Our first qualification as kitchen designers is that we love to cook. Our design qualifications include a 5 year professional degree in Architecture from the Southern California Institute of Architecture, 30 years experience in fabrication, fine furniture craft, sculpture lighting expertise, and the fact the we develop all our designs in 3d so “What You See is What You Get.”
In any design project our greatest ambition is to see a huge smile on our clients faces at the end of the project. To achieve that we provide options. There is no worse feeling than feeling ‘Meh’ at the end of a remodel that has involved time, money and disruption. Why go for that if you don’t get something great.
Kitchen myths: Ikea has the best value, and Home Depot the lowest prices. Drawing my kitchen on a napkin will get me the result I want. I know what I want. Hiring a professional is a waste of money, it isn’t that hard. Designers are dictators and I’ll get their style not mine. I can’t afford a true custom kitchen. I don’t believe that having a professional design can actually save me money, as well as protect me from that terrible feeling that I spent money and effort and lived with the remodel and got a lackluster result.
Value: my main job is to provide you options, establish a budget, and get things done with excellent quality and a lasting transformation, that makes your life better every day when you’re preparing food and entertaining people.
My job is to show you relatively unlimited options, sources I have acquired over three decades of experience in architecture and design.
My job is to guide material selection and draw details that are clear, so that everyone involved in the project is ‘on the same page.’
What made our most recent kitchen project success?
We didn’t scrimp on design time with clients. We had a dialogue with each other. Seems that we all really enjoyed collaborating. For the first time we outsourced to a high-tech manufacturer. That means that the cabinets are built with the same precision as super custom cabinetry imported from Europe. And instead of taking 3 months which is the normal European kitchen lead time, the cabinets are ready in 10 days. The fabricator is less than an hour away from clients on the Westside, which meant delivery was easy.
As designers, we have to know that the materials, the details, and the dimensions are exactly correct. Frankly, most non-Pros would have a lot of trouble getting the data down right, which isn’t due to a lack of intelligence, it’s the difference between working on your own project, possibly a once-in-a-lifetime thing, and having the experience of working on several hundred projects.
What do we want as designers? The number one thing is a big smile from our clients when we’re done.