Day Whatever

The days are blurring together as is the pile of debris heading to a landfill. It is a bit overwhelming and good that someone else is doing it. The older I get the more I wonder what marks I leave and this is one of them I hope gets overshadowed by everything else in a positive way. The progress continues.

Upon seeing the original quoted amount of lights, it was not going to be enough and the configuration needed to be rethought. Hmmm. Hanging lights can seem more of an obstacle, when the view is so great. The kitchen/dining area has to have an even flood of light, divided by work/live spaces, task lighting.

We also considered changing life styles that require flexible space. Not everyone may have a dining room table. It has been suggested by a designer that the space be used for couches and small tables. To each his own, but my motto is flexibility. Just in case a next owner would like a chandelier, the electrical has been run in a loop under the sheetrock to easily pull through and add one. It is wired to turn on with the dining area lights. A brilliant idea by Trevor, always thinking ahead or is that hindsight??? The saying "Necessity is the mother of invention." comes to mind. The same has been done over the lake end of the island.

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The original footprint of the house ended at the wall between the kitchen/dining room and lake room. The dining room french doors led to the outside in a bumped out wall facing the lake. Trying to make a logical transition with that odd oblique corner between the kitchen and dining room has been sparked all kinds of ideas. Minimizing it so the island size and location makes sense has been another consideration. Who wants a weird angled wall smack in the middle of an island?

In the end we had a wider header put in. It is a dramatic change and flows with the lake room much better.

Turning what is left into a column seems like a good design solution. It allows a place close by to reroute the mechanicals from the wall being torn down. Thankfully, there is now flexible duct that didn't exist when the house was originally built. We do like heat to flow in the upstairs hallway, too. Electrical switches and outlets will be tucked in it to meet code requirements. Each room opening has to have light switches. Lots of 3 way lighting going on in that column.

We will see the best way to finish it out as the kitchen evolves. The supporting 2' x 4' in the opening will be pulled out when the header is secured.