Less Is More

I got the floor cabinets built and installed and it only took one day! This Less Is More philosophy is great. Uncluttered. Simple. Streamlined. Of course, it doesn’t do much for storage.

Unlike other projects I’m actually trying to do a little planning with these cabinets. The tolerances are tighter than I'm used to working with because of the sink. The sink is made by American Standard Radiator & Sanitary Co. and it is dated 1932. It a single basin sink, 18X30, cast iron and enamel. Even though it is not real big it still weighs about 75 pounds. It is an under-mount sink and the idea is to hang it between the 2 cabinets and then lay the counter top down over it. If the cabinets are too wide or too narrow there could be problems.

The other issue is the dishwasher. The plan is to hide the dishwasher behind one of the cabinets. Again, if the cabinets are the wrong size there could be problems. So I made the simple mock-ups of the cabinets to get a real-world view of the size and scope of the cabinets. It was very helpful and I made a few minor changes to the basic design because of the mock-ups.

But cabinet building starts next week. This weekend the plan is to make 4 shelves for the wall cabinets. I’m going to use 2 pieces of fir that were used to trim out the wall when they removed and enclosed the pocket doors back in the 1920s. Because the wall for the pocket doors was extra wide they used extra large boards to trim it out the new, smaller opening. The boards are clear fir, 1.25-inches thick and 12-inches wide. I need to get 4, 30-inch selves.