Reeded Kitchens - An Exciting Challenge!

Where to start? This is the exact thought we had when we were approached by a customer for a reeded kitchen. A reeded kitchen is a big project to take on, far bigger than your standard shaker style kitchen.

Firstly we designed the layout of the kitchen, as we do with all our customers, using auto-cad drawings. Once these are approved we iron out the details. This customer wanted a unique look, more unique than most reeded kitchens. The light valance and the panel edges are to have beads, all of the appliances are integrated, the island has some irregular angles, there is a countertop appliance garage, there is built-in vacuum to the kick, quartz back splash, everything is push-to-open, chiseled edges on the quartz, and cabinets with glass displays. Lots of details to work into the plans, and because of this we decided to cut this job in metric, not imperial measurements.

So....where to start?

Lets start with door sizes, every door had to start and end on a bead. We needed to have a consistent appeal and reveals. In a standard kitchen, the cabinet size dictates the size of the door. In this kitchen the door dictated the size of the cabinet. Door measurements were crucial, and every door was laid onto their respective cabinets in the shop to double check that we had all our size correct.  

Once the doors and cabinets were made, we moved onto the panels. All of the panel edges were beaded. The panels around the island were all angled and in every single corner, the reveals had to line up perfectly. We laid out the island in the shop, and did a full mock install to make sure everything was perfect before applying a finish.

The next detail to iron out was the countertop appliance garage. With the exception of sanding, this was the most time consuming aspect of the job. This one of a kind creation was quite the puzzle, but came together spectacularly. We glued individual beads on a cloth backer, taking care to get the layout exact in order to conform with the mechanism. We made a custom wood handle to easily pull it up and down. The glue-up required a jig that allowed us to set the beads without them touching one another. This little aspect of the kitchen is my favorite detail as it took some ingenuity to create.

The sanding was by far the most time consuming. We made custom sanding jigs and at one point had 5 people working on the sanding - we called it the sanding party!

Other nice details include the glass doors that have the beads and the basket pullouts that we sanded and sprayed to match the doors.

All in all, this job went perfectly but it was a lot of work. The cost for a reeded kitchen is higher than a standard kitchen because of the labour involved.

Onto the install! The install on a kitchen like this has to be done with care. This particular install took 8 days for 2 guys, we were sure to have everything line up perfectly. There was no taking risks because every single piece had hours of labour in it, so any damages would be costly.

Once we were done, our friends at Custom Granite Works came in and templated their counters and splash. Their craftsmanship definitely matched ours and the quartz completed the look of the kitchen nicely.

This project was a challenge, but one we accepted and tackled with excitement and passion. Everyone in the shop was happy to take part in this project and most importantly the customer's vision was brought to life! I am already looking forward to the next time we have a similar kitchen to build!