super easy to use a mixer or other electrical products on the island!). Underneath this outlet, I installed a small hook for a hand towel (and this is a perfect location for it, since it's right across from the sink).  

On either side of the hand towel cubby, we elected to use drawer base cabinets. The one on the left is used to store our mixing bowls and Tupperware containers. This is a great place for both, as the majority of our prep-work and cleanup happen on the island. In the cabinet on the right, we store aluminum foil, plastic wrap, Ziploc bags, etc. 

So, that's the overview of the island we designed for our kitchen. If you have any questions, please ask us on our Facebook page or send us an email.  Stay tuned for next week's post on the perimeter features of our kitchen.

All the best,

Bill Hecht

President & CEO

David Hecht Custom Kitchens

The Boss's Kitchen: Part 1 (Welcome!)

As President of David Hecht Custom Kitchens, I often get asked, “well, what does your kitchen look like?”.  So, I’ve decided to start this new series of blog posts that will answer that very question.  To begin, I’ll provide a brief overview of my kitchen.  In future posts, which will be posted each week on Tuesday, we’ll go into more specific details on the features and functionality of my kitchen.   

To begin, my wife and I selected Brookhaven cabinets, made by Wood-Mode, in a stained maple.  The stain is called nutmeg and gives maple a nice warm feel (maple tends to stain either more blonde or brown, so this particular stain is a little bit different than what you'd normally see).  

We decided on cabinets that bring the crown moulding right up to our 8' ceiling.  This eliminates the dust collector on top of the cabinets and provides an additional shelf for storage within the cabinet.

To complement the crown moulding, we have a light valence attached to the bottom of the wall cabinets.  What's a light valence?  It's simply a piece of moulding that is used to hide under-cabinet lighting (in our case, LED light bars).  This valence also helps finish off the aesthetics of the kitchen.

Here are two photos of the kitchen so you can see what I'm talking about.  We'll have more detailed photos and discussion in next week's post on the features in the island of the kitchen.  If you have any questions in the meantime, please ask us on our Facebook page or send us an email.

All the best, 

Bill Hecht

President & CEO
David Hecht Custom Kitchens  

Infographic: Redoing your kitchen? What to know.

Hi everyone!  We often get asked about what to consider when beginning to plan a kitchen makeover.  So, we put together the below infographic to help organize the different elements.  If you have any questions, let us know!

Before and After: Can we keep our seating?

We often hear from our customers that it’s hard to envision what a redesigned kitchen will look like in their space. To help, we offer the following before and after story based on one of our real-life customer installations.

Gary and Jodi first came to our showroom because their current kitchen wasn't working for them anymore.  They wanted a better workflow but didn't want to lose the seating for four on their island.  However, the island was too big for the space, causing tight walkways on all sides.

In order to maintain seating for four, we decided to turn the island into a peninsula so we could pull it away from the rest of the kitchen and up against a wall.  

Gary and Jodi decided to go with a natural cherry cabinet which gives the room a rich feel.  Their choice of wall color, backsplash, and granite countertop complement the warm tones of the wood.

Here are some before and after shots to take a look at:

Before:  Island in center of kitchen.

After:  We replaced the island with a peninsula to maintain seating for four, but allowing more walk area around.

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Before:  The range was pressed right up against the end wall and there was very limited space between the sink and the range.

After:  We moved the range off this wall to provide more counter space around the sink.  We also recessed the wall cabinet above the sink to allow more head room.

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Before:  Wall with fridge.

After:  We moved the range from the sink wall and turned it into a wall oven and induction cooktop.  

After:  Here's a close-up of the induction cooktop and tumbled marble backsplash.

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Before:  Seating at the island, looking into the kitchen.

After:  Seating at the peninsula that we anchored to the newly constructed knee wall.

After:  We also added a cabinet for a future computer and included a grommet in the granite countertop for routing cables.

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After:  The new Armstrong laminate flooring.

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Before:  The existing cabinet sat on top of the basement stairs and had been cut to fit alongside the other cabinets on that wall, making the bottom of the cabinet unusable.  Here is what the cut in the cabinets looked like and how the space was unusable. The brown is the back of the stairway.

After:  We cut the oven cabinet to allow for the stairway, as the original cabinet had done. However, we applied a real cherry veneer to the inside of the cabinet and attached the drawer head with special hinges, allowing the area to be accessed.

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