Designer Nightmare

I thought it was a myth.

When I first got into cabinetry, I went to a training session in Salem, OR. Not only was it my first time traveling by plane, it was my first time with a group of Kitchen & Bath Designers. Dinner the first night was at an upscale restaurant in the hotel. I listened to stories all night about crazy customers, common mistakes in design, cabinet manufacturing mumbo jumbo, and a whole lot of jokes that didn't make sense at the time. One I remember quite vividly, an older woman said, "You'll never escape!" followed with laughter from the group. Here I am 7 years later, unable to tear myself away from this interesting, stressful, yet rewarding career.

One of the stories I heard that week in Salem was about the designers worst nightmare. Finding a fireplace behind a wall. This scenario had happened to a few designers, usually working on remodels in older homes. Each story the designer had gone through the whole design process, some had even ordered cabinetry, only to find out during the demolition that there was a huge masonry structure behind the wall that couldn't be removed.

Over the years I've heard so many variations of the story, I started to believe it was an old designers wives-tale.

I believed that until Monday.

I got a frantic call Monday morning from my contractor who is the middle of a kitchen demo. We designed a beautiful kitchen that included removing a pantry and two walls. I had different renderings of each new wall, all the cabinets selected to fit perfectly. The remodel was going to look amazing. It so happened while they were knocking out the wall, they found...you'll never guess...a FIREPLACE behind the wall! The tale is not a myth, it actually happens! Unfortunately it can't be removed because it is structural important to the home. So, we designed around it. Thank goodness for false panels and good installers. I'll have to post pictures when we have the install complete. The fireplace will be covered to look like a tall oven cabinet, and since there is a hole in the center big enough for a cabinet, it's still going to be semi-usable space. It turned out to be okay.

Even though the fireplace created drama and added stress the beginning of the week, yeah I had heartburn for two days in a row, but it also made me feel like I had been inducted into the Cabinet Designer club. It finally happened to me, I finally got the fireplace behind the wall! Luckily it happened prior to ordering cabinetry!