How to Hide a Kitchen Hood Fan in Cabinetry

Over this past spring/early summer we have had a real push to finish off a bunch of little projects in our home. Having a photographer come all the way from Finland to shoot our home was just pressure we needed to get some of those nagging projects done!  While our projects were getting completed,  unfortunately, as you may have noticed, my blogging went by the wayside.  I'm hoping that as our renovations start to come to an end I'll have time to blog about everything we've been up to and get back to creating.  I really miss tackling some diys and crafting.   

If you remember our kitchen renovation "reveal" post from last fall, there were a few things that still hadn't been completed.  One of those things was to finish off the hood fan above our gas stove.  I have had a few questions and concerns raised regarding the height of the hood above a gas stove.  A hood fan above a gas stove needs to be higher than one above an electric one.  Today, I'm going to share the solution we came up with that allowed us to keep the look of the continuos cabinetry above a gas stove.

Did you catch what we did from the gif above?  You can find another view below. :)

We ended up making a few customizations to the cabinet above the stove.  Once we purchased a built-in hood fan unit we had the cabinet built so that the bottom (that holds the hood fan) was built up to the height recommended for a the fan to be above a gas stove.  Having the unit higher meant that we would still need to be able to open up the doors to operate the controls on the fan.  Since the fan mechanism would be visible when you open the doors we had to come up with a solution to hide the unfinished top half of the hood fan.  The bottom section of the cabinet was also exposed and we wanted to cover it with something that would protect the cabinet from heat and grease.  For both of these spots we decided to use some stainless steel.

We had our metal manufacturer build stainless steel covers.  The first was a "u" shaped sleeve.  It covered the top half of the fan and it just slips over the unit and rests on the shelf.  The other piece was also a "u" shape, but it had strips at the top that are bent inward so that the cover could be fastened to the underside of the cabinet shelf using screws .  This created a nice finished look to the exposed section of cabinetry and, more importantly, it really protects the cabinet from heat and grime.

In case you were wondering about how the fan is working after several months of use:  the short answer is that is working great for us.  There are a couple of the things that you might want to consider if you were to build your fan in this way.  One is that it doesn't have the scoop that more bulkier custom hood fans generally do and I have noticed that if I am cooking something that will smoke or be more smelly I try and cook on the back burners.  I did this when I had a conventional hood fan set up as well.  Maybe it's just normal for a hood fan to work better at the back/where it's directly above the whole burner?  The other thing that is a little more cumbersome about this hood fan setup is that you will likely need to open the doors of the cabinet to have better view/access to the controls.  Now that I've used the fan for awhile opening the door is just a part of the routine and I really don't notice it.

I hope you found this post somewhat interesting and not too technical.  At least you got to see in one of my cupboards, ha!  Also, what's a post without a couple photo bombers?  That ratty lovey made an appearance in a few of the pics above as well.  It's just the perfect kitchen accessory, no?   Happy Tuesday friends!