Lost Art Press

Pre-order ‘Kitchen Think’ by Nancy Hiller

Posted on by Lost Art Press

You can now place a pre-publication order for Nancy Hiller’s “Kitchen Think: A guide to design and construction, from refurbishing to renovation” via our online store. The book is $38 and is scheduled to ship in August 2020. If you place a pre-publication order before August, you will receive a free pdf of the book at checkout.

For two decades, Nancy Hiller has made a living by turning limitations into creative, lively and livable kitchens for her clients. Her new book, “Kitchen Think,” is an invitation to learn from both her completed kitchen designs (plus kitchens from a few others) and from the way she works in her Bloomington, Ind., workshop.

Unlike most kitchen design books, “Kitchen Think” is a woodworker’s guide to designing and furnishing the kitchen, from a down-to-the-studs renovation to refacing existing cabinets. And she shows you how it can be done without spending a fortune or adding significantly to your local landfill.

“The first requirement is simply to think,” Hiller writes, “where you are in life; what resources you have access to in terms of money, interesting materials, or time; the architectural style of your home and so forth.”

Yes, there are hundreds of pretty full-color photos of well-designed kitchens in this book, which are organized into 24 case studies throughout the book. They range from the sculptural (kitchens by Johnny Grey and Wharton Esherick) to kitchens of a more recognizable form.

But there’s also a heavy dose of practical instruction: how to build cabinets efficiently, how to make a basic kitchen island, how to build a wall-hung plate rack. Plus butt-saving advice that comes only from experience – like how to maximize space in inside corners, how to scribe cabinets and countertops into odd spaces and how to make sure you’ve left ample space for hardware.

All of this is built on a foundation of research into kitchens from the past. Hiller’s historical perspective on design might just change your mind about what makes a good kitchen. It doesn’t have to be walls of built-in cabinets. So what’s the alternative?

You just have to think.

The book is intended for:

• Woodworkers, whether professional or not, who would like to expand their minds on the question of kitchen design, the culture of remodeling, materials and techniques used in kitchens

• Homeowners with some woodworking and home-renovation skills who would like to remodel their own kitchen, including building their own cabinets

• Homeowners who want a deeper understanding of what goes into a thoughtful kitchen remodel done by professionals

• Homeowners and others (who may not own a home) looking for design inspiration and unconventional, non-consumerist ways of thinking about kitchen design and remodeling.

“Kitchen Think” is 8-1/2” x 11”, 368 pages and printed in full color on coated, 80# matte paper. It has a printed hardbound cover, coated in a durable matte laminate.  The binding is sewn, and covered with a fiber-reinforced tape spine to last for generations. Like all Lost Art Press books, “Kitchen Think” is produced and printed entirely in the United States.

We don’t yet know which of our retailers will carry the book. We hope all of them will, but it’s their call entirely. When we have more information on where “Kitchen Think” will be available, we’ll be sure to mention it here.

About the Author
Nancy R. Hiller is a cabinetmaker who specializes in period-style work for late 19th- through mid-20th-century interiors. Since 1995 she has operated NR Hiller Design, Inc., based in Bloomington, Indiana. Her work has been featured in Fine Woodworking, Popular Woodworking, Fine Homebuilding, Old-House Interiors, Old-House Journal, and other periodicals. She is the author of four other books: “Making Things Work: Tales from a Cabinetmaker’s Life” (Lost Art Press), “English Arts & Crafts Furniture” (Popular Woodworking), “The Hoosier Cabinet in Kitchen History” (Indiana University Press), and “A Home of Her Own” (Indiana University Press). Plus she was the editor of “Historic Preservation in Indiana: Essays from the Field” (Indiana University Press).

24 thoughts on “Pre-order ‘Kitchen Think’ by Nancy Hiller”

  1. “They range from the sculptural (kitchens by…” I have this image of laying a tomato on the head of a mock David, only to watch it slide off to the carrara marble floor . 🙂

    I’ll be getting a copy even if it’s only to find out what constitutes a sculptural kitchen. 😉

  2. Ordered! Just in time for our kitchen renovation later this year.

  8. Ordered. Usually I buy LAP books from Lee Valley, when there’s free shipping, to a Forwarder, then ship to me, here in Taiwan. But not this one.
    I first learn from Nancy by buying her Baker’s Table video, then follow the pictures on her website to remodel my wife’s kitchen. So thank you.

  9. How do I order a copy for delivery to the UK? Or will it be easier (and possibly less expensive) to order from LAP’s usual UK stockist?

    1. Martyn,

      As LAP themselves don’t deliver outside the US, to buy directly from them you need to use an escrow service, i.e. a company that will provide you with an address in the States, to which your order can be sent and then forwarded to you. I use and so far have only good experience with one in Florida that’s called MyUS, but I’m sure Google will tell you there are others.

      Advantages: you can order anything on the LAP website (and from other companies that also only deliver in the US), you can take advantage of any LAP-specific pre-order offers, such as a free pdf, and you will most likely get the book much sooner than if you wait for it to be ordered by and delivered to the UK stockist.

      So far, I have also found it just as easy to do it this way as to order from one of the stockists (Classic Hand Tools, Dictum or Rubank AB) on this side of the puddle (I’m in Belgium).

      The only real disadvantage is that it becomes more expensive. How much more?

      Well, I recently bough Honest Labour this way. The price of the book itself was $34.00. P&P from the LAP fulfillment centre to MyUS in Florida was $17.45 (although there was also a slower delivery option at around half that), and I then paid an additional $49.98 to MyUS for p&p with DHL Express across the Atlantic. Here, too, there are less expensive but slower options available. As the relevant costs came in under the duty threshold, there were no customs duties or VAT to pay here in Belgium, but for a larger order, that would have been the case, which would have added +/- 25% of price and p&p to the final bill.

      LAP announced on May 1st that the book had arrived from the printers, and on May 8th that they had started shipping. My copy arrived in Florida on May 13th, and was delivered to my door here in Belgium two days later (DHL Express is fast!), on May 15th. Classic Hand Tools are still taking pre-orders, i.e. have not yet received any copies, but say om their website that they expect to do so sometime in June. If you order from them, the book costs £36 plus p&p, i.e. more or less half of what I payed in the end.

      If getting a book as soon as possible, or getting a free pdf (which was not the case with Honest Labour, as there’s no pdf version of that book), or buying some of the Crucible tools or a book not (yet) carried by a European stockist is worth the extra cost to you, only you can say. Yer pays yer money, and all that …

      Mattias

      1. Forgot to say that I pre-ordered Kitchen Think earlier this morning for delivery through MyUS as described above. Having had a good (but not too extensive, as I want to save the pleasure of the initial read-through for when the actual book arrives) look at the pdf, which was delivered straight away, I can only say that I’m looking forward very much to getting the book!

        Mattias

  10. I’m very excited to see this release! I’ve really been enjoying Nancy Hiller’s articles in Fine Woodworking lately. And I appreciated seeing her post support (on instagram) for the BLM movement recently.

    Wondering if this business and/or blog is willing to offer transparency on any anti-racist work you are doing? There’s a pretty glaring diversity problem in both publishing and woodworking that will require a concerted effort to solve. I’d love to learn where you are at in this process!

  11. I downloaded my PDF from the link last night while I wait for the bound copy. I very much want to meet Nancy Hiller and get my book signed. My house is a pre 1900 farmhouse around which a small village has grown up. It has been a farmhouse, a doctors home and office, a duplex rental, and a shop/hair salon before we bought it and turned it back into a single family home. I feel like the 14 x 27′ kitchen has tremendous potential but I have no idea how to take advantage of it and I assumed that as a retiree my choices were cheap and generic, or nothing. I think that will change as I continue to read this book. I am so glad that I never went to a home center and had a kitchen “designed” around factory cabinets. Thank you Nancy Hiller for a wonderful book full of options that aren’t “pull down menu choices”.

    1. Most of my clients would give their eye teeth for a kitchen as large as yours. Your house sounds wonderful, with its age and varied history.

        1. I have the middle third of a 24/30 two car garage for a shop which I am setting up now, so I sympathize. Takes a lot of effort to put things where they aren’t in each others way.

  12. I’m only on chapter 3 so far, but holy schnikes–what a trove of information! I may be a lowly apartment dweller, but I already have so many new ideas in how to make use of the space I have. Glad to be a regular LAP custom-er. Thanks, Nancy!

    1. and massive thanks to Chris, Megan, Kara, and all the others who make Lost Art Press such a stellar enterprise

  14. Great so far! Typo on page 135, though? Artmstrong? Might not be a typo but Google only brought up other pages that looked like typos.

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