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Pardon Our Dust
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PARDON OUR DUST
Aug. 18, 2002
Finding His Inner Chef
By KATHY PRICE-ROBINSON
The remodeling project that filled Ian Denchasy's kitchen with pine cabinets,
a granite-topped island, maple counters and high-end appliances started
in April of 2001, but the seeds for it were planted when he was a boy
in San Francisco
"I grew up in the kitchen with my mother to keep me out of trouble,"
Ian said, explaining that his mother, who was half-Hawaiian, "was
the most phenomenal cook." She prepared lots of tropical dishes and
"tons of seafood."
Little Ian was so enthralled with cooking that his mother hoped he might
go to cooking school and become a chef. Though he became an English teacher,
and later a director of technology, the cooking passion stayed with him.
In his college years at Cal State L.A., his friends knew: "If you
need a meal, go to Ian's. He feeds you," he recalled. Later, when
he and his wife Alicia lived off the boardwalk in Venice, "We'd have
30 people for breakfast" every Sunday.
Five years ago, when the couple bought their 1940s Mar Vista bungalow,
Ian said, "No way this kitchen will stay." It was clean and
tidy, but cheaply constructed; the particleboard cabinets were falling
apart.
It wasn't until son Keleii ("chief" in Hawaiian) was born 3
and 1/2 years ago that the kitchen made the family's life difficult. "We
didn't have room for the food," Ian said, noting that the 16-cubic-foot
refrigerator was so tightly squeezed by cabinets that it was impossible
to replace it with a larger model.
The final push for the kitchen came when Ian decided he'd "just had
enough" of his computer career and decided to finally fulfill his
mother's dream. He begins classes soon at the California School of Culinary
Arts in Pasadena with hopes of becoming a cooking teacher.
To begin, the couple decided on a budget of about $15,000 to replace the
cabinets and counters, which Ian felt he had the skills to do with a helper,
and to buy a new refrigerator. After a trip to Home Depot and the selection
of $6,000 worth of cabinets, Ian hung plastic sheeting to separate the
kitchen from the adjacent living room, and started demolition with a pry
bar and sledge hammer.
From that point on, however, the magnitude of the remodel began to swell
as one realization after another came into Ian's mind. "Why should
there be a wall dividing the kitchen and the living room?" he thought.
After all, it was not a load-bearing wall. "Keep that ugly vinyl
floor? And those old appliances?" he wondered. "They're going
to be totally out of place in that nice new cabinetry, aren't they?"
The project ultimately zoomed out of control when Ian, standing on a ladder,
"noticed a smell that disgusted me" wafting from the ceiling.
"It was 50 years of cooking odors."
Gripping a tool called a Sawzall, Ian started to slice through the ceiling.
When a piece of it buckled and came crashing down behind him, the plastic
sheeting tore, dust filled the house and Alicia learned that her husband
was, in his words, "a guy gone amuck."
She heard: "Kaboom. Crash. Bang."
"I was like William Wallace surveying the carnage of the English
army," Ian said. "Luckily her yelling was drowned out by the
Sawzall."
Alicia wasn't happy that her husband made major remodeling decisions without
her input, but she soon got into the spirit of Ian's suggestion: "Let's
design an entire kitchen the right way." She softened: "You
go with the flow and say 'why not?'"
Fortunately, the destruction of the kitchen took place quickly, within
the three-day window the Denchasys had to change their cabinet order.
With a friend, and the help of the Home Depot design desk, the couple
planned out their new kitchen.
Removal of the old ceiling allowed for a volume ceiling all the way up
to the roofline, with a decorative beam between the kitchen and living
room, which had now become a great room. Ian knew he wanted a built-in
refrigerator and a 36-inch stove. It was during a trip to a Home Depot
Expo that Alicia got energized, at one point lobbying for a 48-inch Viking
range. Eventually she relented: "You can only fit so much into the
square footage." They finally settled on a 36-inch, copper-trimmed
Dacor with an electric oven, flame broiler, full convection capacities,
and six massive gas burners. "This thing spits out 20,000 BTUs of
heat," Ian said.
They also bought a GE Monogram refrigerator, dishwasher and wine chiller,
two Kindred sinks and KWC professional dishwashing fixtures, one of which
was listed at more than $1,000. Looking at a picture of the fixture in
a catalog, Ian asked himself: "Could it be as cool as it looks?"
He found out: "It was more cool."
Though Ian's mood was lifted by the dreaming, designing and shopping,
he worried that he had gotten in over his head. That was confirmed after
he framed the volume ceiling with lumber and asked a friend to come over
and hang the drywall. The friend said: The angles are all wrong.
By this time, Ian was "very discouraged . . . not knowing where to
go next" and asking himself: "Is this ever going to end?"
With a toddler to look after, a house full of dust, and no kitchen in
which to prepare meals, "It was horribly stressful," Alicia
said. "You can't relax. . . . You get tired of it."
Ian finally asked for help, and it came in the form of Peter Lucas, a
carpenter-builder-artist-set designer-actor who was recommended by a friend.
"I don't have what it takes," Ian told Peter. "Cooking's
my thing. This is not my thing."
Later, Ian said, "It felt good to admit it."
Peter was gentle with Ian, pointing out how much he had accomplished and
what a great plan he had. "I hate to see people in that situation,"
Peter recalled. "He was at the end of his rope. . . . He was scared.
"
Peter's first suggestion was practical: "Let's get the cabinets off
the floor and get those hung." Piece by piece, he worked with Ian
to get the ceiling finished, the electrical rewired, the plumbing plumbed,
the counters and fixtures installed, and the floor laid. Because there
were no structural changes, engineering work was not required. The final
touch was an old-world, sponged-on paint job.
By the time it was over, the couple had spent $45,000.
Though the bloating budget was "testy" at times, Ian is thrilled
with the kitchen. "This is my dream come true," he said. "Food
is love. I believe that. And I give a lot of love." He and Alicia
love to entertain friends, and for a recent block party Ian prepared his
"special baby-back ribs that people die for," roasted then smoked
and with a sweet/spicy sauce.
Keleii has also become a cook, helping his dad make cookies and pies,
and preparing breakfast some mornings. "I'm inviting him (into the
kitchen)," Ian said.
In fact, like his mother before him, Ian thinks his son might choose cooking
as a career. "He might be a famous chef," Ian said.
But like his father before him, Keleii has other ideas about his future:
"I'm going to be like Michael Jordan," the boy said.
###
Where the Money Went
Dumping fees: $325
Beam installation: 800
Plumber: 2,250
Electrician: 3,150
Flooring installation: 1,400
Drywall: 5,000
Refrigerator: 4,000
Range: 5,300
Hood: 3,000
Wine chiller: 1,000
Dishwasher: 1,000
Sinks: 800
Faucets: 1,000
Wall beam: 150
Safety items: 22
Tools: 65
Framing: 400
Drywall, insulation, supplies: 800
Lighting fixtures: 200
Cabinets: 6,500
Maple counter top: 2,400
Granite for island: 2,100
Maple flooring: 550
Cabinet pulls: 350
Total: $42,562