Kitchen Designer - Episode 6 - Mark & Sherry share details of their kitchen

Rob Kircher: Welcome to another edition of Kitchen Designer. This is Sherry and this is Mark. You've been married for about six years now? Something like that?

Sherry: Actually it's been about...

Mark: Less than a year.

Sherry: Less than a year.

Rob Kircher: Oh....okay. Hahahaha! I guess the confusion came in folks when I was asking them, you know..."when did you meet this character?" She says "Six years ago." I just assumed, okay. Never assume anything. Right? Okay. Haha! They're great people. And next to them is Ned, and Ned is the kitchen designer. And I'm with my good friend here, this is Jim Gerard, and he's the owner of Kitchens By Ambiance™. Episode one of this edition, we were actually at your store, right?

Jim Gerard: We were!

Rob Kircher: And we were in what I call the Cad/Cam room and Ned was showing us the "before shots" if you will, of your kitchen and how the design actually came about. So I was telling folks at the end of that segment that we're now gonna do a transition into your home and see it in reality. So that's where we are right now. So I find this very interesting because your kitchen is so expansive. I mean really, it's not (inaudible) ...wrap around. Ned they also had you design part of the laundry room I guess as well as the master bath right?

Ned Jones: We did. We did the master bath as well as the laundry room yeah.

Rob Kircher: So we wanna take a look at that as well at some point. So folks, we're just going to kind of start here and to give you a sense for how this whole project actually evolved. Now Mark where we're standing, where we're sitting right now, used to be what?

Mark: There used to be a wall that went this way, this way, this way. So when you walked in the front door, you saw the back of this wall that was in...sort of the middle of the house. On the other side of that wall was the kitchen. So where we are now, were the original kitchen cabinets.

Rob Kircher: So you guys knocked that wall down, right Sherry to give you an open concept?

Sherry: Yep.

Rob Kircher: Now who's idea with that? Was that yours?

Sherry: It was mine.

Rob Kircher: Hahahaha! I love it. Okay. And where the kitchen is now used to be what a...?

Mark: That's a family room.

Rob Kircher: Family room. So it's dramatic what you did to it. Now what I love is when I first came in is (in their front entrance folks, which is this way) but you get this amazing view of the expanded kitchen as well as their beautiful outside area and it's very inviting, I must tell ya. It's remarkable. And your colors I think are just absolutely amazing. I love it. Okay, so let's go back to...and we have some before pictures here, right Mark?

Mark: Mmm hmm. Right.

Rob Kircher: Okay so... we have the lawn people outside. Don't know if you can hear them or not. But this is the shot (I don't know if you can see that) but this is where the wall was. Where we're sitting right now, this is where the wall was. And then on the opposite side (I'll find it) right here. You see this? That was the other side of the wall. That's where the kitchen was. So the wall was here. The piano was there. The other side of the wall is where the old kitchen was. And that is where the family room was, right? So dramatic! We'll be doing a close-up of these so you can see that as well. Thank you Mark. Now there was a leap of faith here, I think, right? Where you guys work with Ned and my friend Jim. And then you went away for awhile and you said, "Okay, this is what we want. These are the colors and the counters we want." And then you actually trusted these guys to do all this when you were gone. Is that right?

Sherry: Yeah. Hahaha!

Jim Gerard: I don't know if I'd call it a leap of faith!

Rob Kircher: Hahahaha! We kid around all the time. And then when you came back, it was a really wonderful, pleasant surprise, to see it all come together?

Sherry: It was beautiful.

Rob Kircher: Wonderful. What I'd like to do is now stop at this point. I'm going to kind of walk around, give folks a better view of the actual kitchen as it is now. Mark and Sherry, I mean this is one of these things where you can't help but notice this island that you have here. How did this come about? I mean, what was your thought pattern?

Sherry: Well, we love to entertain and we love cooking and we can't get our guests out of the kitchen. So, we have this beautiful space and we seen other homes that have two islands but never something this large. So we sort of...

Rob Kircher: I think it's fabulous. So six chairs is actually a very nice number right?

Mark: Right.

Rob Kircher: And you have this sink here, right...this big sink. So not only are you entertaining, but you've got a way to kinda wash things (and so on and so forth). Now what was one of the big stipulations that you had to this island?

Sherry: It was the...had to have a dishwasher.

Rob Kircher: Had to have a dishwasher?

Sherry: Yes.

Rob Kircher: But I understand you have two dishwashers.

Sherry: We do.

Rob Kircher: So we have a "his" and "her" dishwasher?

Sherry: We do.

Rob Kircher: Why is that?

Sherry: We have a lot of dirty dishes and Mark loves to empty the dishwasher.

Rob Kircher: He does? I actually share that. There's something about going to the grocery store and putting groceries away. What was that?

Mark: She's kidding.

Rob Kircher: She's kidding. Oh hahahaha! Well a lot of folks have one for their glassware if you will. And then they throw plates in the other. But what else is it going on in this island other than the dishwasher in a sense?

Sherry: The island is very, very large and it could not have a seam in it, so...

Rob Kircher: Ah, so that was the stipulation.

Sherry: It was a stipulation so it had to have no seam.

Rob Kircher: So Ned, this is where you come in, right? This is what they wanted to do. Now, how did you accomplish this?

Ned Jones: There's many parts to this. But the center line of the transom window up here, follows down through here. We had to design so that they wanted to fit it with one piece of material like she said with no seam. They wanted to accommodate a minimum of six chairs and have function on this side with the dual dishwasher concept and prep sink. This is the heart of the home.

Rob Kircher: Yeah, definitely. And I absolutely love it. Is this unusual?

Ned Jones: It is in the sense that they've got dual islands, which is not overly common. But they've also got the big one here for sitting so they don't have to have a separate table set up. So in my mind, I really like it. I think it ties the whole house together.

Rob Kircher: It really does and like I say it's so obvious when you walk in. But yet it just seems to fit so comfortably into the design. I absolutely love it.

Ned Jones: Well they wanted a casual feel, so...

Rob Kircher: Well they're casual folks I mean they really are so...

Ned Jones: It's classy and rich. But yet it's casual.