I am helping my DIY Ally clients Bob and Karol with their master bedroom & bathroom renovation in Rhode Island. Bob is a retired mechanical engineer/naval architect. Karol is a retired software engineer.
A DIY Ally client wrote: “We are currently in the process of completely remodeling our master bedroom and master bath. Please see the attached drawings for the existing bath layout, a couple of proposed layouts that we have considered (we have the Chief Architect Software), and a blank template if you want to make sketches of what you think would work for us.”
I was very fortunate to interview Mrs. Sterna Citron, the wife of our rabbi, Rabbi Chaim Citron of Los Angeles, about her kosher kitchen. Mrs. Citron approached our talk as an opportunity to teach and reflect, as she said: “It’s something I’ve done all my life. So I don’t think much about it. In order to explain it to you, I’ve had to do some thinking about it, which is good.”
As a DIY Ally, I am always on hand to help with a layout for an upcoming project. This particular kitchen remodel is no exception. A couple came to me with the following request: “Our main goal is to open up the kitchen to the adjoining dining/living room area in order to take advantage of the view through the living room to the 12-foot sliding patio door that looks out onto our backyard and pond.”
IKEA’s new Sunnersta free-standing mini-kitchen is ideal for my garden room. Maybe to someone, it’s “the no-commitment kitchen,” but I love it. It was just unveiled as one of the brand new designs in IKEA’s 2017 catalog, which claims that this tiny thing offers “all the function of a full-sized kitchen with just a fraction of the assembly and installation effort.”
Last week, in this blog’s Design Ideas installment, I discussed one of my projects. It’s a two-story building renovation in Jersey City. I outlined my thought process while coming up with four versions for a loft kitchen plan. This week, let’s take it further and apply the concept of the kitchen work triangle to all of the alternative layouts.
When it comes to selecting bathroom fixtures, the toilet is one of the essential components. Frankly, its appearance has to be taken very seriously — it can ruin or enhance the over-all look as well as functionality of a bathroom. It’s critical to pick a model that is pleasing to the eye, easy to clean, and sustainable.
I am Alla DYI Ally. Architect on demand. Or an online architect providing advice without strings. Let’s say you are a DIY home improvement enthusiast remodeling a bathroom. An issue comes up. Architect on demand (a do-it-yourselfer, bargain-hunter, and make-doer), I am online — at your fingertips.