Solving Design Challenges in a Crisp, White Bergstrom Kitchen

Door : Bergstrom - Laminated Europly
Color : Designer White, Wilsonart D354, 60 Matte
Handle : “D” Routed Handle
Drawer: Maple Dovetail
Date: 2017
Location : Jamaica Plain, Boston
Architect: Helios Design Group
Dealer: Boston Building Resources
Photography: Jared Kuzia

 

This wall cabinet and blind corner below require special planning to be functional.

Detail of the complimentary routing detailed below.

Design Consideration:
Finger clearance on corner cabinets

Some designs necessitate the routed handle landing on the exterior wall of the cabinet rather than a void in the middle. In this case, a matching route needs to be implemented to provide adequate room to reach in and grasp the handle.

Matching the exposed europly of the door would create a visual overload that would clutter up the simple beauty of the Bergstrom door. So we pair the handle with a complimenting laminated routed opening.

The elegant penny tile backsplash matches the black and white color scheme of the cabinetry.

Design Consideration:
Custom sink rail

Our typical sink rail runs along the top of cabinet for stability. But, when we add a door with our routed D handle at a comfortable height, we run into an issue - you’d see a sliver of the sink rail at the top inside of the handle, and you might jam a finger on it if you’re not careful. For us, that’s not an acceptable thing to have to live with.

So, what’s the solution? With the other base cabinets around the kitchen, we had the option of recessing the top rail to solve this problem. But here, the rail need to stay in place to create structure of the sink. So what’s a cabinet maker to do?

We created a shallow recess in the rail that allows it to be fully clear of the door handle. It’s a subtle curve that many might not notice, but it makes all the difference.

The dishwasher (left) and tall cabinet (center, right of the doorway) required special customization, detailed below.

Design Consideration:
Integrated Dishwasher Pull

Dishwashers provide a special challenge for integrated handle cabinet panels.

Because of the extra force needed to release the clamp and gaskets on dishwashers, you need a little more to grab on to.

Also, most cabinet door panels have the benefit of having some open space behind them for your fingers to reach into: but on a dishwasher, the panel is applied directly to the door of the dishwasher - so if you want space you grab on, you have to carve it out intentionally.

The second consideration is what is visible behind the routed handle - the bare metal of the top of the dishwasher? Not so pretty. A simple black laminate panel applied to the top of the dishwasher helps it to subtly blend in to the background.

Design Consideration:
Handle placement above internal drawers

When setting the height of the handle for a tall cabinet, one might go with a standard distance from the floor or guess at what might be a comfortable height, and then move forward without further consideration.

But there’s a catch when your routed handle provides a peek inside the cabinet, and when it needs finger clearance behind. If you’re not careful with your handle, you could easily place it right on top of one of the internal drawers - where you would not only see some part of that drawer through the handle, but also your fingers would bang into it as you tried to get your fingers in.

Careful placement of the handle at both a comfortable height and in an intentional void between the internal drawers helps to cleverly avoid these issues.

Design Consideration:
Finger clearance - again!

The D handles at the top of the base cabinet drawers also would have interfered with finger clearance when reaching in to open the drawers.

We recessed the top rail and drawer stretch 1” in order to give pleasant, finger-jamming-free drawer operation. And isn’t that what we all want?