Project Spotlight: Pecky Cypress Custom Kitchen and Hand-Crafted Built-Ins

The concept for the pecky cypress kitchen project came from a lack in the home builder’s kitchen’s ‘spirit’. The floor plan layout make the kitchen viewable from the entry hall, and left much to be desired in it’s style and warmth for this central piece of the home design.  The homeowner was not able to get a satisfactory response from the general contractor and so turned to Gepetto.  We brought a willingness to listen, and extensive design experience to the table to help the home owner make an organic visual and tactile experience come to life in their central living space.

The key component that breaks the design mold, achieving the goals of the homeowner in the process, was to use the exotic and difficult to work with Pecky Cypress wood species. Matthew Wiley’s modern eclectic design sensibility and daring to work with the unique scarred grain pattern in the cypress brings the unique look and functional success to this kitchen and bookshelf project. You may be wondering where the difficulty comes from.  Take a look at this closeup picture:

Notice the knot hole, and the depressions in the surface from what might seem to be eroded channels in the grain?  Those channels are wounds in the wood created by insects.  The cypress presents an excessively difficult raw material to mill into finished lumber for cabinet making. Matthew’s adventurous and patient care in the woodshop produces a wholly unique panel surface. The Pecky Cypres is hand selected, planed, sanded and finished with a proprietary epoxy finish to provide a uniquely touchable cabinet finish.  If you notice, the door panels exhibit a greater quantity of this unique grain structure–while the structural elements, drawer edges, corner stays, and surface tops are finished with hand selected pieces that do not display grain flaws.  The benefit of hiring a master craftsman for your custom project is shown in his judgement and selection of each piece for it’s most beneficial placement in the construction.

To keep the grain pattern from becoming overwhelming, the kitchen island was finished in oak stained dark antique to providing a deep calming contrast in the centerpiece of the kitchen.  The dark stain also brings a rooted effect to the functional center of the family kitchen.  A table sits in the sun-room end of the kitchen and the matching pecky cypress hutch holds the theme to the opposite wall of the room.

Hiring a deeply experienced craftsman pays more than just product.  Gepetto corrected several major kitchen design flaws that were slated by the builder. As much as we know about design efficiency today, the builder’s design placed the fridge on the opposite side of the island as the stove top.  How annoying would it be to deal with all the details of building your new house, and moving in, and find that you had to walk around your 8ft island to get the eggs for your breakfast out of the fridge, and walk back to the stove?

Other practical matters that the artistic design accomplished were to double the available storage space by adding shelves to the island. Fun little touches like a spice rack that pulls out from what looks to be a hand turned post are part of the hidden joy that comes from bringing wood to life.

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Please enjoy the flash gallery below showing the hidden and thoughtful touches gepetto puts into bringing wood to life.

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