Mark Mitten  0:05  
Are you an interior designer with drawings up the wazoo, but no final plan for your investment property kitchen? You'd better call Paul.

Paul McAlary  0:33  
Hi, Lynn, can you hear me?

Lynn  0:34  
Yes, I can hear you. Can you hear me? Yes.

Paul McAlary  0:36  
So welcome to better call Paul. Where would you like to start?

Lynn  0:39  
Well, first of all, my question is going to like wire, what's the purpose of being recorded? I should have asked that initially we

Paul McAlary  0:47  
have a podcast that we have on our website, you can we have 45 episodes, or something like that, and some of the calls that we get, we turn into the podcast. You can wait till the end of the call and decide if you want to be on our podcast or not.

Lynn  1:04  
Okay, that sounds fine with me. Thank you for explaining it. Sure. Yeah, go ahead and tell me, I know you said the bathroom door doesn't,

Paul McAlary  1:11  
yeah. So this, you know, the bathroom door, I always tell people, the first thing we want to do is we want to defunctify people's spaces. We don't want to create anything that's funky, so having a powder room door that's opening essentially right into the backs of where people are sitting at the island is just not desirable. There's lots of ways that you could change your your layout to correct that. I mean, I could send you after our phone call is over. I could send you a couple of different ways. One way to do it might be to move the wall inside the bathroom, the powder room, move it a little bit farther into the kitchen, and then put the sink there right because you also have a little bit of a problem too, in that if the pedestals that's in the picture is unusually small, so if you really got a normal depth pedestal, which would come out 21 inches, or something like that, or 22 inches, it would really be a little bit sticking out into your doorway when you were walking into the bathroom. But if we made your bathroom a little bit longer, you could put your pedestal sink directly across from the toilet, which is a more natural place to be, and then we could angle the wall back, back to where it was before, and then square it up, and then have the door to the bathroom actually opening in the foyer. That would be definitely preferred, right? Then you

Lynn  2:41  
wouldn't know what we have. Yeah, we have, this is an historic home, and so anything that's art, that those are existing walls. So unfortunately, like, we've already had the structural engineer do his magic to open up these and make this open kitchen plan. So, so that we, we're already raising the house as we speak, and and so it is unfortunate. Like I know that that pedestals. Think that's all we can fit there. There is an actual pedestal. We're probably the only thing I can think to do. And I don't even think that'll work. I can't even swing the door the other way, so the vision doesn't I think I'm just kind of stuck with it. I mean, I know I don't understand

Paul McAlary  3:18  
what. It doesn't matter if it's a historical home. No one's going to dictate that you have to have a bathroom door opening into a into a seating I know these are just interior walls, so you're just changing your floor plans slightly, but they're interior walls. They're not load bearing or anything.

Lynn  3:35  
Yeah, I'm assuming it's not load bearing, but I mean, the toilet is under the stairs, so that there is some but you're right. Maybe we could even just bump out and increase, decrease the foyer size and push that. Yeah,

Paul McAlary  3:49  
I can send you drawings. You can decide if you want to do it or not, but I would tell you, when you do something funky, it certainly affects the value of your home, right? And you might be okay with it, I would tell you that you're an architect originally, and architects sometimes are the enemy of kitchen designers. So architects create space spaces a lot of the time, independent of what good kitchen design might be. And then customers come to us and want us to create a good kitchen after the space that got created, didn't you know, there wasn't the right thought process going in to create it. So this will be an example of that. And then the funny thing is, is this was against building code, 1011, years ago, 11 years ago, you couldn't even have this door. You wouldn't pass inspection if the building inspector knew what he was doing, and you had your powder room door opening onto this area that's next to the seating. But architects are always lobbying to get rid of building codes, because they like to design the things that they want to design, and they don't like restrictions. So I think it was architects that actually lobbied and had that you. Caveat in the universal Building Code removed, so that now some doors can open on eating areas and dining areas, but it's still funky, and 10 years ago, you couldn't even have done it if the building inspector actually knew what the rules were. But yeah, whatever, I can send you the possibilities of how you could do it, but I that it would be if you could. It's certainly not a lot of construction work, kind of having a powder room door open into your four years, definitely preferable. But that's, that's one thing, okay, other things, the table area. I mean, that's another thing is, you know, you've sort of done the same thing that I've said. And you know, as an architect, you created the space because you don't have the table put in, and we haven't figured out exactly how much space you have. You could order this kitchen, install all the cabinetry, and then find out it was very cramped around where your table was going to be. So the way, from the measurements that I'm looking at it looks to me like the end of your island to the wall is about nine feet. Yes, that's true. And so, right? And so if you're planning on sitting at a table, and it's, let's say it's the narrowest table you could find, which would be a 36 inch wide table, but most kitchen tables, or most dining room tables, are more like 39 or 42 but let's say you got the narrowest table, so you got 108 inches. And then if you're going to be able to push a chair back, right and stand up and not scrape the wall that's in back of you. You probably need to leave, you know, at least 30 inches. But 32 would certainly be better to have 32 inches from the edge of the table to the wall so that you could push a chair back, stand up and exit without, you know, into the wall with the chair every time you tried to get out. And, you know, in a heavier person could stand up, not just a thin person. So if we take 108 inches, and we minus 32 to stand up and get out of a chair, and then we minus the smallest table, which is 36 you're left with 40 inches from that edge of the table to the edge of the island. If a normal person, when they're sitting generally, takes up a couple of feet, it's, it's a little bit tight going through there, you might want to make your island a little bit shorter. It looks to me like your island is over 10 feet long, right?

Lynn  7:36  
I have it at 10 two but I think it's going to be 10 feet but two inches? Yeah. So 10 feet long,

Paul McAlary  7:42  
yeah. So a slab of granite or quartz, you're probably going to get, though, the longest slab is 10 feet in a waterfall on each end of your island, right now, right now. So they're going to have to miter that if you're don't want to end up having some problems with the quartz and everything else. Make it nine feet, six inches, okay, right? Or nine feet, something like that. That way they can do the miters and they're not using the very last nub of the slab. And then on top of that, you'll pick up six inches around your table will suddenly be comfortable. And then if you ended up finding a table that was bigger than 36 the absolute narrow was table, it wouldn't be a crisis. So I would recommend taking your island a little bit shorter, just for the slab reason and for the space reason.

Lynn  8:37  
And so it how many can I fit four stools? What's the is it two feet, 24 I mean,

Paul McAlary  8:42  
that's the other thing too. Is the waterfall is a nice, attractive thing, but it also, if you're sitting people at stools, nobody likes, nobody likes to sit ducks in a row, right? So even if you have nine feet, technically nine feet would sit four people or nine and a half feet. You're never going to get five, so you couldn't have gotten five if it was longer anyway, but technically, you can sit four, but you'll never get four people happily sitting altogether. They won't be able to turn to face each other, but to have a conversation, you're forcing everybody to be sort of like ducks in a row. So that's sort of the bad thing about a waterfall, is that if you didn't have a waterfall, and maybe your top was that length, you could be having a seat on the other side, and now people would have a focal point, but you wouldn't have the attractive feature of the waterfall on each end. So you sort of give up functionality when you add the waterfall, but then you get the look. And then in realistic terms, even though your island can sit for it will only happily ever sit three. Because what will happen is the people sitting on the back of the island will turn their stools. The two people on the end will turn. Schools slightly sideways so there can get into a conversation with the third person on the end, and the person in the middle will be looking in between the two other people. So kit feeding kids. For you know, you have four kids, it probably works, but for adults, just it doesn't happen that four adults sit on the back of an island. Usually it's just not as comfortable a way to sit, really, if you don't have another side of the island that people are sitting on. Yeah,

Lynn  10:27  
I get that, I think during the waterfall, because the depth of the island is only 36 inches, which I'm hoping maybe when we get in there, maybe I can stretch it, maybe at least a couple inches. It feels to me like it, if I don't put the waterfall, it's going to have a very narrow feeling to see just the cabinets underneath the 20 you know, I guess I was trying to make it feel a little bit bigger. Well,

Paul McAlary  10:52  
the way that you could make that island seem because the countertop is 36 so you only have two feet of cabinets underneath, right? Is that what you're saying? So, yeah, they

Lynn  11:03  
would look dinky, you know, if you just see them. So,

Paul McAlary  11:07  
yeah, so that looks a little bit dinky. So the way that you could change that is, one way is to do it with a waterfall. The other way to do it is, you can do it with cabinetry too. Is you can have cabinetry facing the other direction and close it in right so, but then that would leave you even less space in the middle, because the water thickness of the waterfall is only an inch and a quarter. And if you were doing cabinetry, you know, you wouldn't want the cabinetry to be less than nine, so you'd lose 18, but you get a little bit more cabinet space. And would it would definitely look more substantial. But the other way to compromise is you do two legs on the ends, and then you have a rail connecting the cabinetry to the legs, so that the it becomes more of a table kind of look. And then the rail could be like three inches high or something like that, and then you would get one person on the end, and then you could really sit comfortably three or four on the other end. But, you know, I like the island that's very contemporary, and it has a nice look to it, but people don't think about it. But you don't get four people, even though you can fit them, you just don't get four people sitting like that.

Lynn  12:22  
If you put a leg there, do you people a leg on the corner? You're saying you,

Paul McAlary  12:27  
yeah, you'll have a leg on the corner. So you'll still sit, because you have nine and a half feet. You'll still be able to sit three or four on one side, but you'll sit another person on the end, and it will just create a more of a conversational kind of thing. It's, it's definitely less dramatic, right? The waterfall is a much more dramatic look, but it just, it depends on if you're doing this for social reasons. You know, everybody thinks everybody's going to sit like that, but no one ever does. Usually adults won't okay. And then the other thing about the waterfall two is, you have requirements for outlets, right? So a lot of times outlets would go on the sides of the cabinets where people could plug into now, when you have a waterfall coming down, if you wanted to plug something into your island, there's not really a good place for any outlet. Yeah, you know, you might want to put outlets in the countertop. So you could have a countertop outlet that pops up, so it would be like a circle that you would push down and then that would rise. Or it could be one that's a square outlet that folds up, that could have a outlet and a charging station or whatever in it by code, you're going to need, for the size of this island, essentially three outlets, because you have to have one every four feet. So you're going to need at least two. But where would they go? Right? Yeah, so you don't want it.

Lynn  14:00  
I think I'm leaning away from the waterfall, is what we're saying. Well, I mean, I'm

Paul McAlary  14:04  
not saying no, in some respects, I try to be a very negative guy, but, and the reason is, is every design that we do has positive and negative aspects to it. And the Waterfall has a really nice, contemporary, clean and dramatic look, but people like it, but then they haven't heard what their price they're paying for it, right? So then, you know, you just our job is to sort of inform everybody the good parts about any design are sort of obvious. The bad parts of a design are usually not obvious. Our job, is to just make sure that all the trade offs you make you're making consciously. It's like, I don't care. I like that island look. I don't care if it's only three people sitting at my island. I like that look. And then that's a conscious decision, and that's good, right? There's nothing wrong with the waterfall, but I'm going to have outlets in the front. Front of my cabinets, so I'm going to leave a filler or something for something to plug in, or I'm going to have the pop up outlet come out of the top of my countertop, which won't be a bad looking thing. I mean, a lot of people think it's so horrible looking. The the pop up outlets aren't horrible, and that's another thing too. I would say even your island, you really like it because it's pristine and it doesn't have a sink or anything in it, but it's making cooking much more of a pain in the neck for you. Yeah, if you had just a small prep sink in your island, life would be much better, because generally, when you're cooking, you're washing things, cleaning things, and then going to the cooktop or stove, and you have to walk all the way over to your sink to get the water every time you want to clean a vegetable or or anything else, or throw something in a garbage disposal, or anything else that you might want to do. If you did decide to put like a prep sink in your island, you would have just destroyed that pristine look already. So having another, you know, having another pop up outlet or whatever, and it wouldn't be as much of a crisis.

Lynn  16:09  
I did add another garbage pull out to the island, because that is the fit, the thought somebody's going to be doing there. But yes, I didn't want to destroy that beautiful, clean surface. And I currently have my sink in the island, and it just creates a mess the water. And this is a narrow, narrow island, so I just figured I have a window there this time. This this round, we're going to try it absolutely, yeah.

Paul McAlary  16:37  
I mean, it wouldn't have to be a big sink. The big sink is your dishwashing thing, right? So it would only be a prep sink, yeah,

Lynn  16:45  
I would prefer closer to the sink, sink on that side, instead of closer to the table. That's my gut instinct. Do you have an impression where that prep Yeah, it

Paul McAlary  16:56  
doesn't make a difference, because it's going to be convenient if it's anywhere in the island, if you are going to put a prep sink and you put it on the end near the other sink, it really wouldn't be a horrible thing to have it be near the other sink, because it has a totally different use, right? So you don't want this sink to be in the middle, right? You want it to be the off to the side. So you have a whole lot of area where you could be cutting and chopping and working the way your kitchen's designed right now. At any rate, you don't really have a good work area on either side of your stove. In fact, that's something else you might want to talk about, is that the two big refrigerator, freezer things are making it so that the cabinetry that's on either side of your stove is not a really good size for cooking, for countertop purposes. And actually, it's not really the right size for pots and pans. I'm looking if your stove is 36 what are those cabinets like? 2724

Lynn  17:52  
24 and then I have two drawers behind. So thinking you'd turn around and you have two sets, I think, yeah, but

Paul McAlary  17:59  
the 24 like a 24 inch wide three drawer base is generally what I would consider a mistake, because the a 24 inch drawer base, when you open the drawers, the inside of the drawer is only 19. So the when the inside of the drawer is 19, it's not like you're going to get pots and pans and stuff like that in there, you know, because it's not quite wide enough. And then even on the surface of this with the cooktop, if you only have 24 inches of countertop, the handles of the pots and the pans when you're cooking turn out not over the the flames, they turn out over the countertop. So if you had a couple of pans on the stove and or one on the stove and the handle turned out, that handle is going to stick out eight or nine inches, which is sort of leaving you almost no place to be working at, right? So that's why it's so important that you have continuous top on your island. Or alternatively, you could choose to this is very symmetrical. That's its attractiveness. But that you have the freezer and the refrigerator on either side, it's completely and totally symmetrical. It just it's not a great work surface. Even the fact that you have 24 inches, but the refrigerator and the freezer are a wall, so when you're actually trying to work there, your elbow is going to be hitting up against the refrigerator, in the freezer.

Lynn  19:32  
I don't think Earth at the top. Your elbows aren't going to go 24 inches. I mean, I see your point. It's not a usable workspace because it's the it's a little

Paul McAlary  19:41  
bit narrow, right? So, yeah, so and, you know, but it's good. You can turn the handles of the pots and the pans out, and then you can put all the spices there while you're working. But you won't be cutting and chopping and doing anything like that, probably over there. You'll be doing it all on the island. So just, that's just why you know you want to leave your. Off a long space on the island so you could, if you did have a prep sink, you would put it all the way to one side, and I think a good side would be, like you said, all the way towards the other sink. And then you'd have a big continuous countertop where you could work at, and you'd just be just turning around to work at your stove and turn and stir things and everything else, and then turning back to the countertop to be cutting and chopping and doing stuff. And then if you did have a prep sink there, you would have water, and then if you had outlets or whatever they're on the surface, then you'd be able to plug in a blender or be doing other things, because that's really where everything's going to be happening in the kitchen the way you have it designed Now, other than cleaning, everything will be happening on the island

Lynn  20:43  
and the prep sink, I put a disposal in there, correct you

Paul McAlary  20:47  
could, or you have a garbage can pull out in the island, and you don't want to, you put a garbage disposal. You don't have to. You can also for the prep sink too. Is you could have, like, a cutting board cut out to be the shape of the prep sink. And then, if you wanted to really not even use the sink and thread out something, the cutting board could make the whole surface of everything even going across, right? Oh,

Lynn  21:10  
I love that idea. Okay, I'll look for certain. Do you have any manufacturers I should look up that do that.

Paul McAlary  21:15  
I think you can just get any kind of cutting board. Well, I guess there'll be some manufacturers like we sell robotic sinks, and they have a bunch of things that go into their sinks. I don't know if they have a cutting board that goes for us, but you could really get any big cutting board that was kitchen countertop sickness. And then IKEA will sell butcher block countertops, and then you just have the contractor cut it to the perfect shape of the sink, and then sand it, and then it will drop in, and it will be totally flush going across.

Lynn  21:47  
And you put a hole in it to lift it out, then

Paul McAlary  21:50  
just a finger hole in to get it out. Yeah.

Lynn  21:53  
Okay, perfect. I love it. Um, instead of the what do you reck, if I have 24 inches or a bit. Do I do cabinets there? What's my maybe,

Paul McAlary  22:02  
maybe you want to do rollouts. So see the problem with the really deep drawers is that they're really tall, so they're like the inside of the drawers nine and a half or whatever, inches. So sort of, what happens when the drawer gets sort of narrower? You just, sort of, you can't get your rooting through stuff to try to get to it, because the drawers not quite wide enough. Generally, if you wanted to think of pots and pans cabinets, they don't get named pots and pans cabinets, by the by the kitchen cabinet companies, until they get to be 30 inches. Yo, if a manufacturer was making pots and pans drawers, they would come three sizes, 3033, and 36 but 24 is just, you know, you could put Tupperware in that. You could put plates in that you but if you were just trying to put, you know, a bunch of things in there, it's only 19 inches wide on the inside. You can measure it out and sort of figure it out. But if you had it be rollouts, then you'd open the door. You know, now it's not as efficient as the drawers were, because the drawers, you just pull them out and everything's accessible. But then the rollouts, you'd be able to get at things from the side. You wouldn't have the toll drawer, sort of closing everything in, making it so you have to reach down into the thing to get stuff.

Lynn  23:19  
Yeah, that's just a 24 inch door, not 212 it's just a simple door. And then you pull those two door two pull outs out.

Paul McAlary  23:26  
You pull the two pull outs at you want them. The door is actually there's a 24 inch cabinet. It. You want it to be a double door cabinet, a single door, because a single 24 inch door just looks too gigantic, gigantic. Okay, double. So you make it a double door cabinet, and then you have rollouts in it. It's totally symmetrical. Now it really has a nice look going, but you could also elect to not be symmetrical. But I think you really want it symmetrical, right?

Lynn  23:54  
I love symmetry. It's a focal point. I feel like when you're walking in, I guess I like symmetry. In that sense, there's like a structural beam overhead. That's a little strange where it lands, but, you know, we're stuck with it. So then I just replicate a few more faux beams. That's why the cabinetry does not go to the ceiling. These are 10 foot ceiling heights. I mean, maybe they could, I don't know. I feel like, if I can leave those beans alone, then I know there's

Paul McAlary  24:22  
other thing you could do. There's other things that you can do with the beams. So there's one of these beams is structural, and the other two are fake.

Lynn  24:30  
On the right side of the range, it pretty much lines up with the wall from the foyer with the French doors. That's that's a real kind of structural.

Paul McAlary  24:39  
So what you might want to do, I mean, this is more work too, but it actually will end up probably saving you money only because the rest of the room, you won't be bringing the cabinets up to the same height like you have stacked cabinetry go into this gigantic height and go get. The ceiling is 10 feet high. That cabinet above is just almost impossible to get to, and it sort of looks weird to me, too, when some cabinets are staying underneath the beams and then some cabinets are going above it. So the solution to that would be to make a tray ceiling. You know what a tray ceiling is?

Lynn  25:16  
Like a bulkhead kind of but, yeah, so

Paul McAlary  25:19  
you're just going to build soffits right around the whole perimeter of this room, so that come down to the level of the beam. And it's only on the perimeter of the room coming out, like, you know, whatever, 27 inches, or something like that. And then the inside of that whole tray would be your beams. And then, if you made it just beams, then that's sort of a tray ceiling. If you subdivided the beams into like squares, then that's called a coffered ceiling. And then you can also run moldings around the insides of the beams if you wanted to.

Lynn  25:58  
Yeah, that will work nicely because, like, the windows are actually not drawn in the elevations correctly, but they we have about 15 and a half inches from the top of the ceiling is to the top of the trim of the windows. So yeah, that would work to do like a 27 inch deep, 15 or, I'm sorry, 15 inch deep, but 27 inches and

Paul McAlary  26:18  
it doesn't even have to be perfectly the tray doesn't need to be perfectly symmetrical. So you could make it 27 inches, because you do come down for your cleaning area, going all the way down to the the elevator. So what you do when you get down to there? I'm not sure one solution will be to lower the whole ceiling in that elevator area down to the tray,

Lynn  26:45  
or gonna feel ever it's very awkward in there. That little thing, what happened was there is, like a low of there's bulkhead, I guess you'd say between that area, it doesn't show up on the floor plan. That's why I created, kind of like, very trendy now, to have an arched opening. So it's kind of different that

Paul McAlary  27:06  
okay, I see so that arched opening is in the picture, but I see it in one of the drawing of the so that that's good, that makes it easy to make it a tread, and then the whole elevator area is its own thing. And you do whatever you want in there,

Lynn  27:19  
drop that ceiling, that same distance, so I don't have to have those double cabinets. It's going to save money. And I agree, I think they're just kind of useless. They're just up there like

Paul McAlary  27:29  
and then the actual thing is, with if you want to get fancy, right? The funny thing is, is, especially with those little cabinets on top, that not only do they not have much of a purpose, but if you ended up trying to make them, or wanting to make them glass on top for the cabinets that are on top, then, yeah, the little glass door cabinets are twice as expensive as the big, the big, tall cabinets underneath them.

Lynn  27:55  
I like the glass. I think that is, I mean, that's kind of like a it's been done and it's and then people like them up, but, you know, you put something in there, and you never said, No, I'm totally on par with you. I love that idea. What about so

Paul McAlary  28:07  
now it is going to save a fortune in cabinetry. Those little cabinets will be a lot of money in cabinetry. And then it actually, it make the room still seems really big, because the whole middle of the room is still 10 feet high, and it gives you a little bit of interest. You know, the the perimeter, the outside of the room, is sort of framing the whole middle of the room. And then you don't have beams, and then also you don't have to clean on top of these cabinets, you know, otherwise you'll be collecting dust till the end of time, on top of these cabinets, over the refrigerator and the freezer and the hood and everything, right?

Lynn  28:39  
Who really cleans up? There? Are you serious people get up. It

Paul McAlary  28:43  
will also solve another problem too, that you might not realize that you have, which is, how are you ducting the hood outside

Lynn  28:52  
that we determined? I'm thinking, it's gonna have to I will have something still that'll have to go up through the ceiling. Yeah. Well,

Paul McAlary  29:00  
if you build this tray around the whole room, right, you can run the duct right inside the tray,

Lynn  29:06  
perfect. That's right. I forgot about our trays. It solves everything.

Paul McAlary  29:10  
It solves that thing too. A lot of times, when we have a kitchen like yours, we do the tray because it just, it's solving a lot of problems like this. It's getting you ducted outside. If you're ducting up through the roof. That's really expensive and has roof problems. If you duck down and the oil is collecting in the bottom, to just go up and then across is just way easier usually. Yeah, the only thing you'll have to go to the left, you won't be able to duck to the right, because you'll have the beam in the way on the one side.

Lynn  29:41  
Yeah, I think that's okay. That's another question. When we work our way back into this little area beyond the art, and I guess I called it like the bar area only because it has an under refrigerator beverage center, and then I have these existing windows, and I've seen. In beautiful interest and Instagram posts that people put these glass shelves in front of the window, and they I don't drink, but I guess they put their bar, their alcohol there, their glassware. Do you think that that is enough to constitute like what I'm trying to accomplish here? And do I do something different in that area? Like, do I do the cab, not the cabinetry, per se, maybe, maybe the cabinetry and the walls and the trim? Is it all a different color? Or do you see it as it's running together, and the cabinetry should be the same as the kitchen? That's kind of too quiet. I think

Paul McAlary  30:35  
you can do either one, and it's okay. The glass shelves going across the window. Does your window have trim on it? And then if your window has trim on it, the glass is bumping up against the trim. And then the window usually is set back into the wall. Windows are generally sort of mounted on the outside of the house, and then there's whatever the recess is, back to the window. So what happens when you're putting glass shelves across this thing, you got the thickness of the trim and then the depth of the jam of the window back to the window. So I'm thinking that this things that could fall in back of the glass shelf depending on how wide they are.

Lynn  31:21  
That's true. I mean, I really don't like the look I I'm worried it's an after market thing. It's once the kitchen is done, then I will look and say, Do I need this? Like I don't drink? So I'm not sure, but I think there's

Paul McAlary  31:34  
what's the thing that's all the way to the left over there

Lynn  31:39  
are looking at an elevator, or this little area

Paul McAlary  31:41  
across from the elevator. I don't really have a elevation of

Lynn  31:45  
it. Oh, you mean it's adjacent to, there's like a little it calls for cabinet or you're talking about, yeah,

Paul McAlary  31:51  
I'm just looking at the floor plan on the elevation you sent me. It's sort of cut off there. I see the window, I see one cabinet door, but there's more space there. I don't know. Is that a toll pantry cabinet that's on the corner there?

Lynn  32:05  
So that's an existing like column. We're not sure if there's anything back there, or if we can take that out. So I think I sent you another elevation that just it looks the same, but it does continue that elevation, and I think there's an electrical panel going there, so no, there's really only space for a skinny Oh, okay, Mall. Yeah. Above that beverage, okay,

Paul McAlary  32:26  
I see it.

Lynn  32:27  
So at the end, it's not much. It's just a little space. I will have to figure out that bar area down the road. I think I'm not sold on the glass shelves like I think I'm trying to create something. Well, one

Paul McAlary  32:41  
way to do the glass shelves too is you can also not have trim on the window and have it be like rounded corner bead or something like that. But when this trim on the window and you have the depth of the window, it might be a little bit unusual. And then I guess the other thing that you could do, too, is you could, you know, have floating shelves instead of the cabinetry that's there. Although the floating shelves aren't going to really be very long, they're, like, only 18 or 19 inches or wide, or whatever.

Lynn  33:15  
Yeah, I think they might look I think a cabinet in there, if we lower the ceiling, and a cabinet will go to that will be at least useful. You can hide things in it. And you

Paul McAlary  33:27  
know, no, that's true. I mean, a cabinet, you can put stuff in it. You also don't have any drawers. So you have the 24 inch detail with the full shelf next to the bar, refrigerator, the beverage center, but you don't have any drawers over there. So if you wanted to open a bottle of wine or something like that, or a can opener for a beer, you know you don't have a drawer. So you might want to consider putting a drawer in the top of that cabinet.

Lynn  33:54  
I am not looking at the elevation you have. I have an old one that shows drawers, but yeah, so I'll make a note. I guess it's switched at some point at a drawer that's a good point drawer at bar.

Paul McAlary  34:06  
And then have you priced out the 30 inch wide beverage center yet?

Lynn  34:11  
I mean, I did initially. I initially go to the appliance store and try to pick these first, and then I do the rest. I think I priced it, but it didn't seem very too expensive. Should it off? Yeah, Echo brand or something. Is there one that you recommend?

Paul McAlary  34:28  
No, I all of these appliances too. Are the prices are going down. So I was just wondering if 24 inches is a very standard, inexpensive size. So I was just wondering if the 30 inch one was really expensive. But if the 30 inch isn't really expensive, then that's no problem. No,

Lynn  34:44  
it happens to have what I liked it was, it's divide. Either side can operate independently. So somebody wanted to put again, I don't drink. I guess the wine has to be held at different temps. So you can, you have the opportunity to do that like each side can do it. Own thing. Okay, I will put, you know, and then I like the ideas, too, the way those will be paneled. I guess I just like the idea of the 15 inch. I think then if I did cabinets, I can have similar sized doors going across. I guess I like things looking to similar style instead of mixing it up. But that was where we went with that.

Paul McAlary  35:21  
One height in this room is 10 feet, yeah. So we can lower that, probably lowering the tray down to nine feet or something. Or I How big of the beam? How high is the beam?

Lynn  35:37  
So I think it's going to probably be, it can't be more than 15 inches, because that's the top of the window trim. I might remove the trim, depending if we do a, you know, bar shelving. But so maximum, it'll probably it'll be eight, six or nine between. Maybe it'll be like eight foot nine, maybe eight

Paul McAlary  35:55  
foot nine. I would think too that you could get the beam down to 12 inches high, 11 and a half inches high.

Lynn  36:05  
Yeah, you can laminate and save money laminated wood, or we can invest in the steel beam so it's a it'll come at the time we're ready to order it. We'll look at our budget.

Paul McAlary  36:17  
I don't think you need it to be steel. I mean, laminated beams are practically as strong as the steel beams, and they're not very expensive, and you can just make a laminated beam stronger. Sometimes, what people will do if they really want to make a laminated beam strong is they'll have a laminated beam, then a steel plate, and then another laminated beam. But if you got your beam down to 12 inches, because right now, the other thing that you got going on with these little cabinets on top is the tall cabinets. So right now, when you go into 10 feet, I guess it's what those are, 48 so Okay, so that's what those are, 40 twos. Those aren't bad. Those 40 twos that you have underneath are flying if you went down to nine feet, though, you could also do 36 inch high wall cabinets with a little 12 inch high wall cabinet on top of it, and six inches of molding, and then you'd still have the double doors, if you like that look.

Lynn  37:19  
I don't really think I like it. I think they're they become kind of unusable. I'd rather just have it, I mean, but then again, I'm trying to mix and meld. This house is like 1918 so there is some kind of charm to the stacked cabinets, and a little more, I think. So it's touch and go. I think when I draw it, it might end up needing to look to add a little more visual interest to it, you know what I mean?

Paul McAlary  37:44  
Yeah. So if you do 30 sixes and twelves, that's a very common one. And then in this design, too, you have some narrower doors. So just as the doors get taller, when they're narrow, they just look a little bit in the perfect world, all wall cabinet doors, we try to make 18 inches. That's the most appealing size. Yeah. So these are close to twelves. So when you get up to 42 they're just getting a little bit long and thin,

Lynn  38:15  
skinny. Yeah, I agree.

Paul McAlary  38:18  
But if you did do the stacked cabinets, then you wouldn't have that as much. The little top top cabinet would be square, and the other one would be 36 instead of 42 and you're, you're really, not really losing very much, because even on a 36 inch cabinet, once you get past three shelves, it doesn't really the top of the 36 is pretty much at the top of your reaching level. Anyway. I don't know how old you are, but it's not good. I'm 66 I'll do a lot of sports and do other things, but getting on ladders and things like that. It's not a great idea if you don't have to. Hey, what do

Lynn  38:55  
you think about the I have a 21 inch deep tower with pocket doors to the right of the dishwasher.

Paul McAlary  39:01  
Well, nothing I say about that is there's, that's the only thing in your kitchen at the moment that makes your kitchen have to be custom. So I don't know what kind of cabinet brand you wanted, right? But

Lynn  39:17  
yeah, that's why I got on to you. That's where I found here because of the cabinetry makes and I was googling. So, yeah, I want the look of a custom kitchen. So of course, that's why, when I'm, you know, talking, I want to give that nice, you know, depth and elevation in the facade. Like, I love how, when something comes out like that, kind of looks like a piece of furniture. Then, you know, has furniture base that the bottom comes out, you know, the countertop jogs out. So I want that look, and I guess that's what I figure. I want the kitchen to look custom. So I want a piece that is custom, not custom, I guess it's custom. There's semi custom. There's so many terms.

Paul McAlary  39:55  
Well, once your doors are folding in, become your. You're automatically, you know, there'll be a couple of non custom cabinet brands that will do one cabinet, one size, and have the doors fold in, but they'd probably be a 36 inch wide cabinet. And what door style and finish were you thinking of? Was there a particular color that everything's going to be or

Lynn  40:20  
Baker, you know, style. And then I was, like, trending towards a stained finish for the perimeter, the hood above and the island would be painted so that it, in my mind, the stain, like the refrigerator and freezer on one side are stainless. So there's something about, like, if I put a light, I guess my paint of choice would probably be, like, you know, an alabaster, an off white, near white, but not bright white. So there's something about, like, stainless with that kind of makes it's too contemporary. So I guess I was thinking stain, but then when I get up to the molding in the trim, it's a lot easier to do when it's painted, because then they can just finish that out and help. Don't have to order the trim or have it, you know, there's, there's an element of,

Paul McAlary  41:07  
yeah, not only that, too. If you're going to have some cabinets stained and some cabinets painted, or usually, if you would have the the lower cabinets would be the darker color, and then the upper cabinets would be the lighter color. And if you're doing the upper cabinets the lighter color then, so that the trim matches all the tall cabinets and the refrigerator cabinets would be the same color as the wall cabinets. So your base cabinets and your island could be wood, and then your wall cabinets and all cabinets would be the painted color. And then your hood itself, they could make, if it's just going to be a square hood going all the way across, you wouldn't even need to order that. You could just have the contractor build that from

Lynn  41:54  
that's trying to say, Honey, those hoods are so expensive. So that's like, that is part of the key element. I don't want to spend $5,000 on a you know,

Paul McAlary  42:03  
yeah. How long is that? That's that's 84 inches. You could just build it out of a sheet of plywood from the cabinet company, yeah. And then what we do with the bottoms of hoods is we finish it off with plywood and then put Formica that looks like stainless steel over the plywood so that it the whole underside of the hood is all now looks like stainless steel, and then you reset the blower into the stainless steel line. Oh

Lynn  42:30  
my gosh. Wait, so it's actually say it again. It's Formica that looks like

Paul McAlary  42:36  
stainless it's Formica that looks like stainless steel. So it's very inexpensive. And the good thing is, is if you did real stainless steel that can sort of dent and stuff sort of easily, and it could be very expensive, and it's really easy for the contractors to cut Formica,

Lynn  42:53  
the plastic laminate, yeah,

Paul McAlary  42:55  
for my formicas, a plastic laminate. I'm going to send you a little hand drawing for the bathroom, and I'll look up what the laminate is, but be very inexpensive. It's just a sheet of Formica that looks like stainless steel, and a very easy for the contractor to cut the hole in it, to put the blower and everything,

Lynn  43:15  
yeah. And so the whole bottom will look to be stainless. The whole

Paul McAlary  43:17  
bottom looks stainless, yeah. And the laminate comes with eight foot sheets too. So, you know, no problem with that, and no problem with a big piece of plywood for the hood. And it depends on the kind of wood that you liked. But the thing that makes cabinet brands expensive is not that they're better made, it's that they offer more options and more kinds of wood. You know, if you said that you wanted the wood in your kitchen to be quarter, saw an oak in the kind of a bleached or sharus to finish, you know, only going to get that most expensive cabinet brands. If you said you wanted cabinet wood to be maple, most cabinet brands are going to offer maple, and you wouldn't have to be in a really expensive cabinet brand. What you're paying for in the cabinet world is not better made cabinets as the price goes up, it's more options.

Lynn  44:15  
So what do you think of because this is an investment property, and I want everybody to be happy with it. I mean, I love the look when I see these that I think it's trending now to do wood, it's not so bright white. It's becoming a little more muted and natural. But I guess I'm leaning back to just doing kind of a white kitchen so that anybody can love it. It's just because

Paul McAlary  44:39  
when you say it's an investment, is it literally for investment?

Lynn  44:42  
It's an event. Yeah, it literally is an investment that we might live in for two years, because then it'll be like, we'll make a lot more money. So if

Paul McAlary  44:50  
it's really, if it's literally an investment, then I would never invest in expensive cabinetry. I would do it in very reasonable cabinetry, because. The people that are buying the house can't tell the difference

Lynn  45:03  
now I know so what? What brands should I be looking at? Well, I

Paul McAlary  45:09  
mean, the least expensive brand that we sell that would have pretty nice wood finishes, you're going to have very, very little choice. They'll either be like a light maple ish looking color or some gray stains. I think that just released is a company called fabulous. And fabulous is sort of the nicest and most expensive of the really inexpensive brands.

Lynn  45:36  
It's called timber, timber and Alabaster, no timber and dove, I already have those samples, yeah,

Paul McAlary  45:44  
but you couldn't do that. That one piece isn't fabulous. Not going to be able to do

Lynn  45:48  
Oh, okay. You mean that the 21 inch deep?

Paul McAlary  45:52  
No, the fold in doors, they don't do

Lynn  45:56  
that. Okay, so what about Eudora? Do you know who's what is it? Kiss with you, Dora. And

Paul McAlary  46:01  
if you're going to get a cabinet company that will do that with the doors on the outside of the cabinet, you're probably going to have to spend not double, but close to double, on them cabinetry. So that's a lot of money for some doors that you could fake it. I could

Lynn  46:18  
put shallower cabinets in there, and they just don't go all I just build them out. They just don't happen to go all the way 21 well,

Paul McAlary  46:25  
the doors won't the whole idea for this, the pocket doors are going into the cabinet. So that's a very unusual mechanism where the doors go out and then slip back in and everything else. You could recreate this without the pocket doors. Also, by the way, people don't realize it, but the pocket doors are going to look a little funny too, because they're going to be a different size. They're not going to cover the whole cabinet, right, because they're sliding in. So the frame of the cabinet will be on the outside, and these doors will be smaller than the frame of the cabinet, and there'll be a gap around them so that they can fold in, so there'll be a very different look from the other cabinetry.

Lynn  47:05  
Oh, yeah, not like the elevation. The elevation shows it that they just open up exactly.

Paul McAlary  47:11  
I mean, I might compromise. You know, you could do this lots of different ways, but you could order a two drawer base in the size. You could then order a tall pantry cabinet and modify it, then stand it up on top of your two drawer base, and maybe be able to make it all happen in a cabinet brand that's half as expensive, right?

Lynn  47:33  
Okay, what would those brands be that I would search out? Well,

Paul McAlary  47:36  
I was saying, if you did it in fab you would then you, you couldn't get the pocket doors, but you could get everything else, and then you could just be spending a whole lot less money. And if it's an investment property, then no one's going to know the difference between fab, you would, and the other brand. That's going to be $20,000 more. For $20,000 you can you're getting close to a pool. You know

Lynn  48:01  
what we're looking at right now. In the elevations that I sent you are in a company called I just thought, oh, they also do Mouser, which I don't know if that's the higher or lower. Yeah,

Paul McAlary  48:15  
mouse is a much more expensive brand, yeah,

Lynn  48:17  
okay, overall, maybe owned by something called Kiss, maybe, because I'm trying to research so they and if I throw up the price, you can just tell me if this is around about the I actually, I'm doing a lot more cabinetry in the house. There's another kitchen, there's a mother in law suite kitchen, there's a, you know, there's laundry, there's master bath, and I have them prices all because my builder does, you know, he has a relationship with them, and I trust my builder, and I think so I thought, why not go with them? They they're drawing all these drawings. For me, they priced it. And I'm also wondering if I should behind the room, behind the kitchen. It's called an office bedroom. It's just an extra space. And we're like, we'll put a closet. I think it'll be an office, but we toyed around with the idea of making that like an extension of the kitchen with a sculler. So I have drawings out the wazoo with all cabinetry in there and things like that. So the kitchen is priced at, I think, around 31,000 the way it's drawn now. And that would be just the areas we've talked about, the island, the wall of cabinets, and that's it, the wall, you know, the island, oh, and then the two walls of cabinetry along the window and the cooktop. Does that sound? These are retail prices through the builder. I'm not sure if the builder's getting a cut. You know, it all comes down to, yeah, $31,000

Paul McAlary  49:33  
is because you don't really have very much cabinetry here, right? Because you have refrigerator, the freezer and you just have two cabinets on either side of the stove, the hood is no cabinets. Then on the other wall, you have a few wall cabinets. So $31,000

Lynn  49:48  
think we rate you. Dora, see it when I that's how I found you. I looked up, I was trying to google it, and then I found you. You know your your chart, A, B, C, D, 134, and. So they were also going to offer this piece that, you know, I'm that says it's a 20, they call, they called a 21 inch deep tower with folding, with no with pocket doors. I asked them I wanted to take that piece and do like a rectangle on the front side of it. I don't know if you have the current, I think you have the current drawing, and it may call that out. It's just a neat look that I had seen on another project to theirs. And I was like, that's a very southern look. And so they were willing to customize it like that, where I think, like, fab you would when I talked to them about it, they wouldn't do anything with the doors, because that voids the warranty. So there are advantages to going through who my builder is recommending. And, well, you know what?

Paul McAlary  50:38  
You're spending 31,000 instead of $18,000 right?

Lynn  50:44  
You think, Well, where would I $1,000 because I do want to save money. That's a lot of money. I'm

Paul McAlary  50:49  
looking at your kitchen, if we're just talking about your kitchen, and not the other rooms. Yeah. So, yeah, that looks like under 20 and fabulous to me.

Lynn  51:01  
Okay. And how much of the 20 sort of depends

Paul McAlary  51:03  
on what the final design is, but it's not a ton of cabinets, and that's what you're paying for. So in general, if it's an investment property, you like this pocket door thing, but the pocket door thing is putting you into a cabinet brand that's so much more expensive because they offer it. So people that buy this house are not going to be able to understand it, that one furniture piece that is particularly nice is not like anybody's going to say, I spend 12,000 $13,000 for it, right?

Lynn  51:38  
Okay, so I'm going to look at Fabi wood. I don't have a price from them yet, but I am sending them all the things, um, and so

Paul McAlary  51:44  
Fabi would, right, you send it to, we have to find a dealer that sells it,

Lynn  51:49  
yeah, that I've already talked to, and I really like her, yeah?

Paul McAlary  51:52  
So they just should be a ton less. Mm,

Lynn  51:55  
hmm, they should be, yeah, and that's, that's the thing for people shopping kitchens, because we don't shop kitchens every day. I honestly feel like I'm somebody that likes to research and try to learn to the nth degree. It's very difficult when it comes to the reality of pricing. Like,

Paul McAlary  52:12  
well, that's the thing. Is, if you looked at that blog that we did, there's actually a thing that is sort of a warning customers don't have the power to really do enough research. I always equate this to getting your car worked on your job as a customer shouldn't be to try to learn to be a kitchen designer, because you're never going to succeed. And in fact, if you start shopping around all over the place, pretty much what's going to happen is, sooner or later, you're going to run into an unscrupulous kitchen designer, and then we can price apples to oranges and bananas to kumquats, and you don't even realize that you're getting suddenly standard overlay doors. You're not getting this feature, you're not getting that feature, and it seems a little like you're getting a bargain. In reality, we're giving you something that really is way less valuable, and you don't really realize it. So I always think that people should shop for the place that you're buying from. So like, if you were going to get your transmission done, you would Google, getting my transmission done. What's the garage that gets the best reviews from their customers for doing car repairs or transmission jobs, and then I go to that place because their customers trust them and trust and instead of trying to learn everything to shop around, shop for the people you're working with, not necessarily for the individual cabinet brand, although, if you wanted an expensive brand, You want to be picking a designer or a company that actually has cabinet brands that are less expensive. So if you're not trying to spend a lot of extra money on things that aren't going to really get you more money on resale value for the house, some dealers might not sell inexpensive cabinet brands, but a lot of dealers do what we do. We have everything from really inexpensive cabinets to medium expensive to medium to really, really expensive. So whatever the customer is that comes to us, we have the price point that we can help

Lynn  54:16  
them. Also, two questions, can I order my kitchen from? You

Paul McAlary  54:19  
know, because where are you located? Again, you're in Charleston, South Carolina. You're outside of our service area, and that's because a lot of times this person and this brain that comes up with this and orders it for you and everything else, you know, there might be warranty issues. There might be all kinds of problems that could happen. The contractor might have questions. They might need to come out and look at something. So you're just too far away for us to really do a good job. Once you're pretty much past Virginia, it gets too problematic. But what we can do is, after you get the thing designed, I look at everybody's designs on Fridays, and then give your critique and input. So as your design changes, you can call up the on another Friday sometime, and. And then as this design slowly progresses, you know, we can double check whatever the designer's doing and give you input.

Lynn  55:09  
Okay, um, when I talked about that little I called it a scullery, because that's kind of a fun word, but having an additional area off the kitchen that's, you know, kind of trending to do something we don't really, I don't think need another dishwasher. Sometimes. I think it's like, overindulgent what people are doing, oh, let's put another dishwasher back here. Let's do but do I does this kitchen? What you're seeing is it adequate for us? The size house it is, like, maybe it's really not big enough. Maybe I do need to extend

Paul McAlary  55:37  
it. I think I think it's fine. I mean, the one thing that you are doing that you might want to reconsider too is you have your very, very dramatic hood that you have, and that's eliminating any wall cabinets that you would have over there.

Lynn  56:00  
Oh, yeah, I had a ball cabinets in there, like panels, and some were operable and some weren't.

Paul McAlary  56:06  
But when you don't have any wall cabinets over by your stove, then you're just giving up a little bit of storage. And then for plates and for glasses and all those things, you're going to be going over to the wall. And if for spices and things like that. Maybe you put spices in the top drawer or in the rollouts or but you don't have any wall cabinets over by your stove. That's one of the negative things about having such a dramatic stove, but it is saving you a bunch of money.

Lynn  56:36  
Yeah, okay, I love that. And then another question, I'm sorry, because I'm taking up so much of your time? Sure, I recommendation for someone local for a custom build where I have the time, I have the lead times they take, you know, four to six months, but that I pretty much were just raising the house as of right now. So there's a lot to do, and I'm going to send it to them. What do you think, though? Like, even myself, I love the, I love a finished cabinet, like I love the you know, I'm not sure these people are spending the money in downtown Charleston for these custom they're really doing historic renovations. This house is, it isn't historic renovation, but I'm trying to modernize it so well. And if I can get these cabinets for the same price, say 3031, 32,000 and they would be custom made and finished until, I

Paul McAlary  57:23  
think, depends on what you say when you say custom. So a lot of times, when people say custom, it's what we call homemade, right? It's not, it's not really, it's not a custom cabinet company. It's somebody that makes cabinets in their wood shop or their garage and, well,

Lynn  57:43  
yeah, for a long time in Charleston, they do a lot of work in downtown Charleston. So, I mean, these people using them have a lot more money than I do. So they definitely, I know they're doing good business because they've been in business for many years, and they just happen to be located sort of in the booth. I mean,

Paul McAlary  57:59  
I don't know they're not, but it's not a cabinet brand. It's just a place that, no, I would say that that's not a good place to buy kitchen cabinets from, yeah, and it's a small company too, right? So they might go out of business next year, in which case you have no warranty. Right there the production facility that they have, if they're making everything custom, I don't think it's going to be going to be 31,000 I think it's going to be more than 31,000 but I don't think that you'll be able to tell the difference between that and the fabulous if it's me, and I'm going to be getting custom cabinets, or getting more expensive cabinets I make the kind of wood that I'm getting, or The cabinets that I'm getting something that's instantly recognizable as expensive, and that wouldn't be a full overlay Shaker door style in Maple and white, that would be quarter saw an oak in a charoos finish, or inset cabinets, or beaded inset cabinets, where the doors aren't on the outside of the cabinet, they're going onto the inside of the cabinet. And that's the mark of real custom cabinetry, because only those things can be done in custom cabinetry, but you don't have anything in this design or any of the things that you're picking that need to be in custom. So because of that, I just think it's a waste of money to be doing it in custom when you're not taking advantage of any of the things that make custom cabinetry unavailable in anything but custom cabinetry, right? Well,

Lynn  59:28  
I might jump up to the inset. The only problem is, because we're in Charleston, it's we live in a very humid climate, and so a lot of people say, even the people I've talked to that have done the insect cabinetry about once a year or twice a year, they have to adjust them,

Paul McAlary  59:43  
not that hard.

Lynn  59:45  
Now you're saying, If I would decide to get a price from them, I would want to do it like for a reason, to make them like the insect cabinetry does look higher. I mean, it has the or if I would, I would want. Wood quality to show through if I did a stain, but

Paul McAlary  1:00:03  
if you're doing a stain, I don't know if the wood quality is maybe not going to show through unless you get a kind of wood, like walnut, or, like I was saying, cortisone white oak, that's very popular. Or I play a game with my family sometimes when they're in our offices and I hold up cabinet door samples. I hold two of them up, and I say, which is more expensive, and they get it wrong all the time. My wife started to get good at it right, because she could sort of recognize but most people can't tell the difference between expensive cabinetry. And if you have to be a kitchen designer to know what you're looking at, unless it's an unusual kind of wood, yeah, like walnut is a really beautiful wood, but a lot of people might not like walnut because walnut is a very stripy kind of wood. Each piece of the wood on the door is going to be a completely different color, so you might not even like that, but if you did like that, you just couldn't get it in an inexpensive cabinet brand Well,

Lynn  1:00:59  
and that's why I'm thinking, I just do the the investment painted in the sense everybody likes it. But then I think my waterfall, the waterfall, to me, was what added that bike element to distract the eye from the cabinetry.

Paul McAlary  1:01:13  
Well, that's another thing too. Is if this is really an investment property, then then the waterfall looks really good, and the fact that it's not quite as functional and people won't be as happy sitting there, people won't realize that until they might not ever realize that that's happening. They could be there for 10 years and they say, you know, I'll tell you I'm sitting right now for this podcast at a peninsula in my own kitchen that seats comfortably, very comfortably. Three. We've never had three people sitting at this peninsula in the the 10 years that we've been here. People just don't like sitting like ducks in a row. It just doesn't happen. Really, two people sitting so that they can turn sideways and talk is a common thing, but that third stool just never gets used. Yeah, nobody will realize that if it's an investment property, it's a horse of a different color. Now, you're going for the wow factor, and they can find out later how they actually sit there, right? You don't care,

Lynn  1:02:14  
unless they already had a waterfall cabinet and then their counter, and they might

Paul McAlary  1:02:17  
be, oh, it's unusual. It's be unlikely that they would. It's only been a really popular thing for the last five or so years, let's say, and so. You know, most people that will be moving into a house wouldn't have just done another house five years before.

Lynn  1:02:34  
What's your favorite counter do you do countertop recommendations for investments like courts, any well

Paul McAlary  1:02:42  
quartz is much more expensive than inexpensive granite colors. You know, 95% of the countertops we sell and our customers want are quartz, and they want them to sort of look like marble. Yeah, all those quartz colors are double the price of inexpensive granites, at least, but I don't know that's something too especially with the waterfall, that you just might have to splurge on, because people just like it, and people don't like granite colors that much anymore.

Lynn  1:03:12  
No, I know. I think so the splurge can happen on the courts, on the waterfall, and save on the cabinet. Look for fabulous. I don't have pocket doors, but I have a fabulous looking, striking kitchen.

Paul McAlary  1:03:26  
Yeah, and it would be very, very similar. I mean, people could come in, if you you designed around it within the FABI would. Fabi would makes a wall cabinet that's not as wide as this wall cabinet, but they make a wall cabinet with two little drawers in the bottom. So switch this to two, a two drawer base or on the bottom or something, and then a wall cabinet with little drawers on the bottom of it. You have to modify a cabinet doors or pantry or to make it look more and more like this. It just wouldn't be pocket doors, and you get pretty close.

Lynn  1:04:01  
Yeah. And do you think, go, don't do the wood, then don't do timber. Fabi would just do the alabaster. And I see I can have my builder build out the island with some trim, some wood trim, you know, like he can, he's going to be doing the hood, and I'm going to match. You could

Paul McAlary  1:04:17  
do the island in timber and do everything else in white. You could do the island of timber and your whatever, your little back room area in timber, and then the everything else white, if you wanted to. That might be interesting,

Lynn  1:04:31  
kind of, like a, yeah, like a little designer look. I know that there is some where they do the the tops and the bottoms different. That's just not me. It's a little too, yeah.

Paul McAlary  1:04:39  
I mean, I think for resale value too. You want to be a little more conservative, but doing the back area in a different color and the island in a different color that appeals to everybody. So that's not going to alienate anybody. And just like the pick and the Shaker door style, that's not going to alienate anybody, you want to do things that have universal appeal,

Lynn  1:04:59  
timber you like Tim. Timber. Yeah, I

Paul McAlary  1:05:00  
like timber a lot. I mean, I think timbers of the best compromise that you can sort of get. It's a nice color. No one's going to absorb the fact that it's $18,000 and not $31,000 in cabinetry.

Lynn  1:05:14  
Okay, so when I go get my price from Fabi wood, if her price comes back high, I'm going to say, well, I talked to I think

Paul McAlary  1:05:21  
it's going to be, you know, it might not be 18, depends on how they design it and everything else. It's not going to be 31 it shouldn't be 30

Lynn  1:05:31  
Okay. Well, thank you so much, sir. I appreciate it.

Paul McAlary  1:05:34  
All right. Lynn, good talk to you, and if you, you know you want to call another time most Fridays, I do this. And, okay, let me even bump anybody off because you were the only call today. Nobody else called. Oh

Lynn  1:05:44  
yeah, awesome Friday. Can you send me the plastic number, the plastic laminate

Paul McAlary  1:05:50  
Oh yeah, let me write that down. So I'm going to send you this hand drawing and the plastic laminate number,

Lynn  1:05:55  
yeah, and any hand drawing about the bathroom on I mean, I pretty okay notes.

Paul McAlary  1:06:01  
I'll send you the draw. I'll send you the drawing shortly. Okay, bye, bye. All right, take care of mine.

Mark Mitten  1:06:07  
Thank you for listening to the mainline kitchen design podcast with nationally acclaimed Kitchen Designer Paul mcalary. This podcast is brought to you by Brighton cabinetry, high quality custom cabinetry at competitive prices for more on kitchen cabinets and kitchen design, go to www dot mainline kitchendesign.com.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai