our home – enzy design | Utah Interior Design

Taking “Labor” Day to a Whole New Level

Nicole Zeigler — Mon, 01 Sep 2014 22:08:00 +0000

We officially started demo today! And thanks to some wonderful friends (+ my father-in-law) we made HUGE progress!

Let’s start again with the dreadful “Before” photo:

Here’s what happened today. We only stopped because we ran out of dumpster space!

And some history revealed in layers of wallpaper:

Thanks to Steven, Danielle, Steve, Bri, Lee, Dave, and Jill!

GIVEAWAY! – Custom Glass Art

Nicole Zeigler — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 14:53:00 +0000

I love that so many pieces of art in our home aren’t generic pieces – almost everything has a special meaning or history. This is our newest piece – by William Germain. William works for Hallmark Cabinets and has helped me out with some incredible custom pieces and finishes for my projects, and on the side he does some amazing painting on glass. After my ooh-ing and aah-ing over some of his work, he was kind enough to give me a painting of my own. By painting on back of the glass, the painting has a lot more depth than a standard canvas. And this particular paint has an amazing metallic shimmer that I just couldn’t capture with my camera.

Here’s the best part – William has agreed to let me give away one of his pieces!

My giveaway is for a painting like mine, and the winner gets to choose a blue or yellow metallic background. Overall size, with frame, is ±25″ x 21″

Here’s what you need to do to enter:

Leave a comment here on this post, to include which color you’d choose if you won – the blue or the yellow metallic background.
I was going to require that you “like” enzy design on facebook, but started looking online for giveaway/sweepstakes rules and it appears I can’t force you to do anything, so I’ll just suggest that you like me, though I promise this will not in any way affect your chances of winning.

Rules:

Entry comment must include items indicated above.
Winner must be 18 or older.
Winner must have shipping address in continental U.S. (which I will contact the winner for later)
Winner will be selected using random number generator (such as Random.org).
Deadline to enter is Friday, March 9. Winner will be announced Monday, March 12.
Only 1 entry per person per household.

Here are other examples of William’s work (taken from his facebook page):

Laundry Closet Project

Nicole Zeigler — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 14:00:00 +0000

Unfortunately our laundry “room” is a closet in our kitchen. The closet was likely originally just a closet, because our small washer & dryer are still too deep to allow standard doors on the closet. Someday we’d like to custom-design sliding doors to sit proud of the closet, but for now, while it’s still exposed, I just wanted to make it look a little less like a closet.

Here’s what it looked like when we bought the house:

And this was our first quick-fix (really really quick fix) so we could fit our stackable units in:

And here’s what it looks like now, after a couple weekends of work:

The cabinet, shelf, and drying rack are from Ikea. The pulls are Riva from Amerock. The apron is a gift from my mom via etsy, using Amy Butler fabric. The yellow/green print is a gift from my brother, also from etsy, by Katie Kirk (her etsy shop is closing soon but check it out here while you still can!). My handy boyfriend made the countertop for me using leftover laminate from our kitchen countertop project.

All of the cleaning, laundry, and dog supplies are hidden behind doors or in the storage baskets. So much better, right?

Microwave Hoods

Nicole Zeigler — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 16:58:00 +0000

I am a Kitchen Designer, and you know the saying about the shoemaker’s kids? Well, that applies to our kitchen. It’s terrible. It’s ugly, outdated, and extremely inefficient. Fixing it would be a major undertaking (i.e. completely gutting the whole thing and starting over), which we just can’t do right now. So we’ve done little things over time to make it a little more tolerable, like replacing the awful tile countertops with laminate. Yes, laminate doesn’t have the best reputation in the industry, but guess what… it doesn’t have grout lines, and that’s a major step up in my book.

I really don’t like microwave hoods. And I especially don’t like them at the end of a run of cabinetry. The sides of these hoods are not intended to be exposed. And I really really dislike them when they are mounted too low. (Note: Most manufacturer’s specs will typically say the recommended mounting height is 66″ from the top of the microwave to the floor. In my opinion, this is WAY TOO LOW if you actually want to be able to see and stir the contents of the pots on your back burner.) Regardless, this is exactly the set-up that came with our house. About 6 months ago, our microwave exploded. Fortunately it was covered under our homeowner’s warranty, though unfortunately our claim got lost and it took months to sort it all out. We finally got the replacement microwave but hesitated to actually install it, because both of us hated having the microwave in that location. So, after days of pondering over our options, we decided if we had to have a microwave in that location, we should at least be able to raise it, which might make us despise it a little bit less.

microwave BEFORE

I’m lucky to live with a handyman who loves to cook and was therefore just as motivated (probably even more so) to do something about the microwave. He took the upper cabinet down and somehow miraculously rebuilt it in the garage (note, we don’t have a woodshop or most of the tools needed to do this type of work). So now we have a shorter open-shelf cabinet, which is great for storing everything from the bulk food aisle. The microwave is now much higher (maybe too high for some, but we’re tall and have no children, so it’s perfect for us), and we can happily cook without cursing about the microwave getting in the way.

microwave AFTER

Lesson to all of you: I didn’t think to look into what the side of the replacement microwave would look like. If you are in a situation where you must have a microwave/hood, and it must be installed at the end of the run of cabinetry, try to find out what the exposed side will look like. Again, these sides are not intended to be exposed, and they can be pretty ugly.