Glass knobs from Restoration Hardware, response to a reader

A reader posted a comment yesterday after my posting about Restoration Hardware's glass knobs. Ming wanted to know what kind of a design would dictate the use of glass knobs. Well, here's a look at a rendering of the project where the glass knobs will go.

This is a butler's pantry located between a formal dining room and a kitchen in an older home. It's a true butlers pantry because it will be used to store dishes, linens, silverware, and serving pieces. Technically, a butler's pantry is a small room used for storing the stuff you'd use to entertain, and they're also used to stage and clean up after dinners.

This one has a dishwasher and an icemaker in it and so that real china can be stored in the wall cabinets, each of the wall cabinets is 16 inches deep. The standard depth of a wall cabinet is 12" deep and that's not enough depth to be able to stack large plates. If you're planning a remodel some time, add some deeper wall cabinets, butler's pantry or no butler's pantry. You'll be glad you did.

Those wall cabinets have a pretty distinctive, Mission-style mullion over clear glass. The cabinetry is an inset style from Medallion Cabinetry called Winslow and they have been painted an off-white color called white chocolate.

When it's up to me, I always put knobs on doors and handles on drawers. If it's a wide drawer, I'll use two handles per drawer. So in this case, here's that knob again:

And wouldn't you know it, those clever kids at Restoration Hardware have a companion handle:

Now because the butler's pantry is in a room separate from the kitchen, it's in a different, though somewhat complimentary style as the kitchen. The kitchen sort of looks like this but not really:

That photo is from Medallion, the kitchen and butler's pantry I'm working on is still in the concept phase though the construction ought to start on it at some point before Thanksgiving.

Happy Halloween

I liked it better in the olden days when Halloween had an apostrophe between the two Es in the last syllable. Hallowe'en. It even looks better that way. Anyhow, however you spell it, check out this brilliant knife holder.

I think it's hilarious and what a great way to spread some Halloween cheer to the rest of the year. You can read more about this knife holder here.

Oh my Restoration Hardware I am heartily sorry

I am sorry for looking down my nose at you all these years for being a retailer. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

I've been on a quest to find glass knobs for the last couple of weeks and I found this at Restoration Hardware of all places. Check it out.

It's my new favorite glass knob in the world and even more shocking is the fact that it retails for a mere $11. It's perfect and that thing allowed me to save the day and look like a hero. Unbelievable. Who's going to save me next? Pottery Barn? Geez I hope not.

Part two of my hardware quest of the last few weeks has been finding an affordable cabinet door latch. I know where to go find them  for about a hundred bucks a pop but for $14? Forget about it. Until now that is. Check this out:

That's also from Restoration Hardware. I hate being wrong, but I can be a man about it and admit it when I'm confronted with overwhelming evidence. My trip to Restoration Hardware provided me with a hint that I may not know everything after all.

Can I order my crow any way I want it or or is it a case where I'll have to eat whatever's placed in front of me?

I LOVE a good review

The brilliant and beautiful Kelly Morriseau over at Kitchen Sync had this to say about my blog in her blog this week: 

Kitchen and Residential Design: Paul Anater, is a kitchen, bath and residential designer in St. Pete, Florida.  He has a wealth of information about stone. I knew as soon as I read his blog post "Sometimes granite isn't granite at all", and is one of the few designers I've "met" who knows that Onyx isn't really Onyx that I knew he would be a valuable resource for those of you out there planning stonework in your homes. Paul also blogs about whatever interests him, which is fun, plus he has a sense of humour.

Thank you Kelly!

Now everybody pop over to Kitchen Sync to read a take on kitchen design from a woman whose experience dwarfs mine. She's smart, she's humorous and she doles it all out with a huge dose of common sense.

Whither happiness?

On a related topic, and before I dive back into the world of residential design, there's a great article in this month's Atlantic magazine. Paul Bloom wrote a thought-provoking piece on the intersection of Philosophy and Psychology. I read it on my flight home to Florida the other day and it's been lodged in my fore brain ever since. Read his work here.

But what’s more exciting, I think, is the emergence of a different perspective on happiness itself. We used to think that the hard part of the question “How can I be happy?” had to do with nailing down the definition of happy. But it may have more to do with the definition of I. Many researchers now believe, to varying degrees, that each of us is a community of competing selves, with the happiness of one often causing the misery of another. This theory might explain certain puzzles of everyday life, such as why addictions and compulsions are so hard to shake off, and why we insist on spending so much of our lives in worlds —like TV shows and novels and virtual-reality experiences—that don’t actually exist.