A kitchen makeover done with planning help from Ikea
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Jannis Swerman is planning a big Thanksgiving dinner. It will be the first since giving the kitchen in the 1948 Sherman Oaks home she shares with husband Don Rubinstein a much-needed makeover. The remodel aimed at opening up the space, cutting clutter and improving work flow went off without a hitch because of where she decided to put her money. As she points out, the white cabinets and charcoal-colored quartz countertops in the modern, light-filled space are from Ikea.
"It was the best money ever spent," says Swerman, a passionate cook who had finally had enough of the old layout. Culinarily speaking, it was impossible to let loose.
Searing over high heat triggered the shriek of the smoke alarm. Working at the sink put her in the path of foot traffic because the small, cramped, awkward space was more of a corridor from the front to the back of the house than a center of food preparation. To boot, the area pulled double-duty as a laundry room. The ceramic tile counters were chipped and there was a shortage of storage.
Source: Long Beach Press-Telegram
In a Bywater warehouse-turned-apartment building, Raine Bedsole finds a niche ...
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"But what am I ever going to do," she mused during a tour of her new studio in the Rice Mill Lofts, "that's better than this beam?"
Bedsole was referring to the beautifully scarred and stained 19th-century timber upright post that helps support the 17-foot ceilings of the converted warehouse space.
From the unadorned concrete floors to the exposed track lights and dropped ceiling fan, Bedsole's studio is an exercise in industrial chic. The bank of plate glass windows that look out on the neighboring New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts bathes the uncomplicated 1,300-square-foot rectangular interior with diffuse sunlight. Unobtrusive white kitchen appliances and manmade stone countertops line one wall. A simple staircase of black-stained pine leads to the upstairs loft.
In August, Bedsole sold the studio she occupied in the French Quarter for a decade and set out to find a rental in a less-congested part of town. Just a few blocks outside of the Vieux Carre, she came upon the newly developed Rice Mill Lofts that opened Sept. 1. It didn't take long for Bedsole to determine that it could be an ideal art-making environment. It was, she said, the first place she visited, and there was no need to look further.
Source: NOLA.com