Small-Space Living: A Low-Cost Cabin Kitchen for a Family of Five - Remodelista
When designer/blogger Carmella Rayone McCafferty’s family of five left Port St. Lucie, Florida, for rural Wyoming three years ago, they needed to find a place to live. Photography by Carmella Rayone for Assortment. The cabin–which is built on an iron frame, making it tuggable–came with its custom poplar cabinets and pine counters in place. To free up counter space, the kitchen has an Elkay under-mount double sink (similar to the Pergola Stainless Steel Double-Bowl Sink; $149 from Home Depot) and the right side holds the drying rack. “I dreamed of soapstone,” says Carmella of the counters. Knowing she couldn’t spring for the real thing and that she “didn’t want laminate or anything run-of-the-mill,” she asked the cabinetmaker to use furniture-grade plywood with a 1 1/2-inch solid wood edge (“that gives it a thick look”). And then she spent weeks thinking about what she was going to do with it. Pots hang from an iron rack that Carmella had a local metalsmith fabricate: “After searching without success for what I wanted, I went to Joe’s shop... ...we had a talk, and he made what was in my head. I love how it’s rough and raw, a perfect juxtaposition to the polished pots hanging from it.” Carmella is a fan of art in the kitchen; her cabin print came from a thrift store. The open shelves are old barn wood (found at the local Habitat for Humanity ReStore) with matte black Cast-Iron Brackets ($12.95 each) from Signature Hardware. “In the course of the planning and design of our kitchen, I was working within several limitations, space and money being the two most restraining,” writes Carmella in her blog. Stealth knife storage: Carmella had her carpenter add a fill piece of pine on the back of the stove with slots sized to fit her biggest knife; she finished the wood to match the faux-soapstone counters. The stove is a 30-year-old Jenn Air down-draft model: “no hood, so a real space saver–I spotted it the summer before we got the cabin at the Salvation Army for $75.” The over-the-sink vintage copper light came from eBay. Each of the cabinets is designed to hold specific kitchen things. The kitchen opens to the dining area (which Carmella cleverly designed around a window seat to take up less space) and living room. The Mission oak rocker came from Ross’s childhood cattle ranch in Montana–”it was in the bunkhouse for the ranch hands.” The stainless steel fridge is a 30-inch-wide, counter-depth design from compact appliance specialists Summit Appliance (discontinued but similar to this model); because of its hard-to-come-by dimensions, it’s the biggest ticket item in the kitchen.