When a local family began to imagine their dream home by the water in Ocean City, New Jersey, they realized they needed a team of seasoned professionals to bring the home to life. One of their first calls went to designer, Don Wall.

Don designs luxury cabinetry for Master Design Cabinetry in Lancaster County. He was referred to the homeowners through a builder of fine shore homes, Ocean City-based Buck Custom Homes. Yet the family had already been familiar with Don's work, as he'd designed the cabinetry for a property owned by a relative.

"The house is right on the Atlantic Ocean, and that's what drove the vibe of the house," Don says. "It's an open-concept living space, and the whole design is light and airy. It's a real outdoor experience, and the cabinetry design was inspired by that."

Don worked closely with the homeowner and their interior designer, Berwyn-based J9 Design Interiors, to ensure that the cabinetry played a central part in creating the property's coastal theme. A resident of Lancaster County, not far from Master Design's headquarters in the town of East Earl, Don made several trips to the client's Ocean City home.

"Ocean City is a bit of a drive from my home, and any trip down there turns out to be a 12-hour day, but how could you not love working on a project like this?" he says. "When I took my lunch, I'd walk out on the sand and just look at the ocean. It's an incredible location." Thanks to the efforts of Don and the rest of the team at Master Design, working hand in hand with the interior designer and the builder, the home suits its majestic surroundings.

In total, Don designed painted-maple cabinetry for 21 spaces in the expansive seaside home. The kitchen, for example, features custom cabinets for a cooking area, a large island, and a 25-foot wall overlooking the Atlantic. Other highlights include built-in wardrobes, a custom four-unit bunkbed installation that includes steps that double as storage spaces, and several cabinets that have drawer pulls reminiscent of the braided ropes one might use to moor a boat to a dock.

The project started in July 2021, and Master Design completed the final leg of the installation in May 2023. Wall says the homeowners' response has been unequivocally positive: "They love it."

He loves it, too, in part because the homeowners appreciate the level of craftsmanship, elegance, and attention to detail for which Master Design has become known. For anyone considering an investment in custom cabinetry as part of a new build or a renovation, he offers the following words of wisdom: "It's an investment that pays off."

"It's important to find people who have experience doing this kind of work," he adds. "Custom cabinetry is an investment in quality. If you make your decisions based solely on the cheapest price, you're going to find out that you get what you pay for."

*In the featured photos by Meghan Balcom, Master Design's Don Wall was the cabinetry designer, J9 Design Interiors was the interior designer, and Buck Custom Homes was the builder/contractor.*

Master Design Cabinetry
1564 Main Street
Suite 507
East Earl, PA 17519
(610) 273-2212
www.masterdesigncabinetry.com

Published (and copyrighted) in House & Home, Volume 24, Issue 9 (September 2024)
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