The “Highland House”

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We created cabinetry for nearly every room in this custom home designed by our friends at Dencity West (architecture) and Difference Design Lab (interior design).

Two materials define this project: stone and walnut.

Fourteen or fifteen trailer loads of stacked stone — 186 tons — sourced from Asheville, NC, were used in this distinctive house, along with more beautiful walnut than I have ever worked with on a project.

In fact, tracking down enough walnut proved to be a challenge because of the unusual 3.5 by 3.5-inch boards requested. I literally bought every piece that was available in the Atlanta area. In some cases, the boards I was able to track down had been sitting in warehouses for years because no buyers had come along who were willing to pay the incredibly expensive $17-a-foot price.

The work

Dark Horse created every cabinet in this house – from those in the kitchen, bathrooms and closets, to unique additions such as floating dressers, bathroom bench and entryway lockers.

Here are a few of the interesting and/or unique aspects of this project:

The cabinets are all made from a combination of solid walnut and sequence matched walnut veneers.

The use of the above-mentioned 3.5 by 3.5-inch walnut for the frames of the cabinetry throughout the house is unique — unlike any project we have ever worked on.

It features a lot of “floating” live-edge shelving – so described because it appears to be floating off of the wall (this requires extremely strong hidden brackets, as you might imagine). With the exception of the kitchen and the closet, each piece of cabinetry in the house was installed floating at least 12 inches off the floor.

All of the iron pulls were custom-made.

All of the kitchen drawers are operated with Blum ServoDrive touch-to-open devices.

This home was a joy to work on — our team is very proud of the unique cabinetry we were able to create in collaboration with these creative clients and designers.

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