The design of these custom cabinets were influenced by the client’s specific requirements for their home office and design aesthetics.

For the utility portion of the design they wanted to hide the printer and paper shredder inside the cabinets. They needed two file cabinet drawers and two other drawers for pencils and general office supplies. The remaining cabinets have adjustable shelves installed to accommodate a variety of other stuff that needed to be stored in the office. To plug the printer and shredder in, I turned the back of the cabinets into sliding doors to allow access to the wall outlets. The printer and shredder are installed on pullout shelves to facilitate ease of operation. All of the doors, drawers, and pull outs are installed using soft close hardware.

Their was also a return vent for the furnace along the wall that I had to figure out how to incorporate into the design.  To work around this, I installed a custom toe kick in the cabinet on the left.  I fabricated a grid to act as a vent cover to go in the toe kick. When I fabricated it, I took care to keep the boards in order from top to bottom so the grain flowed across them. I know it is a small detail that will be mostly hidden from view, but all the small details add up to a design that stands out.

For the aesthetic part of the design, the client wanted something that would stand out as an art statement, not something that can be picked up at any old cabinet shop. They wanted dark woods, as they found the trend of painted white or gray cabinets that everyone else is doing, uninteresting. They also wanted to incorporate a live edge slab in the design, as well as some decorative metal to coordinate with some of the other decorative metallic pieces in adjoining rooms.

The custom cabinets in this project span about a 13 foot wall, and are made of walnut, with copper inserts, which I added a patina to. I added the patina by hand to each piece of copper insuring each one would be different in texture and color. To get a patina color that would play well with the walnut as well as pick up the reds in the wood floor, I took the copper through a 6 step patination process. I think the colors and patterns speak for themselves.

To satisfy the live edge element, I used walnut slabs for the countertops. I added some additional decorative elements to the slabs by inlaying Gabon Ebony across the natural cracks and bark inclusions in the wood. The inlays are done entirely by hand using a mallet and chisel. This ensures each bow tie is its own unique size and shape.

The client wanted some decorative shelves above the cabinets to display some antiques and other treasures they have collected through life, one of which is a 1950’s era model train, so the shelf on the right has a tunnel cut through it allowing the train to pass through.
More on the Custom Train Shelf

Project Located in Evergreen Colorado