The Ancient Basement–New (Old) Cabinets

We bought the sink and cabinet and the bath tub for the basement from Hudson Valley Houseparts–which is a salvage company that goes to houses that are going to be torn down and pulls out all the great architectural salvage that they can. I received an email from them about a kitchen and a butlers pantry that they were pulling out of a 1916 Colonial in Rye, NY. The run of cabinets is 10′–lowers and uppers and then there was a modern run of lowers with a granite counter, a couple of old uppers, and a sink and faucet. They are just exactly what I was looking for.

I forwarded the email to my husband and he asked when we were going to go–which SHOCKED me, because I really thought he would tell me no. So we made a deal on the cabinets and a dishwasher (which ultimately didn’t work out because it was a lot older than I thought). We started out on 5/9 and drove as far as Bristol, VA and spent the night there with the plan to drive to Charlottesville, VA the next day to see Monticello. The next morning, we drove to Monticello and saw that and then drove to Montpelier (Madison’s home) and saw that. Then we were on the road again and spent the night in Fairfax, VA. The next day, we drove to Malvern, PA hoping that we would be able to tour the Escherick studio, barn, and home (he was a famous woodworker), but no luck, so we ended up touring Sugartown. Then, it was back in the car and we drove to Tuckahoe, NY. Traffic was terrible on Mother’s Day, so it took forever. Good news is that we went to a fabulous Indian restaurant in Eastchester called Marigold–Delicious! The next morning we drove to the house and started loading up.

The cabinets were MUCH older than we expected and were built on site, so they don’t have backs–my guess is that they are from the 30’s based on the original color, and some quirks that they have. So the guys helped us load 2 pieces that are 10′ long each, plus a 10′ piece of granite. The glass doors for the upper cabinets and the sink went in the back of the car. It took about 2 1/2 hours to load and secure everything in the trailer. Then we got back in the car and drove to Roanoke, VA and the rest of the way the following day. We spent about 30 hours in the car altogether. We’re not going ANYWHERE for a long, long time.

The plans for the cabinets is to use the lowers along the back wall of the bar–we’ll put the sink in the section with the two small drawers. We’ll use one of the upper cabinets too. We’ll use the 2 modern cabinets under the bar along with a built in oven and a small beverage fridge. The upper cabinets with the glass doors (with true mullions, not just a grid) will become a built in bookcase on the stairwell wall. My husband wants to use the granite counter for his office. We’ll have to have it re-cut and installed, but it will be gorgeous with the quarter sawn and rift sawn oak he is going to use in there.

Here are the 10′ runs of cabinets in the home.

Here is the upper cabinet that we’ll use on the bar wall of the bar–I love the little brackets underneath.

Here they are sitting in our garage:

The shelf adjustment in the uppers is so cool.

We are going to chemically strip these as much as we need to in order to get a smooth surface to start from. The funniest part, is that we’re going to paint the bar cabinets a green that is really similar to the original color of the cabinets.

Anyway, I will update along the way. I really can’t wait to work on the bookcase. It will be spectacular and exactly what I wanted for the space.