Yesterday we hopped in the van and ran up I91 to Hanover, NH for a consultation and templating appointment with a new client, a doctor in this beautiful university town with a world-class medical facility. Meaning Dartmouth  and Dartmouth Hitchcock, specifically… Rolling hills along the Connecticut River, venerable brick edifices and striking modern architecture denote this regional center of commerce and higher learning.

The good doctor is redesigning and renovating an apartment above his practice; one of the initiatives is a relocated and higher-functioning kitchen. Still very compact, the layout includes a raised eating bar, a dishwasher, an undermount sink, undercounter refrigerator and freezer drawers, and a slide-in gas range. Initially it was thought to  include a cast concrete farm sink, but in the interest of budget and size constraints, it was decided to go with a stainless steel zero-radius sink. The color decided upon is our “Cayenne”, a very warm (naturally!) bricky red with specks of black sand. The other colors in the kitchen will be built around this lead; the site-built cabinetry will have a painted finish and the walls and floor will follow suit.

Once a few of these “detail” decisions are made, it’s time to start the actual creation of the concrete countertops for the project. The first concrete (sorry) step is to pull templates from the site, in order to reproduce in our formwork the exact dimensions and relationships  for a perfect fit at installation. All of our castings are 100% formed; there is no machining other than polishing of the surfaces. It is a creative, additive process – not one of removing stock from a given slab and merely locating holes and edges. This is the thrill of the craft – envisioning something from nothing, or rather, from everything. We play the Creator, re-enacting Genesis in our small way.

Our templates are created using the old-school method: thin 3 inch strips of lauan plywood (a grade known euphemistically as “door skins”) are hot-glued together atop the installed base cabinets and/or half walls, following the walls and overhangs so a s to cretae a physical pattern that can be transported and used as a reference back in the studio. All pertinent information is noted directly on the templates such as finished edges, backsplashes, sink base restrictions, cantilevers, and the project name and date. Then they are carefully removed and placed in the van for the trip back to the shop, where we begin the steps to transform the two dimensional record into three dimensional sculpted sections. Here’s where a critical bit of process creeps in: remember to flip the template when building the matching molds! We perform what is known as reverse wet-casting (typically) and whereas the templates are made face-up, on the cabinets, the concrete is cast upside-down and backwards ( a running joke) and if this protocol is missed, all is in vain. Keeps you on your (steel) toes…