adventures in (non) refrigeration, pt. 1

As prematurely blabbed about on my Facebook page, the fridge was supposed to get moved in last Friday, but I messed up. I scheduled the pro install guys, but when they came over they informed me that I'd need to take a few more steps before they could install it. I never really inspected the fridge that close, but cabinet-depth built-in refrigerators have a 1/2" protruding metal lip around their perimeter that butts up against adjacent cabinetry. Since my tricky "european-style" doors extend to the very edge of the cabs, that means the metal lip would've literally been on top of the doors thereby preventing them from opening. Oops. My original plan was to just put in the cab on the left, have the fridge moved in and build the top and right side around it. But the installers needed everything done because they also screw the top of the fridge to the cabs to prevent it from falling over when you open the doors (keep in mind it's 84" high and about 6" shallower than a "normal" refrigerator). Another thing they pointed out is that I'd have no way to install the top trim piece once the fridge was in, or at least it'd be really tricky.

Now I needed trim pieces for the left and right side that were at least a 1/2" thick and in reality should be a little thicker for fudge room. And since they would be partially visible, they should probably match. My first idea was to get some 3/4" mahogany and stain the edges to make them shiny and, god-willing, match the cabs, but I knew that would be tricky business. To cut a long story short, I realized that I had two sets of plinths (aka toekicks, aka the long trim pieces that go under the cabs to hide the legs)- one set of schmancy mahogany ones like the cab doors, and one set from Ikea. I wasn't even sure what color the Ikea ones were until I opened up some boxes (I didn't ever select a color option). Turns out they were Ikea "black-brown", which is a relatively bland (sorry John) very dark brown. I certainly wouldn't choose it for cabinet doors, but we put pieces of both under the cabs (John and I, that is) and we both preferred the black-brown to the matching mahogany. The mahogany was almost too much- kind of like wearing blue jeans with a blue denim shirt... photo below. I also figured super dark toekicks were a smart idea with regard to (not) getting dirty. Some people have white ones, which in my mind is utter insanity (unless you have one of those nutbag "no shoes rule" households. Please.)

This meant that I wasn't going to need the mahogany toekicks at all... now I could use them as trim pieces for the fridge. Not only were they 3/4" by around 4" wide, they had mahogany laminate on the edges (which, as toekicks, they wouldn't have even needed) so I really lucked out. AND the pieces were eight-feet long, so I didn't need to use multiple pieces to cover the entire 88" high cabs. Here they are below. As you can see, they're protruding 3/4" so they'll be flush with the cab doors when they're shut. I spent pretty much all day doing this, partly because you have to be really careful with cutting and measuring (and I'm real good at screwing that kind of thing up).

Fortunately, there was a mahogany trim piece that was intended for over the fridge. However, it was precut with the intention of going up to the ceiling, so I had to rip it down (very carefully!) with my table saw, then mount it using a pair of little L-brackets on each side. Since I was unwrapping lots of Fancy Mahogany Stuff today, I went ahead and installed most of the remaining hinged doors- no sense in sticking 'em back in the closet at this point (there's a gaggle of drawers and a pull-out garbage can dealie that I haven't dealt with yet).

Now the cabs are all ready, but the installers also informed me that the outlet behind the fridge you see in the photo wasn't gonna cut it, because there's so little clearance that the plug would prevent the fridge from sliding back all the way- I need to relocate the outlet really high up. Ugh! I got all the stuff I need to do it, and it should be a relatively easy project. Fortunately there aren't any studs between the current and future location.

Finally, I mentioned in the last post that I didn't take a pic of the now filled and polished trenches where the island plumbing lives. Kind of a lot of reflections going on, but here it is. It came out really nice... it's probably shinier than the rest of the floor.

P.S. Super seriously contemplating buying this magic sexiness of a cook top. This badassery is a Smeg, made in Italy, where, apparently no one informed them that "smegma" typcially refers to to a combination of shed epithelial cells, transudated skin oils and moisture typically found in the male and female genital regions, perhaps making "Smeg" a poor choice of a company name. I was also looking at a cook top from "Fagor", another foo-foo Euro appliance company with questionable naming practices... WTF?