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This Design Editor’s Quick-Install Kitchen Is Like a “Sexy Matte-Black Mercedes”
Spencer Bailey, a New York-based writer and editor known for co-founding The Slowdown and hosting the podcast "Time Sensitive," recently undertook a kitchen renovation in his Brooklyn Heights apartment. After living with a builder-grade kitchen for nearly a decade, issues like demagnetized push-to-open drawers, flimsy medium-density fiberboard cabinets, and stained, improperly sealed marble counters prompted the need for an upgrade. Bailey sought a modular kitchen solution that could be integrated like furniture.
He and his partner, Emma Bowen, opted for a kitchen from Vipp, a Danish manufacturer renowned for its modular, building-block-like designs and "fewer, better things" philosophy. The appeal of Vipp was not only its design aesthetic but also the efficiency of its installation; once delivered, the components, including appliances and floating shelving, could be installed within two days. Bailey likened the aesthetic transformation to parking a "sexy matte-black Mercedes" in his apartment.
For the renovation, Bailey and Bowen meticulously measured their space and utilized Vipp’s online configurator. They chose Vipp’s V1 kitchen, a predefined design offering four optional modules. Their selection included an island with integrated seating, a tall wall unit for pantry storage, and a long unit equipped with deep drawers and an integrated cooktop. Thanks to Vipp's partnership with Miele, Bailey was able to acquire a double-door refrigerator with a door panel that seamlessly matched the powder-coated black cabinets. The Miele oven and Fisher & Paykel dishwasher were also integrated to match the cohesive design.
A key customization was adjusting the height of the units. Bailey, who is 6-feet-3, found the standard 36-inch counter height uncomfortable. Vipp accommodated his request to raise the units to 38 inches, a modification that significantly improved ergonomics. After completing the planning phase, the couple placed their order, waiting five months for the custom parts to be manufactured and shipped.
Before the new kitchen arrived, Bailey addressed the removal of his old kitchen by contacting Renovation Angel, an organization that recycles and repurposes kitchens, fixtures, and furniture. This allowed him to ethically dispose of the old components, ensuring they would be reused rather than sent to a landfill, and also qualified him for a tax deduction. The deconstruction process, handled by Renovation Angel, took only four hours.
A challenge arose after the old kitchen was removed: a concrete gap in the floor where the original island had stood, as the white oak flooring had not extended underneath it. Their building superintendent, Fernando, addressed this issue by relocating electrical outlets and installing 16 new floor planks, a task completed before the Vipp installation team arrived two weeks later. The installation itself was remarkably swift, with the new cabinets and appliances arriving on a Tuesday and the crew completing the setup by the end of Thursday. The final step was to fill the new cabinets with Bailey's collection of ceramics from various international sources and practical kitchen tools, all now housed in a space designed for durability and longevity.
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