A 1924 French building inspired this sleek, open Seattle kitchen

Sunset, Nov, 1986

A 1924 French building inspired this sleek, open Seattle kitchen The living, dining, and cooking spaces in this Seattle house all open to one another, so designer and builder Bill Baum wanted "a sleek, stylish, un-kitchen-like kitchen." His inspiration came from a 1924 French building designed by art-deco architect Robert Mallet-Stevens. Baum's layout is conventional, but curving corners and gleaming metallic finishes in horizontal patterns give the kitchen a distinctive sculptural quality.

Set into the corner of the large room, the kitchen is a triangle, the base of which is a work island facing the living area. The island holds a cooktop and, on the other side, offers bar-height seating.

Cabinets were constructed of 3/4-inch plywood, with high-density fiberboard doors (to resist warping). The rounded corners of the end units were made by scoring and soaking 1/4-inch plywood and bending it around 2-by-4 framing.

Once it was in place, Baum covered the wood with gray plastic laminate. Atop the laminate, he used contact cement to affix 8-inch-wide bands of aluminum facing (from a building supply), which he cut to size on a table saw with a fine-tooth carbide blade. The laminate underlay gives the metal a hard, perfectly smooth foundation and makes it less susceptible to dents. For visual interest, 1-inch-wide bands of the laminate were left visible as slight recesses.

At one end of the long horizontal door, Baum installed a hydraulic strut (sold at auto supply stores for rear hatches), making it easy to swing open the heavy door.