Tour the Butler’s Pantry with Mick De Giulio from Atticmag on Vimeo.
Meet Mick De Giulio and take his tour of his kitchen of the year butler’s pantry.
Mick De Giulio is one of the most influential American kitchen designers working today. So it was a pleasure to tour the urbane Kitchen of the Year he designed for House Beautiful in Rockefeller Center. One of my favorite areas of the kitchen was the diminutive butler’s pantry – a mere 100 square feet. I love butler’s pantries because they are intimate spaces that house the best stuff, i.e. the “good dishes” and serving pieces. Turns out, Mick De Giulio loves them, too.
A few additional notes. This pantry faces the outdoor kitchen and lounging area in Rockefeller Plaza. The window wall ties it into the main kitchen area by using the same exquisite Ann Sacks handmade glass and gold-leaf tile used in the main kitchen. The Kohler sink is Annapolis Blue, another tie in.
On both sides, the glass-front KraftMaid Sedona Maple upper cabinets, painted Dove White, are free floating and stop inches from the window wall. To catch as much light as possible the backs of each cabinet are mirrored. Additionally, they are lighted and fitted with glass shelves.
In the video, Mick refers to the difference between the backsplash and counter top on each side of the pantry. Each ‘splash is made of smoked mirror panels. On the right side, the panels are self-framed with beveled mirror. A rep from Grothouse Lumber, who fabricated the elegant semigloss walnut counters, explains that they are specially treated to make them waterproof and scratch proof.
The opposite side of the pantry backsplash has the mirrored panels framed in white, a super-refined difference. Here, you can also spot the way the cabinets come nearly to the end of the wall, so they “float,” as Mick explained.
I was so busy taking in the details at eye level and below, I nearly missed the blue Venetian plaster cove ceiling decorated with a pair of stunning gilded iron Apollo fixtures from Circa Lighting.
All in all — heavenly!
Take a tour of Mick De Giulio’s Kitchen of the Year 2012.
Copy and Paste to Quick-Share this Post: http://bit.ly/R85J3l
Great interview! Loved hearing Mick describe how/why he used what he did in creating the butler’s pantry. Very interesting for a TKO’er (!) and very informative. It’s a beautiful space and appears to be very functional despite its compact size.
(Don’t think I didn’t notice the liberal use of my buddy Michael Aram’s home decor items in the cabinets nd on the counters! LOL)
Mick is one of my all time favorite kitchen designers, ever since I discovered his work a few years ago in the pages of House Beautiful.
This kitchen looks wonderful! I like how he intentionally kept things simple, as kitchens can often be overthought. I am not sure if I would ever dedicate a space to a pizza oven, but maybe if I had a 1000 sf kitchen!
Yes, catmom, tons of Michael Aram throughout. He was one of the sponsors! Here’s one of his pieces in a drawer
Things, I’m with you totally. The pizza oven was outside in the outdoor kitchen, sort of a 2 for 1 if you will. Here’s a view.
Thanks for stopping by.
Love his combination of practicality/function, fun, and effect. Nothing is fussy, but neither is it at all dull. I appreciated his personality that seemed down to earth, and his willingness to simply explain his choices.
I was surprised to see the sink undermounted with the AMAZING stainless counter, since in higher end applications, stainless counters usually have an integrated sink, or in less expensive set-ups, the sink is flush-mounted… It’s a sheet over an underlayment, right? So do you know how the underside was handled?
The counter was amazing for several reasons. It’s high polish ss, hand hammered. He has his own a fabrication shop and they make a lot of his kitchen components. It looked like the same quality as the Michael Aram pieces. This is just a temp kitchen but I haven’t seen this level of finish work before anywhere. The sink is a really good example. As he explained, it’s in one piece. I took other photos but it was shooting into the light so they are a bit dark but will show you more.
The integral ss sinks are just adaptations for restaurant washing up stations. This is another level since not only does it have the Adler blue sink undermounted with exceptional precision, the scribing under the window is perfect as well. What grabbed me about it immediately is the way the front was as deep as the adjacent drawers. It doesn’t look piecey. There isn’t that sink base panel to pull the eye down. You don’t notice the cabinet below it at all — it keeps the eye up and on the top of the counter where it belongs.
I didn’t see the counter go in but I know how mine were done. The ss is very thick and, essentially is an intricately shaped shell that fits down over the base cabinet. I expect there is a plywood structure below it.