Story: Only a magician could take the meticulous designs of our good friend and master millwright Klaus Waldhoer and make them work on a budget in a family home. And this is what Tim of Mountain Shadow Woodworking did for us.

The story begins with Kim wanting something like an old French bistro coffee bar for our kitchen island. Many Houzz pictures were fetched out with various antique sideboards, tables and benches of the period. All were unworkable, impractical, impossible...inconceivable. And so a trip was made to see our good friend Klaus Waldhoer for advice.

Now Klaus is a master. If you have been in a Vancouver hotel near a concierge, front desk, or banquet hall, you have probably been pretty close to one of Klaus's masterpieces. He designs and makes the impossible, beautiful and uncompromising. And so he set to work for us on a design for a kitchen island. His only direction was to create something that might have been found at the turn of the century in a French cafe. His design took months, untold hours and many late nights. Dimensions were exact, moldings were frighteningly complex and the design was in Klaus's words "as they would have done it".

And then came the rub. How should we build such a thing? What would it cost? How could such a magnificent and complex design be built on our delicate budget? Tim of Mountain Shadow had the answers. What he built is stunning. Everyone that visits the house stops in their tracks to admire it. I have never seen such a beautiful kitchen island, and we have both Tim and Klaus to thank for that.

And now, without further adieu,here it is...

 

This is an image of the island from the kitchen looking towards the living room. We used solid Black Walnut for the drawers, white quartz for the counter-tops, a stainless steel back splash and a real, very heavy, solid maple butcher block.

The next image is shot from the living room looking towards the kitchen.

 

In the next image, you can see the corbels Tim built. A unique and beautiful feature of the island.

 

Now here are some images of Tim we took with his car, in his shop and during installation.

 

Tim's ride...

 

Tim in his "Mountain Shadow" workshop.

 

Hard at work installing but always smiling....THANKS SO MUCH TIM! We love our cabinets.

 

And all the while, Jacko looked on from the well-worn passenger seat of Graham's truck....