A Game of Inches
Executing this project required zooming in on tolerances that would be practically invisible in an ordinary house. For example, Budd says, the island countertop’s 23-inch depth meant that the cabinet below had to be a nonstandard 21 inches deep. The cabinetmakers at Norwood, Mass.-based Metropolitan took a moment to digest the minuscule measurements, says Budd, who assured them that “when we get done, a quarter inch is going to be significant.” But they delivered the goods, bending their standard specs to fit each oddball situation the project presented. “Their semi-custom model really saved our bacon,” Burgess says. “Custom cabinets from our shop would have killed the budget.”
Budd also credits Burgess and his crew for tackling what may have seemed like an extreme proposition without flinching. “Nothing I wanted seemed weird to them,” Budd says. Not weird, perhaps, but often novel. After rattling off the list of munchkin-size fixtures and appliances he installed in the cottage, Burgess reflects, “I didn’t think some of that stuff existed until I engaged in this project.”
Just as often, success hinged on adapting standard equipment to tighter-than-standard situations. The bathroom’s vessel lavatory is rotated on its base cabinet to allow room for the lever faucet to operate. The dryer under the staircase wouldn’t clear an opening fitted with a bi-fold door track, so Burgess rigged a free-swinging bi-fold door supported with heavy-duty hinges.
The staircase itself represented a series of hurdles. “I’ve never fit a set of stairs into a smaller space in my life,” says Burgess, who constructed the winders as a pair of stacked boxes. To minimize cursing on move-in day, he says, “we made that railing wall removable, so they can get furniture in and out. It’s held in place by two screws; once you remove those you can lift the whole wall right out.”
