When we first bought the house, like many aspirng do it your selfers, we went out and bought a bunch o' books. One of the first on that list was by Sarah Susanka. We got the original "Not So Big House" which had some very practical advice about defining spaces within spaces. She's gone on to write many titles on the theme, ironically way beyond a mere cottage industry.
One of the features we played up in our open space plan was the use of soffits. Big rooms without designated "spaces" within them are awkward and a tend to use space really poorly. By defining the spaces with soffits we create "rooms" without having to throw up any walls.
In the kitchen, what we are trying to do is designate "hall" space from "kitchen" space, even though it just one big square room. The thinking is it will improve traffic flow in the house in general but mostly it allows people to hang out in the kitchen without really being "in" the kitchen. We're even thinking about a little flip out bench/pearch in the hallway area to reinforce that notion.
At some point along the line we began to realize that the soffits weren't all about form. You can hide stuff in 'um too! The bathroom is the only interior room in the house. Before now it hasn't had adequate ventilation. Now it does. We mentioned the Panasonic fan in a previous post. It's an in-line fan that lives half way between the bathroom and the great outdoors. You can read the specs on the site but suffice it to say we can rapidly move some steam outta the house now.
The previous hood for the stove was connected to nothing and the kitchen was constantly filling with smoke (some dishes even when prepared properly have smoke!).We will use the soffits on the flip side of the view you are looking at to install ventilation for the new stove. All neatly tucked up in our space defining soffits. FedEx guy called me today at work, the new hood had arrived. Luckily it was small enough that my neighbor signed for it and brought it in until we could get home from work.
Speaking of the oven and delivery, they tried to deliver it last week. Elmira has a policy that they bring the stove in and set it up. That seems to be a bit of a disconnect between them and their authorized dealer-- or was that between the authorized dealer and the shipping company? Anyway, the guys that delivered it were to leave it in our driveway or yard. Neither an option here in Brooklyn. We finally had to refuse delivery and take it up with Elmira. It's sitting in a warehouse somewhere in Brooklyn. They will redeliver and carry in but we need to reschedule so they can bring the gang of guys it's gonna take to bring it up the steps. On the up side, we're not really ready for it just yet and it may as well be stored there as in our dining room.
Finally you will note from the pictures that we installed the last of the halogen fixtures to match other soffits throughout the house. I have to say, after the designs were done and I counted the number of fixtures it seemed like A LOT. I've been counting fixtures in other remodeled spaces recently and by comparison we're not over lit. Halogen beats incandescent for energy but we could still do better. I think everything from here out is LED.
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