Oh, the joy! You’re finally going to demo your dated kitchen cabinets and invest in a roomful of custom wenge—or cherry or lyptus—doors and drawers. Oregon Home asked kitchen remodelers, custom cabinetmakers, a cabinet installer and a cabinet hardware maven to open up about how to ensure that your kitchen cabinets cook up the look—and function—you want.
When furnituremaker Bill More left Brooklyn, N.Y. and headed west on a train, the trip had an unexpected result. “I met my wife on that train,” he says. “She got on in Wisconsin, and neither of us got off until the train arrived in Portland.”
More grew up in New Jersey, where school sparked an interest in building things. “I liked classes like shop where they’d give you tools and just let you work with them,” he says.
Washram, Wash.-based mosaic artist Toms Royal became interested in tile when he owned a pottery-painting studio in Portland. “We began to offer classes in mosaics, so I had to learn how to do it,” he says. “I discovered that I enjoyed the medium and that it was a way to use my theories about design.”
A former figurative painter, Catherine J. Lee began to enjoy her art even more after she began depicting landscapes. “When you’re painting or drawing figures, you’re almost always inside,” she says. “I really enjoy being outside, so landscape painting lets me paint—and be outside.”
Architectural metalworker Joseph Mross specializes in custom, hammered-copper kitchen and fireplace hoods done in an Arts & Craft-style, but he’s made all sorts of other things, too. “I’ve done light fixtures, awnings, doors and even a hammered-pewter entertainment center,” he says. “Once, I was asked to make a forged basketball hoop.”
A tiled shower room. A rainforest showerhead. A soaking tub you can truly hunker down in. His-and-her sinks. A heated travertine floor. If you’re steaming for a new master bathroom, these are undoubtedly some of the features you’re going to try to squeeze into the space. Oregon Home asked a tilesetter, two designers and an architect for ways to do the room right.
S.E. Belmont St. is quickly becoming a competitor to the nearby—and much trendier—Hawthorne neighborhood. And with shops from the downright delicious (Saint Cupcake) to the ultra-stylish (Za Zen), you’ll be ready to spend an afternoon discovering all of this southeast street’s charms.
Way less hip than its tattooed sister shopping mecca—the Hawthorne District—one main drag to the south, S.E. Belmont St. is a fresh mix of boutiques in which new and vintage house stuff share a store with cupcakes, or tea from afar is sold next to one of the city’s best tea bars.
Growing up in Germany, Helga Winter never imagined becoming an artist of any kind, much less a woodturner. “When I was a child, I did a lot of knitting and crocheting, but it wasn’t considered art because it was practical,” she says. “When I left school, I worked as a doctor’s assistant.”
For Portland designer Michael Arras, his early experience with art gave no indication that he’d eventually decide to design furniture. “In school, I took art classes with everyone else,” he says. “But I didn’t have a real interest then. Mostly I doodled.”
