Designer Profile: Emily Chandler

Creating a multi-purpose full finish basement with Medallion

What inspired your design for the space?

This large basement bar was a part of a full finish basement project. The family has their pool just outside the walk-out basement doors and they entertain often, so having plenty of seating, counterspace, sink space, and fun display storage space was a must!

Having coordinating finishes throughout the basement was also key. The base cabinets in the bar area are Medallion Gold Mission doors in Gale and the wall cabinets that sit on the countertop are Medallion Platinum Oasis doors in Sea Salt. The Gale finish matches custom pool lockers nearby which were designed with Design-Craft. In the adjacent living room area, we used Sea Salt again with shiplap behind another TV sitting area.

Their son is a huge Star Wars fan, so they created a Star Wars room and wanted to incorporate the Gale blue again! It is such a pretty, yet versatile color that we coordinated around their house.

Get the look

What is your favorite part about the finished space?

My favorite part of this design are the wall cabinets that sit on the countertop. The wine storage was a customer suggestion with glass doors above to store vintage barware and glasses. It felt important to me that the doors above the open wine storage were not sitting proud of the face frame, like a typical Medallion Gold framed product would. I wanted this to be a very clean application, and it became as simple as realizing that Platinum inset cabinets would achieve just that.

Tell us more about the storage solutions you chose.

We made sure the storage made sense for the use this would get, i.e., dedicated spaces for serving dishes, snacks, bins for trash and recycling, etc. There was plenty of room for storage in the base cabinets, so dishware could be stored in drawers, leaving us the ability to create more of an open display and wine storage as the focal point on the back wall around the TV, all the while being intentional and functional.

Right: A comfortable seating area perfect for parties or family movie nights.

Our door style...was Mission, so when I knew I was going to incorporate Platinum, it was a huge sense of relief to know that all I had to do was find the comparison door in Platinum.

Did you use any custom quotes or modifications?

Yes, I did custom quote those wall cabinets. In fact, I was reviewing the initial custom quote drawings which helped bring my vision to life, and it inspired me to enhance the cabinet even more. We knew we were going to run shiplap behind the TV and in between the two wall cabinets, and I saw the perfect opportunity to use the modification of adding shiplap to the back of the cabinet so it looked like it was continuing across the entire wall. Once we decided that, I didn’t want that subtle detail to become lost, so we also added glass to the sides of the cabinets so the shiplap could become visible from anywhere.

What do you like most about designing with Medallion cabinetry?

Our door style selection from the beginning was wide shaker (Mission) so when I knew I was going to incorporate Platinum, it was a huge sense of relief to know that all I had to do was find the comparison/crossover door in Platinum and not even worry about stumbling over that detail and give me more time to focus on the rest of the design execution.

Gale takes on a galactic feel with Star Wars décor.

It looks like you worked pretty closely with interior designers, too.

Yes, I worked with interior designers from the Suite Shoppe from initial inspirations to final decorating. It was fun to have someone bring me pretty specific design ideas and then for me to take over as the “technical designer” because I had to figure out how to make it work! Medallion and Design-Craft made it so fun and easy to take some custom ideas and allow them to come to life!