So the Alcove...
There is this alcove right near our kitchen area that is completely blank with nothing in it. Since our home is a spec home, the builder offered the option for a homeowner to be able to add cabinetry to this alcove when the house was first being built. Well, obviously, the previous owner decided to not add in that add-on which is totally fine. We think it is better that they didn't add anything here so now we can add something that will fit our needs and lifestyle. For reference, the alcove is 8'-11 3/4" and is 8'-0" tall so, a decent size. So, we have this blank space, what to do with it?
So what to put here? A piece of furniture? Nope...
This alcove will now be our beverage center! (I told you it would be something that fit our lifestyle)
Alcove
The Beverage Center
Hey Chels, what do you mean a beverage center?
Glad you asked.
Travis and I enjoy a wide variety of drinks and beverages. Coffee, tea, beer, a glass of wine and liquor. My wonderful fiancé has the hobby of collecting whiskey, so he needs quite a bit of space for this... hobby. So, in this alcove, we are adding in cabinetry that will house all of our beverage needs. There will be base cabinets that will house all of the liquor, a countertop that will extend across the entire length of the alcove and upper cabinets and open shelves to display various glasses.
Currently, all of our beverage glasses and paraphernalia are spread throughout are kitchen in various areas, so it would be nice if everything was all in one place.
Designing the Beverage Center
The entire design and manufacturing of the beverage center has been about 5 months and is still ongoing. It took this long because there was a lot of back and forth between the design we wanted and what the cabinet company was quoting us.
What has happened so far is that we wanted our beverage center cabinets and countertop to match our kitchen cabinets since they are going to be in close proximity to each other. So, luckily, inside one of our kitchen cabinets was the name of the original cabinet manufacturer. We reached out to the cabinet manufacturer and they directed us to someone in Austin to work with (basically a middle-man) that would help us design the cabinets and would communicate and coordinate with the manufacturer.
Travis and I talked about the design and we wanted the following items for the cabinets...
1. Base cabinets with sliding drawers inside to store all of the liquor
2. Open area for a future wine / beverage fridge
3. Upper cabinets with adjustable shelves
4. Open shelves to showcase drinking glasses
What was also great about the cabinet company we were communicating with was that they installed the cabinets in our original kitchen, so they had the cabinet style and color on file. With this information, we could order cabinets to exactly match our kitchen cabinets.
So, a little information about cabinets in general is that they typically only come in widths of 3" beginning at 12" wide and increasing in increments of 3" from there. So, since our alcove is slightly less than 9'-0" wide, we had to add in a couple of spacers to make up the extra width. These spacers also help make the base cabinets and upper cabinets symmetrical since the wine fridge area and the floating shelves are two different sizes.
What the Status of the Cabinets are Now
The status of the cabinets as of now are the cabinets have been manufactured and are in Austin. We just need to confirm that the cabinet company has received our final payment check to where we can schedule an install date.
Once the cabinets are installed, we will coordinate with Home Depot on having their countertop installers come to our home and confirm the color of the existing countertops in our kitchen (our kitchen countertops are one of the colors above) and measure for the new countertop that will be installed above the new cabinets.
We theoretically could order the countertops now, but we want to make sure all of the measurements are accurate and the only way to confirm that they are is for Home Depot to measure the cabinets after they are installed.
The last step after the cabinets are installed is to order a combination wine and beverage refrigerator to place under the countertop. We are still in the process of researching one that will work.
Lessons Learned
I will update this blog post as the progress of the cabinets progresses, but what we have learned so far is the following.
1. This whole process took much longer than we anticipated. Thank goodness we didn't need the cabinets (they were a want not a need). The long process was due to going back and forth with the cabinet retailer on making sure everything was noted properly with our invoice along with a longer lead time than usual on wood.
2. The price for the cabinets was pretty reasonable and was roughly what we budgeted for, but it was still a big expense. So far, it has been worth the money, but the sticker shock was a lot to take in all at once.
