Welcome to Front Porch LLC

How does a new condo price a kitchen?

The developer-supplied numbers for 211 East 51st Street, from a story by Lauren Elkies in this month’s Real Deal:

Cabinets (custom-made): $13,000

Refrigerator (Northland stainless steel top mount freezer): $4,200

Oven (Bosch stainless steel electric wall oven): $1,900

Floor tile (honed Limestone): $1,200

Dishwasher (Bosch Integra 800 series): $1,100

Backsplash: Stainless steel metal tile: $1,000

Sink: Franke undermount stainless steel: $950

Cooktop: Bosch stainless-steel four-burner gas cooktop: $900

We’re designing a breakfast nook, how much space do we need?

Conventionally, you need at least three feet to walk past somebody — but you might want to add a little space in a kitchen, where you might be carrying a hot tray.

Or as the National Kitchen and Bath Association planning guidelines put it: “36 inches to edge past somebody, and 44 inches to walk past.”

For a tabletop that is 30 inches high, you’ll also want to allow an 18-inch deep space for each eater’s knees. You can get away with a little less knee space for high bar stools.
The best way, I think, is to take cardboard or kraft paper and make shapes representing your table and chairs and play with it on the floor.

If you want the full NKBA guidelines, they are here , courtesy of kitchens.com

I don’t want to spend a lot on furniture, where do I start?

Time Out New York’s Helen Yun was intrepid enough to tackle this question in the magazine’s recent design issue.

Her picks:

For beds — Room and Board, 105 Wooster between Prince and Spring Sts, Manhattan (212-334-4343); and West Elm, 112 W. 18th St, between Sixth and Seventh avenues, Manhattan (212-929-4464)
For bookcases — Two Jakes, 320 Wythe Ave between Grand and South 1st Streets, Brooklyn (718-782-7780) and West Elm

For chairs — Room and Board; Urban Outfitters, various city locations, go to www.urbn.com; Two Jakes, Baxter & Liebchen (vintage), 33 Jay at Plymouth, Brooklyn (718-797-0630)
For curtains — Ikea, 1000 Ikea Dr., Elizabeth, NJ (908-289-4488)
For desks — Gothic Cabinet Craft, which has various locations in Manhattan and two clearance centers in Queens, www.gothiccabinetcraft.com

For dressers — ABC Carpet Outlet; CB2; Gothic Cabinet Craft; Muji, 455 Broadway between Grand and Howard

For entertainment centers — Gothic Cabinet; Z Gallerie

For Japanese clean-lined furniture — Muji

For rugs — Ikea; ABC Carpet Warehouse (and I have gotten rugs at both these places, and I agree)
For shades — Just Shades, 21 Spring St at Elizabeth St, Manhattan (212-924-3244)

For sofas — DWR annex, 55 Hartz Way, Seacaucus, NJ (201-325-8411); West Elm; CB2, 451 Broadway between Grand and Howard

For tables — Room & Board; Urban Outfitters

For general trendiness — Z Gallerie, 443 Broadway at Grand St, Manhattan (212-343-1045)

For knock-offs –White Furniture, throughout the city, go to whiteonwhite.com

Who cleans Lou Reed’s windows?

You were dying to know, right? An April article in Downtown Express, one of our favorite papers, tells us the answer: Harlem’s own Expert Window Cleaners.

Owner Brent Weingard is a certified , no kidding, window cleaner, and his firm (which unfortunately doesn’t have a web site, they must be out cleaning glass) can be reached at 212/673-3558.

What is pietra cardosa or pietra del Cardoso?

After a particularly long day taking clients around to luxury apartments, I called my husband and said, “honey, we just learned all the different names for granite.”

But stones are important, not just because developers like picking out fancy ones so they have an excuse to fly to Italy. (The Apuane Alps are in North Tuscany, are where all that cool stone comes from). What kind of stone you use where will have an impact on your quality of life.

The first thing you need to know is that stones are formed three ways: they’re spouted from a hot volcano (igneous), deposited as little particles after evaporation (sedimentary) or are sedimentary rocks that have been changed through heat and pressure (metamorphic).

When you’re making a bathroom, you want a stone that feels good on your toesies, but it doesn’t have to be super hard because you’re not chopping on it. Limestone, a sedimentary rock, is a particularly poetic choice, because it’s formed from the shells of little sea creatures. As one architect told me, “limestone is compressed beach.”

If limestone undergoes heat and pressure changes, it becomes marble, also a popular bathroom choice.

But the remnants of all those little shells react to acid — it contains what rock people would call calcite. And you don’t want a kitchen counter that you can’t drip lemon juice on, do you?

That’s why the best choice for a kitchen counter is often granite — it doesn’t react to acid, and since it was formed by heat, it’s okay if you put a hot pot on it.

Architects who like a softer look often pick a sedimentary rock made of compressed desert — since it has no sea shells in it, it won’t react to acid. This rock, true to its origin, is called sandstone. (When sandstone metamorphizes, it becomes quartzite).

The only problem with our little pietra is that it can be porous, even more so than granite. So it should be sealed several times a year.

Happy cooking!

What’s in the new Travel and Leisure? I hear there’s a piece about Brooklyn.

Apparently, Brooklyn is the new Manhattan, or better than the old Manhattan, or something.

The list of restaurants wasn’t surprising: Grocery! Al di la!

 But they had a great list of design stores, excerpted below:

darr “defiantly eclectic”

future perfect “if you hit only one design shop . . . “ 

golden calf “unexpectedly high quality Chinese and American antiques” 

bark “tactile heaven”

Can I really drop $37 million on a ski house?

In Tahoe, sure. Of course, you’ll get three residences, 72 acres, a grotto (we’re not even sure what that is) and a waterslide.

I’m new to the West Village, where do I shop?