Rob O'Keeffe Joinery
Job profile: Walk-in pantry
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Extensive additions and alterations to a grand old house resulted in the provision of newly created space for a new pantry attached to the existing kitchen. While a double brick wall and existing doorway provided an ideal cavity for the new sliding pantry door, the available shape – 1100 x 3000 – constrained the design.
"In the not to distant future the client planned to redo their kitchen, and they wanted something that would blend with whatever they did. The client asked that rimu be used as much as possible, including the sliding door, as this followed the theme introduced with the extensive alterations throughout the house. We decided on rimu with stainless steel tops."
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Rob's apprentice, Ben Emmett, consulted with the client to design a pantry to fit the available space. It was decided to use the higher wall spaces for open shelving and a wine rack, and under-bench spaces for drawers as this would be more efficient than having cupboards. The resulting pantry included 15 drawers, three basket drawers, two shelving units and a wall mounted wine rack. The unit carcasses were constructed using 18mm white board and finished with coloured Rimu drawer fronts. The shelves and wine rack were made entirely with Rimu, while Rimu frames hold the willow baskets. Stainless steel was used for the work top.
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"The main difficulty we had was in fitting as much as we could into the space available, while ensuring that that the client would be able to work comfortably in that small space. It took a bit of planning to work out how we were going to get the stainless steel top in as well. But it all worked out neatly in the end."
The result was so successful Ben won the award for Best Single Work by an Apprentice (Under 7,000 hours) in the 2006 NZTIA Solid Timber Joinery Awards.
