Fairview, Mississauga

Nineteen doors, thirty-two drawers, seventy-two handles. Counted on the counter before anything was ordered.

• Two tone, white above and navy below
• New hood insert base, plywood drawer boxes
• Living-room table and two side tables refinished

1. 

   01

   The take-off, written on tape and stuck to the client's own counter. Nineteen doors, thirty-two drawers, nine panels, seventy-two handles, with the hardware codes beside them. A price per linear foot cannot tell two kitchens apart — this is what the number is actually built from, and it is done before anything is ordered rather than after something runs short.

2. 

   02

   The client bought a new insert hood, which needed a base that did not exist yet. This one was made to that hood's specification rather than to the old opening. The hood itself was left to a specialist — the base is cabinetry, the appliance is not.

3. 

   03

   Drawer boxes in plywood, built rather than bought. The estimate said the drawers would be inspected and any loose bases secured, and where a base had gone the box was replaced rather than screwed back together for another few years.

4. 

   04

   White above, navy below, on the boxes that were already there. The granite, the floor and the layout never moved. The two-tone split is doing what a single colour cannot in a room this long — it gives the eye a horizon instead of one wall of cabinetry.