Kitchen Craft

We are aiming to build a clean, welcoming kitchen that feels rustic and homely - a relaxed kitchen that is as much for living and entertaining as it is for cooking.  If not too stymied by cost, we aim to achieve this vision through the use of steel, lightly varnished wood and local limestone.

Similar to the b2 kitchen system from Bulthaup pictured below, we are treating our kitchen cabinets like furniture in order to create a space that feels more like a living or dining room than a kitchen.  We’ve decided to avoid placing cabinets above counter height and to fashion those we do have as modified credenzas. By lifting the cabinetry off the ground, we can also mitigate the numbers of rodents and cockroaches that nest in dark unreachable places.

System b2 from Bulthaup

Our fridge and pantry will be contained in a single wooden cabinet that we are designing to look a bit like a standalone armoire. We have the basic concept down and are now focused on massaging the details (who knew designing door handles was such a tedious task) and fine-tuning the overall look of our pantry unit.

Northwest perspective of our kitchen

As for sitting and socializing, a table and bench seat along one wall will give us a place to flesh out recipes and sip on a glass of wine without getting in the way of any dinner preparations.

Southeast perspective of our kitchen

There is still lots to do.  We’re not yet happy with the placeholder door handles we’ve inserted in the renders above, and have no idea where the compost bucket will go.  But all-in-all, we’re on the right track and can now put this aside for a bit while we tackle the bedrooms.

Not Digging the Pool

It’s time to design our rear garden, the long neglected stepchild of our central courtyard.  For the last few months we have pictured a lengthy lap pool - in which we toil daily on our new-found Athenian physiques.

Taking a hard look at the space (and our feelings toward strenuous exercise), we realize that 12 meters of blue will annex our goal of a lush garden space. Although it’s nice to drop the length of one’s “lap pool” into conversation, it’s simply not enough.

The second thing we realized was that by building the pool flush with the ground, we were increasing our construction costs by close to $10,000 USD.  Crazy, huh?

As we mentioned before, Mérida sits on solid limestone.  As such, to make a 1.4 meter-deep hole in the ground means explosives.  As the only way to the rear garden is through the front door, it also means digging and hauling those 40 cubic meters of exploded rock by hand. Put together, this means mucho dinero.

To make things better, we changed the pool to a rectangle that measures approximately 4x7 meters.  Not much of a reduction in overall size, but it allows us to shift the pool toward the center of the space and surround it with garden.  We also raised the pool and surrounding garden by 60cm. Not only will this mean less digging, but evacuated rock can now be used to raise up the garden, saving both our money and carbon footprint.

The “diorama-style” renders above illustrate our current thinking. It’s a pain to render realistic foliage, so imagine lush planting everywhere depicted in green. Imagine hard enough and you realize that from the kitchen, you will barely see the pool. Green trumps blue, just the way we want it.

It’s early days yet, so expect to see more developments. Until then, let us know what you think.

Framing the Courtyard

The look of the central courtyard is shaping up. Here is an image looking straight out through the mosquito screens toward the east wall. If you imagine some vines on the wall and a few trees and philodendrons for good measure, you can start to picture the framed views that inspired us on a recent visit to the Kampong Garden in Florida.

Each day, design ideas come and go. Since yesterday, you will notice we have replaced the terracotta tile in the courtyard with a local limestone called Concheula (or shell stone). The terracotta was a little “grandma” and so we chucked it (see below for an updated view). If only real construction was this easy.

Time to Get Serious

Our base design is complete.  Our builder is hired.  It’s now time to make some hard choices regarding wall and floor finishes, column details, overhangs, and exposed structural connections.  In tandem, we also need to firm up the ethereal ideas we have about various systems - lighting, drainage, solar, etc. - that will make the building comfortable.  So much to do.

First up - materials.  Until now, our 3-D renders of the house have all been in a single color and not terribly realistic.  This image is such a shot, depicting the western side of our inner courtyard (to capture the entire courtyard, we had to set the “camera” 15 meters back from our property - making it quite unrealistic because the adjacent buildings would technically be in the way).

Yesterday, we started rendering with colors, depicting materials with a simple palette.  We decided on white to represent lime-washed walls, orange for terracotta floors, and dark brown for steel, including the mosquito screen doors and other accents like handrails and building trims.

What a difference.  Previously we had always felt this perspective of our house was pretty ugly.  With base colors in, the building is transformed.  We are starting to see some strong horizontal lines to match the length of our site.  With the addition of dark colors, the mosquito screens dissolve allowing the two sides of the courtyard to mesh together more fully.  By defining some extra detail, shadows are emerging to provide texture and depth.

Here are a few additional shots of the courtyard from under the covered living area.  We definitely think it’s starting to come together!

Cleaning House

We’ve made a few changes to the design of the inner couryard since we last posted some images.  We have been going round deleting walls, moving furniture and generally “cleaning house”.

Below are before and after shots of what was, and now is the view looking south toward the kitchen and informal dining area (view plans).  We have deleted the card table, knocked down the wall, and created a more formal outdoor dining space.  If only construction in real life were this easy.

BEFORE:

AFTER (with the perspective pulled back somewhat):

Looking Up

Here are two additional images showing the second level as seen from below.

These views are much more accurate than the image we posted a few weeks back.  The previous image was taken as if you were viewing the house from the neighbor’s yard (impossible to do in reality but useful when designing to see the whole thing at once).  These new images show the house in the way you will actually see it - standing on our property, looking almost straight up.

We are still cleaning up the revised floor plans and will post them shortly.

1. Looking up from the media room.  The guest bedroom sits above the living room.

2. Looking up to the master bedroom from the outdoor seating area.  The covered balcony will most likely be filled with potted plants.

Living Area Redefined

After we last posted an image of our evolving design process, we had a chance to sit back and evaluate it. We decided that the basic layout was mostly good, but the overall look of the building was pretty ugly. As our focus at that time was on function, not form, we weren’t overly stressed.

What disturbed us most was how poorly the outdoor living room was shaping up. We essentially had a set of sofas in a space that was ill defined and looked more like a corridor than a room.

We immediately got to work on fixing the living space, making it more intimate while staying well connected to the outdoors. We are currently experimenting with a screened arcade that can open or close as needed to provide protection from the weather, bats and the ever-present mosquitoes.

What follows is a set of images that illustrates how it’s shaping up. Largely  schematic, the images lack details such as garden, glazing, colors, and materials, but you get the idea. Take a look and let us know your thoughts.

1. Looking south, this image shows the entrance to the central courtyard. Garden seating is situated to your left in a yet-to-be-defined green space.  The main living area lies around the corner to the right.

2. Crossing from the garden seating area into the living room. At this point you start to catch a glimpse of the rear garden through the windows at the end.

3. A view through the doors to the dining room.  The rear garden (imagine lush and tropical) opens up through the large picture window.

4. The dining room and kitchen share a common space. This image looks into the dining room from the central island in the kitchen.

5. Returning to the living room, looking north from the dining room. The screens running along the right can be closed when the weather isn’t cooperating. The stairs on the left take you up to the bedrooms.

6. Standing in the central courtard looking toward the media room in the main house. Looking up you see the master bedroom with its view below.