The Floor Beneath My Feet: Cabinet Details. Block logic. Crown molding. Assembly photos.

Remember, back at the beginning, I planned to get rid of the Pale Oaken Death March of the ring of cabinets around three walls.

Varied height of the three blocks of wall cabinets alleviates monotony.

Given how little the cabinet layout would change, designing each block of wall cabinets as a piece of furniture worked out even better than I anticipated.

Block One

Before and after.

A better angle.

Block Two

Befores and Afters of the south and north wings of Block Two.

A better angle.

Block Three

Before & After.
Seeing the top of Block Two over Block Three shows how working
through the drama of the crown moldings paid off.

Yes, there was some drama over the crown moldings.

Block Three is lower and deeper than Block Two. Therefore any coved crown that wrapped around the top of Three would obstruct the right, top door of Two. I thought Leon, the cabinet maker at Scherr's, would have a suggestion for me but he said making all the cabinets the same height was the only way to fix it. I knew I had to come up with another way. So, yeah, there was some slightly awkward phone and email discussion with Leon. All the drama was in my head. As usual.

Perhaps different styles of crown molding on the blocks of cabinets would look right given that I intended to distinguish them from each other. Block Two, after all, was going to be the focal point--that design hero celebrated in song and story. Block Two was supposed to be the most highly distinguished. And it touched the ceiling, so it would need a curved crown whereas the other blocks did not touch the ceiling.

Almost more than any other issue, the crown kept me awake because I'm not a kitchen designer. I couldn't even find any examples on the internet. But my varied crowns looked good on paper. I just wasn't sure how they would look for real until they were up there, for real and saw how the square complimented the flare. What a relief!