Modern Custom Cabinets Spotlight NY Art Collection

Which custom cabinet materials are best to set the tone for a bright, open, contemporary apartment residence in New York?

The modern custom cabinetry in this Garden City, New York, apartment renovation is the perfect compliment for the client’s serious art collection.Their fine art canvases are 6′ to 7′ feet tall, bright, and colorful. The cabinetry had to melt in and not compete or conflict with the bold, expressive artwork.

Bonnie May of betweenmywalls.com, the interior designer for the renovation, selected materials, colors and finishes that complimented the collection in their own, tasteful and low key, yet artful way.

Realizing the success of the installation depended on selecting a cabinetmaker that could fabricate the sophisticated cabinetry with superior craftsmanship and engineer the installation of the floating cabinets.

Bonnie chose John Packard of Packard Cabinetry in Sea Cliff, New York.

The floor plan in the apartment is open with great views and a lot of natural light. Here’s how Bonnie May executed the plan for a complete renovation of the apartment on Long Island. Cabinetry floating on the walls was one of the most important components of the design solution. The successful collaboration with John Packard insured the design would be realized.

Newly defined spaces were created with drop soffits on the ceilings, which allowed the halogen lighting to highlight the artwork and create grids around the seating areas. Once this was done, the available wall space for a television and custom cabinetry for storage was defined, complimentary and secondary to the displayed art.

Free floating Anigre kitchen cabinetry kept the space feeling lite. The large appliances were buried behind walls. The choice of lite toned Anigre wood veneer for the kitchen was sufficiently non-assertive in boldness, and added warmth in the space. Bonnie made several trips to the wood veneer suppliers for exotic woods to see the flitch (consecutively sliced pieces) of veneers, as well as finished samples, in order to ensure in advance that the color tonalities and softness of the Anigre will be the veneer of choice for the kitchen.

While looking for veneers the designer identified the wood for the free floating light custom cabinetry under the flat screen TV on the walls in both the living room and the bedroom. She found European beach for the wall unit in the den, which was tinted ever so lightly with a burnt sienna tone. The design of the den was balanced by weight of the flying shelves not necessarily symmetry. Given was a flat screen and a working desk for two. The design challenge was to keep it light, floating, and melt into the background so the owner’s displayed art objects could take precedence.

In the bedroom under the flat screen quarter sawn sycamore was used – a hint to the beautiful trees lining the shore of Hempstead Harbor, part of the views from the apartment.  Sycamore has a subtle green tone, and is very light and silk-like causing a rippling effect as you walk across the face of the cabinetry. Again the goal was not to interrupt the bright, modern art work displayed around the room.

The master bath has the same lite colored sycamore veneer as the master bed room, and is also a free floating custom cabinet design to be weightless.

In every the room, the cabinetry compliments the grand collection of modern art works, yet was scaled correctly to be artful in itself, but never obtrusive in each application. The entire living space is open and bright, with great visual texture, and each room compliments the other creating a warmth and mood consistent with the owner’s personality and the art.