Cabinetry: the “CUBE”

The main idea in our design was to create as open and flexible space as possible. With exposed concrete ceiling and the industrial concrete floor the apartment has a character of a loft although it really isn’t one. The use of industrial type construction plywood throughout the apartment also in some way contributes to that feel.
The image below shows where we used the plywood. All of the cabinets are completely built out of it as well as the ceiling above the kitchen and the operable wall partition panels.

In the center we placed a volume that we’ve called the “CUBE”. To allow maximum, flexible use of the space we made the main living area expandable on to the adjacent guest bedroom. The “CUBE” in the center is the object where we can hide the operable partition, but also a foldaway Murphy-type bed, and locate 3 various size closets. We liked the idea of a machine-like transformation of the object and the space in the same time.
Another image below shows the cube closed and open.

Bedrooms are spaces that are rarely used during the day, especially a second guest bedroom, therefore it seemed natural to make that space usable whenever needed for other functions, including entertaining a large number of guest.

We had to remove some of the previous walls to make room for the new framing that would adapt to the foldaway bed. We have routed new electrical wiring for lighting and power and insulated the walls with recycled acoustical insulation wool from the demolition.

Building the closet was a little tricky as we decided to miter all the corners to maintain full surfaces with the brown film finish of the plywood. The bed closet also includes hidden light cove.

 

The bed we used is a very high quality product that we found in the Häfele catalogue that offers a huge selection of furniture fittings, and architectural ironmongery. It definitely wasn’t cheap but we were very satisfied with the product. The full “french bed” set we got has 2 powerful gas pistons that allow opening and closing with virtually no effort, it includes adjustable bed frame with back lift and other trinkets.

Installation of the bed itself was quite easy as it needs just a few heavy duty bolts and little adjustment.The front panel is just hung on provided hooks and secured with a couple of screws.

Another piece of costly hardware was the system for the operable partition. We wanted the wall too have one surface so it required a setup with a single track that also allows the panels to be parked parallel. The track has to branch out to two tracks in the pocket to do that. The system we found is by a Swiss company HAWA. We saw it the first time at the Zurich airport where we usually stop on our travels. In the main concourse all the glass panels that enclose the shopping areas utilize this system.

After mounting the top track we build the frames of the panels out of regular unfinished plywood. There is also a small bottom track that is inset in the concrete floor. It is only there for stability of the panels. We installed the hardware in the frames and assembled the system to test it out. It worked fine except some resistance when moving over the curved piece of the track. That required additional adjustment.

What was left was the finishing of the panels. We used 6mm plywood sheets. First we glued one side to the frame.

Then we glued diagonal bracing to prevent warping of the panels. We used strips cut from a couple of masonite boards that we got for free from a wholesale warehouse where we bought most of our building materials. They had been used as display boards and were going to be thrown out.

Then we insulated the panels with mostly recycled wool from demolition.

At the end we glued the top panel. There are many things to consider when doing this on your own. The most important is the choice of glue. The one we used was a little too fast and required really quick application. For a panel that is almost 3m long is not very practical. You also have to really make sure the surface you are working on is really flat. Our floor although done fairly well on a stretch of 3 meters can have some variations that the door will replicate. Luckily for us they were unnoticeable.

Formwork plywood for cabinetry.

Instead of going with a cabinetry service we have decided to save some money by building it ourselves and entirely out of a good quality material. What we decided to use is the pre-finished waterproof birch plywood made in Finnish technology and typically used in construction to build forms for casting structural concrete. It has a standard brown finish fenolic semi-translucent film that is strong and waterproof. Depending on the film thickness it can be cherry brown to almost black.

 

There are numerous factories in Poland that produce good birch plywood with this kind of finnish. We have tested many samples but eventually decided to go with the Finnish company Koskisen Oy for several reasons. PEFC (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification Schemes) certified and offered a considerably superior quality to everything else we had seen.
Here is their story in pictures:

It says it all, doesn't it?

They also offered a slightly better per-unit price for larger 3m x 1.5m formats than the common 2.5m x 1.25m. It was a good deal for us as our ceiling height is 2.9m. so that way we were able to make full-height panels. The last good reason was that the company had a large format CNC milling service located in Poland. At that point we were designing the main feature of our design which was the suspended ceiling above the kitchen which is integrated with the living space and a dining space. (That area can be further expanded by connecting one of the bedrooms.)

For all of the cabintery (all closets, kitchen cabinets, wall panels, operable wall partition panels) we have ordered approx 50 sheets weighing more than 3 tons. The apartment is on the third floor and the elevator was not big enough to fit such big sheets. Carrying a 60kg board up the stairs 50 times would have taken at least 2 strong men at least an entire day and would most likely end up causing a lot of damage to the walls of the staircase and to the wood itself.

So we have hired a power line service crane to hoist the boards and hand them over the balcony and through the windows. There was only one person operating the crane so one of us had to sit in the basket and hold the boards. We were able to take only 2 boards at a time plus one person to fit in the 200kg-limit. The whole operation took 3 hours and the cost was quite reasonable.

The wood was stored in one corner of the apartment and hence the rest of the space has become a wood shop for the next few months.

Bathroom tiling

While saving money in other places we invested in decent bathroom tile. We found a Polish company out of Poznań called Ardea Arte that produces handmade ceramic mosaic. They have an incredible choice of extraordinary colors and textures and a variety of sizes and patterns.
Below are some examples of color and surface treatment that we were looking at. They are pretty amazing.

There are some drawbacks to this tile too. Although the colors are beautiful they are achieved in a pretty organic proces. There is a lot of variety within each color and the actual product may differ quite a bit from what you expect.
Also because the mosaic is handmade in Poznań the wait may end up time-prohibitive in case of many projects. Both of these problems happened to us. Instead of expected 4-6 weeks we waited 14 weeks which messed up our schedule tremendously. Also one of 2 alternate colors we picked for the guest bathroom ended up dramatically different than what we expected from the samples. Fortunately (although with a lot of effort and time) we were able to matte the surface of the color with fine sand paper to get rid of the shiny gold that was supposed to be rusty textured brown.

We hired a new contractor to do the tiling which ended up quite an arduous task. Each element of the mosaic slightly differs in shape and size so even though they come glued on a 30cmx30cm mesh sheets you have to cut out nearly all perimeter pieces of each sheet and reposition them to avoid big gaps and uneven grout width. It required nearly constant supervision as the tiler had a very hard time with this job especially in the beginning.

The diamond shape mosaic for the guest bathroom came out excellent. This patterns has more chic charachter and a very nice unusual snake skin-like texture.

 It has 2 alternate colors. One grey metallic with a slight iridescence and a patina rusty copper. Before ordering the tile we have tested several pattern options with available 2 and 3 alternate colors that you can choose at no additional charge.

But after trying about a 100 most complex combinations we ended up with the most simple 2 color pattern.

 The other pattern that we used in the master bathroom with a single greenish-grey color caused even more trouble. It has a nice unusual small rectangular shape but is also very irregular in terms of size and tile thickness. It is extremely tedious in application and requires a lot of care and coordination. After gluing the tile several pieces had to be taken out and repositioned again. It is not perfectly aligned but it is part of the character of this tile.

We have also underestimated the area an ran out of the mosaic. We had to reorder additional 2 square meters to cover the wall and top edges of the bathtub and wait for them for several more weeks. The color and the variety within the color was much stronger than the original batch but luckily the transition happens at the corner of two perpendicular wall surfaces and under the sink in the most inconspicuous place. We have laid and grouted that last part ourselves as we have learned the process while working with our original contractor.

We have used linear cove lighting in both bathrooms that emphasizes the 3-dimensional surface of the mosaic tile in both bathrooms. We have applied it from top to bottom and on all walls, which we were able to do it also because of the compact size of both bathrooms. In general we are very happy with the bathrooms. The mosaic gives them a very distinctive character and is among more interesting features in the apartment.

Since the concrete job in both showers and the raised floor in the master bathroom were screwed up we decided to tile the shower floors and replace the cheap drains installed by the first contractor. It required breaking the concrete around the drain. We have installed the new floor drains and completely sealed the showers floors with a special heavy duty rubber-like surface used for sealing balconies and roof terraces.

We have also recreated the threshold to the shower in the guest bathroom. The threshold was made out of cast concrete in a custom form made out of laminated particle board up-side-down. After curing we have placed the new threshold in the shower before sealing and tiling it.