One Room Challenge: Week 6, Cabinets & Windows

One of the most prominent features in our basement renovation is the beautiful wall of custom cabinetry our friend Ethan Abramsom (@TheBuildWithEthan) is building for us. They will be one of the first things you see when you step into the space and they will be painted one of the brightest pops of color in the room. We finally have the cabinets onsite and this week we have been working hard to prep the space to fit them in. One of the best things with custom cabinetry (and working with Ethan) is he takes the design and excels in making them really high quality and really unique. 

We decided to go with an apothecary style design. We have a row of lower cabinets with a Carrara marble top. The uppers will sit directly on the Carrara top, but will be set back about 5”. The uppers will have glass panels that we are going to fill with vintage glass. We want something with some character and movement. Now we just need to get to our local glass shop ASAP and make sure they will be here in time. Since our design has a vintage feel we went with a paneled style of cabinet front but we added a curved detail (great idea from Ethan!) to tie in some of the other curves in the room with the arches, and curved slat wall…which by the way is looking amazing next to the new cabinetry.  The cabinetry also serves the purpose of hiding our electrical panels. On one side we will have floor to ceiling cabinets to conceal the electrical panels for our work space. 

All cabinetry was painted a smokey green. In fact, we went with a color called Green Smoke from Farrow & Ball. Right in the center of the wall of cabinetry is going to be an open shelf stained in a walnut color. Whats going above the walnut bookshelf is something we’re most excited for…. stained glass!

If you’ve been following our ORC journey (check out last weeks post here!), you know we have been looking for the perfect piece of stained glass. We visited about three local salvage yards & antique shops looking for the perfect piece. Unfortunately, the only one we liked was through one of our sponsors, ebay , but unfortunately the lead time was 8-10 weeks. So we quickly had to shift gears. It was at this same time, we walked into one of our new renovation projects and saw the absolute most perfect piece of stained glass and the homeowners asked us if we knew anyone that wanted it. WHAT A COINCIDENCE! We are so thankful for Heather & Rene and now we have the perfect piece of stained glass. The thing we love about this piece are the colors. Also this piece has lots of curves in it which is a nice play from the curves in the arches. 

Now let’s talk about the install of the stained glass. We are going to put it above the walnut bookshelf and are going to backlight with an LED strip. Our basement doesn’t have any natural light, but we are doing our best to work with that instead of fighting it. With the LED, our hopes are to give the illusion of a some natural light in the space. This piece of stained glass is a little narrower than we originally planned on which is actually going to work towards our advantage. After it’s framed, we are going to incorporate some of the 1×1 slats from the curved wall onto both sides of the stained glass. Yessssssss, we are so excited for this now!

What you can save from a demolition on a historic home is quite fascinating and we have two more pieces from this same renovation that we are so excited to bring into the speakeasy…. more windows! 

Between the top secret laundry area (we’re not revealing space until Week 8) and the work room there are two original areas in between the structural posts. We thought this was another area to get creative around. We are using repurposed windows from that same renovation project where we found the piece of stained glass to give the illusion of more windows (and natural light!) in the space. After weighing in on the pro & cons of each set of windows we have decided to use two very vintage window with different glass in each sash. This adds some texture and it also fits the theme of our 1920’s NYC speakeasy. To give it some extra character, we are going to add gold chains to the top of the windows and make them openable!

It’s hard to believe that we’re in week 6!  Our list is very long and we only have 2 more weeks to go! What’s next you ask? Well, we must paint the doors and get them installed, we need to get our glass order together, painting the floors are next and then we can start finally with all the pretty finishes. We have some really exciting things coming in that you will not want to miss.  Make sure to follow us on Instagram, and check out our YouTube channel for all the updates! 

If you’re wanting to take a look back to see how we got here, check out our past ORC posts