Kitchen Design Finished

The kitchen design is finalized. We made the few remaining decisions in-person at the new Pedini showroom in South Lake Union.

First and most important was choosing the finish of the upper cabinets. We wanted something lighter than the dark brown lower cabinets. The section of uppers is small, so we chose something with a bit of contrast. We quickly narrowed our choices to the painted glass finishes. A coat of paint on the back of glass provides some gloss and depth to the color. We settled on Bianco, which (despite the name), isn't white. The paint color is a light grey, and the glass adds just a hint of green to it. It is fairly neutral and matches our other materials well; it is lighter than the other cabinets, but is enough darker than a white wall to stand out nicely. Sadly, we cannot find any photos of the color on Pedini's site.

While we were at the showroom, we noticed they had a sample kitchen with an interesting mechanism for opening the upper cabinets. In the Magika line (which we are using), they have an upward-opening option in addition to traditional side-hinged cabinets. To prevent the upswing doors from running into your head, they are hinged in the middle. The upper half is hinged to the cabinet like expected, but the lower half is hinged inward, so it stays roughly vertical while the door is opened. When fully open, the door is compact and out-of-way, without hitting the ceiling. Particularly for someone tall, this seems like a nice alternative. They cost a bit more, but it is worth it to us. The sample unit they had was equipped with a motorized control, so just a touch would open or close the door. We weren't interested in the extra expense or complexity of the motors, so we chose the manual version.

We discussed several small decisions, mostly about handles. Magika has two handle options: hidden handles inset into the top of each door, accessible via a horizontal channel; and external vertically-oriented handles in aluminum or white. We generally liked the inset handles; they look clean and lack bits to snag on. For the back of the island facing the dining room we considered the aluminum handles for the visual effect. However, the channel for the inset handles adds height to the cabinets, and matching a set of channeled and channel-less cabinets on the two sides of the island would've been tricky.

On the upside, this conversation revealed that using handled cabinets in the bathrooms would lower the height a bit, so we switched those. Back in the kitchen, the cabinet and drawer on the appliance wall can't fit channels, so those require external handles. We spent a while debating which handles to use, and how to position them. We decided to have no holes drilled by the factory, and decide which handles to use and where to put them at installation time.

The fixed, opened shelving was dropped from the order completely. The shelves from Pedini wouldn't exactly match the cabinets, and were fairly expensive for simple shelves. Since we are getting other built-in cabinetry work done in the house, we decided we could get a better result by having those shelves constructed later.

With a few emails for revised diagrams and cost quotes, we now have the kitchen design fully locked.

Exterior Siding

The bulk of the exterior will be finished before most of the interior of the house, so we need to finalize the design for that fairly early. Yuval also likes to submit a basic siding scheme with permitting documents, even though it is not required.

We were inspired by a picture of another house by Whitney Architecture. We like the simplicity of plain lap siding for most of the house, with large panels to emphasize features such as the stair tower. The other houses at Bellevue 41st have used more elements than this in their siding schemes. Our house will have a lot of exposure to view, so we wanted something simpler to keep it from being too busy. This picture also suggests a light grey/dark grey color scheme that is cohesive but provides nice contrast between the different sections. The funny thing is, in person this house is a nice cream/chocolate brown color; but we prefer the grey that we saw in the picture.

Another picture inspired a plan for the windows. We like the contrast of the dark window trim against the light siding. To prevent it from being too stark, we'll use a dark grey instead of straight black.

Markus designed a great siding scheme from those initial inspirations. It uses lap siding for most of the house, but uses a smaller width on the upper floor for variety. The stair tower and the garage use panels, along with a little bit around the living room windows. The section next to the front door is designed as wood slats, to warm up the entry a bit. We've also discussed using wood on a section of the upper floor over the garage, to mesh with the green roof garden up there. Other than the wood, we are planning on a light grey for the lap siding, and dark grey for the panels.

We still have to finalize colors and woods, but we like the current design, and are happy to have a piece that is nearly perfect from the start.

Pictures from:

• Whitney Architecture: Wedgewood
• Bungalow Style House by Architect Randy Bens

Permitting Documents Submitted!

We have finally submitted the required documents for getting permits from the city to start construction; the submission process was called 'Permit Intake' — yes, there is a process to start the process. We submitted them on the last day of May. The intake process involves initial reviews to make sure our documents are in order and look reasonable. Now they go through the full review process. To encourage green construction, Bellevue has a program which completes permitting within six weeks (the normal process, to our amazement, takes twice as long). As soon as the permits are approved, we can break ground. We should be able to start construction around mid-July.

There's still plenty to do in the meantime (mostly on Yuval's plate). We need to get the construction contract signed, agree upon a more detailed budget, draw up a construction schedule, and finalize construction financing. We are close to finalizing the kitchen and bathroom designs from Pedini and will be placing that order near the start of construction. We also want to get a siding scheme finalized soon. Yuval will start sharing the plans with others in charge of specific areas. On area is framing; once that is done, we can order the lumber. Another is mechanical, to get detailed designs for HVAC and hot water supplies.

Submitting the permits was an important milestone and puts us that much closer to starting construction.