Kitchen Cabinet Design & More

If you’re frequently bumping your elbows, knees and hips into doors, drawers, and other people in the kitchen, it’s time for a bump-out. Just having  kids grow bigger can change adequate kitchens to small kitchens. Adding to a family or accommodating someone’s walker or wheelchair are other reasons a kitchen stops working well. Then it’s time to do some stealing!

The knock-down, drag-out kitchen remodel

Expand your kitchen by stealing some adjacent space. Fortunately, this kitchen remodel won’t incur a criminal record. Here are possible candidates for space theft:

1. Exterior wall: Bump a kitchen wall out into the yard. The good thing about this is that it doesn’t steal space from adjacent rooms. Since many building supplies come in eight foot increments, maximize supply expenses by creating a two, four, or eight foot addition. Even adding two feet of counter, cupboard, and drawer space to two sides of a kitchen can relieve congestion.
2. Dining room or living room: Can your dining room or living room spare a foot or two? Knock out a wall between that room and the kitchen and gain some room to maneuver. This may require going from a round to a long table, putting a hutch on a different wall, or getting a different sofa. Or you can gain needed storage by eliminating bar stools and filling the space under the breakfast bar with drawers and cabinets. Fortunately omitting a wall between rooms makes furniture and cabinet layouts more flexible. It makes all the rooms look larger. It lets you enjoy guests while you’re cooking. (It encourages their assistance, too, especially if you sigh now and then.)
3. Garage: Yes, this probably requires (steel yourself) cleaning the garage. But when reducing the amount of stuff stored against the adjacent kitchen wall, you can hang some overhead storage units from the garage rafters and store remaining items up there. Or heartlessly get rid of about a third of your garage junk…errr…treasures, and you will have room to expand. An outside storage unit can help this process. Bump out a wide, shallow kitchen pantry that will absorb the overflow from existing cupboards.
4. Laundry closet: Side by side clothes washers and dryers eat up kitchen space. Replace them with water-wise stacked units and built a small floor-to-ceiling pantry. Or crate a laundry area in the garage.

Fortunately kitchen remodeling is tops among home improvements that provide a good return on investment when selling a home. So knock down a wall, drag out unused items, and enjoy your expanded kitchen.

Your kitchen is, first and foremost, a work area. A century ago any room with electricity at night was downright thrilling. If your kitchen is still stuck in that mode, bring “everything up to date in Kansas City.” Here’s how.

Think beyond kitchen lighting

Of course a new lighting plan is rightfully the first thing that comes to mind. But there are many other ways kitchen remodeling can add light.

1. Rethink kitchen lighting: Install under-cabinet lighting. LED bars, xenon bars, puck lights, rope lights, cute little LED track lights–the choices are many, and most are inexpensive. Drop-down lighting over your island can add both functional and decorative elements, whether with simple cone pendants or with Craftsman style stained glass. Your sink is another task area with an opportunity for a focal point pendant. And if you haven’t looked at today’s delightful ceiling track lights, visit a lighting showroom. Even recessed lights have attractive options. Be sure all task lighting is located over your hands.
2. Let in old Sol: Add a ventilating skylight to the kitchen for both light and air flow. Even one or two of those little tubular skylights can be effective and quick to install. As for your kitchen window, replace curtains with blinds or pleated shades, or put in a garden window that visually lets the outdoors in.
3. Ditch dark cabinets: What hits you smack in the eyes in kitchens? Right–the cabinets. Dark cabinets can be claustrophobic, especially in smaller kitchens. Choices? Sand ‘em down and paint them a lovely light color. Have a refacing company sand them and restain them lighter, or reface them with new lighter doors and laminated or veneered cabinet cases. A new look is to paint the cases and have wooden doors and drawer fronts.
4. Countertops: Countertops bounce a lot of light around the kitchen, but only if they aren’t too dark. Out with the old, in with the new!
5. Flooring: Replace brown, brick, or other light-absorbing flooring colors with lighter tones. Anything from natural tile colors to bamboo can work.
6. Walls: Often there’s not a lot of wall space in a kitchen, but walls can nevertheless add to a dark, closed-in feeling. Think beyond white. Pick up a light shade of something in your countertops or cabinet paint color for a spacious and updated look.

You can prioritize the components that are the worst offenders in your dark kitchen, and work down the list until the balance is tipped toward light.  A bright kitchen makes all your kitchen tasks seem easier.

In “Fiddler on the Roof,” Tevya, the husband and father, sings a song about things people do without thinking, just because they’re an honored tradition. So, applying that to cabinets, must all Traditional style kitchen cabinets look the same? No! If you like the feeling of reassurance and comfort created by the lines of Traditional kitchen cabinets, there’s a lot of leeway in your choices. A Q & A session may be in order here:

Defining Traditional cabinets

1. Q: Your husband says traditional cabinets are dark wood. You say they’re light. Who’s right? A: Both of you, and your mother, too. They can be of any shade of wood, or even painted, especially whites or off-whites.
2. Q: So what defines a very traditional cabinet style? A: Both doors and drawer fronts are framed. No arches. The frame is often, but not always, curved down toward the center. Narrow half-round moldings separate the frame from the center panel. Those rounded moldings are a quintessentially Traditional, though they may be flush with the frame or raised above it. The molding may be tight between the center panel and door frame, or it may be somewhere in between. There may even be more than one set of rounded moldings between door frame and center panel, or a rounded molding around the perimeter. The number and placement of moldings allow a surprising degree of creativity. They create a soft geometry and repetition that is pleasing and soothing.
3. Q. What about the cabinet tops? Plain or fancy? A: Traditional kitchen cabinets have a crown molding of various heights, angles, and amount of half-round moldings. Make them more prominent in a large, tall, formal kitchen. Keep them minimal for a small kitchen or a more contemporary look.
4. Q. Are the door center panels raised, flat, or recessed? A: Yes. Any of the above.
5. Q: What about carvings, pillars, arches, lattices and the like? A: You can make your kitchen a bit more contemporary by not including such ornamentation, or you can give it a heritage look by including them. This is great if one spouse likes contemporary and the other likes traditional, as it’s possible to blend the styles.
6. Q: How much  do Traditional cabinets cost compared with other styles? A:Traditional cabinets remain very popular becaue they are timeless and can blend with many types of decor. Price will depend on your choice of wood or paint, the contruction techniques (e.g., dove-tailed versus butt-jointed drawers,) how much hardwood there is and what type is used, and the degree of ornamentation.

Go ahead. Choose Traditional for your kitchen cabinets. As for the rest of your life–cut loose a little!

Country kitchen styles can be anything from farmhouse, to French or English provincial, or that beloved, woodsy style called “cottage.”  If you want your kitchen to evoke that inviting cottage feeling,  there are products from lighting and plumbing fixtures to cabinets, countertops, appliances and floors, that help create a cottage kitchen look.  So if you’re cottage-addicted, what are the essential elements?

Must-haves for a cottage kitchen

1. Cabinets:  Warm, medium-hued woods with the natural knots still in place are the signature of a cottage kitchen.  Knotty pine is traditional, but several other woods, including cherry, hickory, maple, and oak are also available.  Between them you can choose the color, degree of visible grain, and knot size.  Replace existing cabinets and take advantage of new trends such as roll-out under-counter cupboards with roll out drawers , narrow slide-out pantries, and excellent suspension systems.  Alternately, save big time by refacing existing cabinets with new doors,  drawer fronts, and hardware.  The cabinet cases can be veneered to match.
2. Countertops:  True, butcher block countertops create an authentic cottage kitchen look, but they can breed bacteria unless diligently maintained.  Reserve a small area of butcher block for food prep.  Soapstone is a natural stone that has been used for American countertops, sinks, stoves and floors, for 200 years.  Applying oil or wax periodically will help retain its rich colors, but soapstone won’t burn, stain, or be etched by food acids. Veined slabs are often gray with subtle or dominant green, blue-gray, and brown hues.
3. Appliances: Retro-look refrigerators and stoves with current features and historic colors are available from several sources such as Big Chill, Heartland, and Northstar. Some are ENERGY STAR rated!
4. Plumbing:  Many faucet manufacturers, including American Standard, Delta, Moen and Pfister, and  carry styles appropriate to cottage kitchens.
5. Lighting:  Many rustic lighting styles are suitable.  Stained glass lighting and lights wound with metal motifs of nature and animals are possibilities, as are lantern, Craftsman, antler and simple metal cone styles.
6. Flooring:   Choose waterproof, abrasion-resistant materials. For a wood look, choose polyurethane treated wood or wood-look laminates.  Tile, stone, and cork are other alternatives. Sheet and strip vinyls that simulate natural materials are tough and inexpensive.

Sure, you want it all, now!  Start with the cabinets for immediate impact. Prioritize other changes and your cottage kitchen will get ever closer to your dreams.

Anita is currently remodeling her kitchen and stopped by a local custom cabinet shop after admiring cabinets from that shop in her sister’s home.  Anita’s new countertops and appliances are installed, the wallpaper is gone and the walls prepped for painting.  She plans to tear out the lighting soffits over the countertops and is shopping for sleek new track lights, and also for tiles for the backsplash.

Anita has prices from two standard sources for refacing her cabinet doors and drawer fronts and veneering the cabinet cases.  Slab-style doors seem an economical and stylistically pleasing choice.  She wasn’t expecting to be thunderstruck by the Shaker cabinets she saw in the local cabinet shop.

You aren’t wed to your original choices

The solid cherry Shaker cabinets with figured center panels in the local showroom made Anita’s knees go weak.  The door frames shine with a reddish-gold luster, and the  center panels have aged to an even richer reddish tone.  Every pair of doors has book-matched patterned wood center panels of furniture-grade plywood.  The drawer fronts are flat pieces of solid cherry.  For Anita it was love at first sight. 

Shaken by the custom Shakers, she talked with the shop owners about options that could make that look affordable,  fearing that these  dream cabinets were  beyond reach.  But she’s assessing her remaining kitchen projects to see if the Shaker custom refacing is possible by rethinking her options. 

1. Cabinet materials:   It’s those magnificent deep red figured center panels that are key to the custom Shaker cabinets’ beauty.   The cabinet shop will price out door frames of a less expensive, cherry-stained wood, while retaining the oiled book-matched cherry wood center panels. Fortunately drawer fronts will be unframed, as with Anita’s existing quotes.  She’s willing to use the same less expensive cherry-stained wood on the drawer fronts that the shop is suggesting for the door frames.  Another drawer-front alternative is furniture-grade cherry plywood, even though the plies will be visible when the drawers are open.
2. Omit the backsplash:  Paint will definitely be cheaper than the tiles and labor needed for a tile backsplash.
3. Keep the lighting:  The lighting soffit can  be retained, and the costs of  tearing it out and putting in new lights will be saved.

The price from the custom cabinet shop shows a modest, affordable increase over Anita’s original refacing budget, what with savings gained from the revised plan.  Anita knows that kitchens are a major factor in resale value, and that the custom Shaker cabinet doors will create more visual impact than any of the sacrificed items.  Keeping an open mind and taking advantage of some cost-saving options is a great example for any remodeler.

Creating a kitchen backsplash from all the gorgeous new materials out there today can be  mind-boggling.  Almost any choice can last longer and make clean-ups  easier than painted drywall.  But the amount of maintenance required will vary depending on your choice of materials. 

Grease and grime take work and time

Airborne cooking particles are adventurous, settling on everything from cabinets to countertops to floors. They breed bacteria.  Backsplashes earn their name by taking the brunt of such droplets, blobs, and splatters, especially near your cooking and food prep areas.  Restaurants and homes with modern or contemporary architecture solve the problem by utilizing stainless steel backsplashes, an easy-to-clean, groutless choice.  But if you’re all slathered up about those beautifully textured, cobbled, multi-dimensional stone, glass, shell, and tile choices, keep the pasta sauce test in mind: Picture yourself with an old toothbrush excavating dried red residue.

Some backsplashes are tidier than others  

1. Surfaces: Smoother, shinier surfaces are likely to clean more easily than textured, bumpy, or matte surfaces. 
2. Scale: Larger scaled materials clean more easily than small scale, because the ratio of  tile to grout is greater.  The more grout there is, the more little ins and outs there are to catch goop.  A beautiful little mosaic that has 16 segments in a 4 x 4″ area can take more time to clean than a single 4 x 4″ tile.  A work-around is to use the more segmented pieces as occasional accents in a backsplash with a larger-scaled pieces.
3. Ins and outs: Many backsplash options vary in depth on their backing, creating deeper shadows and a rich 3-D look.  Linear trim pieces may bulge or bubble, or have an incised design,  creating a welcome mat for a dust-and-grease gumbo.  Look instead at trim pieces may that complement your major material in color, texture or material while being of about the same depth. 
4. Grout: Keeping grout clean is the bane of many homeowners. If possible, seal your backsplash grout periodically, keeping it less porous.  Or if you’re happy with a darker grout color, go for it.  Good camouflage reduces the frequency of cleaning (if not the growth of bacteria.) 
5. Compromise: Many kitchens have a special focal point  design in the clean-up war zone behind the taller backsplash of the stovetop area, and a similar shorter design behind the main food prep countertop area.  Choose shinier, flatter, and larger scale coordinating tiles in those areas.  Satisfy your  3-D longings elsewhere in the backsplash.

Backsplash materials suppliers sell sealers, stains, cleaners and mold removers.  Keep cheap toothbrushes on hand, and some good sponges.  Clean big messes immediately.  And if your desire for texture and matte surfaces can’t be denied, make your maintenance committment and go for it!

What?  Replace those framed kitchen cabinet doors, however worn, with a flat, one-piece slab door? Why?  Listen, my children, and you shall hear.

The virtues and varieties of slab door refacing 

1. Contemporary and modern kitchens:  Simplicity and boldness of line are key elements of these decor styles.  Reface the cabinet cases with your choice of paint, solid-colored laminate, textured or patterned laminate, or a wood grain. Mix and match any of these surfaces by, for example, choosing a dark brown solid laminate for the cabinet cases and choosing a rich wood grain for doors and drawer fronts. Or paint the cabinet cases a metallic silver and choose a very contemporary patterned or textured laminate for the slab doors. Awesome!  Sky’s the limit on ideas. Usually a thin, square-edged slab door style is used.
2. The Euro look:  Northern European cabinets have a unique take on the slab door, yah sure!  Cabinet cases and doors are often white or cream to reflect lots of light during long dark winters. Some have a simple strip of wood across the door bottom or drawer top that is routed to serve as a grip.  Woods with somewhat parallel grain may be used for both cases and doors.   Tweak the look by running the wood grain horizontally for overhead cabinets, vertically for under-counter cabinets.  Hardware often has a wide, thin stainless tubular or rectangular profile.  Woods are more often medium to light colors. Slab doors are thin with a squared edge, as with contemporary kitchens.
3. Oriental decor:  Achieve an Asian kitchen style with wood and/or colors for refacing the cabinets.  Use a beautiful bamboo veneer or laminate for the doors and drawer fronts, and lacquer paint the cabinet cases black, red, or rich gold.  Choose the rich beauty of teak, either as a laminate or veneer, for both cabinet and cases.  Use a hidden grooved edge for door grips, or select Oriental-style hardware. 
4. Country:  Farmhouse or country kitchens often have simple slab doors with a rounded exterior edge.  Paint is the customary finish, but cases and doors don’t have to match.  Creamy doors on a dusty warm green case look  inviting and historic, or you may prefer rich sky blue doors on white cases, or some other mix.  Door and drawer handles may be wood or simple curved chrome designs.

Slab doors require no tedious sanding and delicate staining for do-it-yourselfers. They can be a very cost-efficient choice if purchased from pros.  Fail-save advice?  Try them–you’ll like them!

The difference between a disabled person staying in a beloved home or moving to assisted-living housing often depends upon having a wheelchair accessible kitchen and bathroom. The topic here is kitchens. Remodeling kitchens for disabled cooks isn’t cheap, but neither is assisted housing or in-home help. For a year’s worth of many of those services kitchens for the disabled can be created, enabling independent living within the family home.

Let the kitchen come to you

What can you do when you can’t move around the kitchen with a walker or wheelchair, reach into cupboards, or move a hot pot from stove to countertop? Remodel the kitchen so that those accouterments to come to you! Let’s look at the major components that need improvement. Keep in mind knee space below most elements.

1. Remove obstacles: Kitchen islands inhibit turning, passing other people, and opening cabinet doors and drawers. Sell the island, move it against a wall, or replace it with an island with no lower shelves. The floor must be firm, slip-resistant, and, of course, liquid-resistant. It must allow room to turn a wheelchair or walker.
2. Open up under-countertop areas: Any under counter cabinets need access on at least one side. Use full-suspension kitchen drawer systemsinstead of shelves, and use special-purpose organizers within the drawers. Organizers include utensils, spices, canned goods, pot-and-pan drawers, and auto-lifting mixer/processor units. Consider removing all lower cabinet doors, which may have the benefit of forced tidiness!
3. Movers and shakers: Well, actually just movers. Sinks andwheelchair accessible cooktops that raise and lower hydraulically. Ditto for wall cabinets and even shelves within a cabinet. Yes, a microwave that raises and lowers. Learn to love the words “hydraulic,” “pneumatic,” and “fully extends.” “Lazy Susan” is another good word, especially if lower cupboard shelves have such turntables so that any item can be front and center.

Reorganize or retro-fit what stays

Almost any kitchen can use a bit–or a lot–of better organization. The key to kitchens for disabled householders is to keep things low and in front. Some side-by-side refrigerators have roll-out shelves plus big door-mounted shelves in both ‘fridge and freezer. Rev-A-Shelf pull-out cup racks can be mounted under upper cabinets. Have a heat-proof sturdy surface to receive hot pots at cooktop level–perhaps a rimmed pull-out board. Replace some lower cupboards with slide-out pantry or trash units, retaining the front doors. Use lever-type handles for doors to other rooms. An unintended consequence of a wheelchair accessible kitchen remodel is that other householders will wonder why all kitchens aren’t designed this way! That, and the advantage of “wheelchair accessible kitchen” in a future resale ad.

If your kitchen lacks a breakfast bar, it may be over-crowded and under-convenienced. You may even suffer from Breakfast Bar Deficiency Syndrome, which often has at least two of these symptoms: You stand in the kitchen to guzzle your latte and gulp your tofu flakes because it’s a hassle to carry plates in and out of the dining room during your morning rush hour. Your kids are sweetly quiet at the dining table after school, texting their friends rather than tackling their texts while you devise their dinners. Your dining room carpet looks like splatter art because Baby thinks overturning plates is a marketable trick. Your dinner guests crowd into the kitchen while you’re cooking, ignoring the toothsome hors d’oeuvres on the living room coffee table. But moving to a bigger home is four or five years away. Fortunately there are proven, healthy remedies for this Deficiency.

4 ways to add a breakfast bar

Stealing space can create a budget breakfast bar or an extravagant one, as your priorities permit. Here are some idea-starters:

1. Buy a bar: If you’ve got a couple feet of wall space or some space at the end of an kitchen counter, portable breakfast bars, some with drop-leafs and integral stool storage, can add a cozy and convenient breakfast bar for under $200. These bars  are sometimes called kitchen carts, and may also serve as a kitchen island.
2. Open a wall: Many homes have a solid wall between kitchen and dining room. If you’ve got 24 extra inches on the dining room side, open the wall like a wide window. You’ll need about 12″ for the new bar overhang, and about another 12 inches wall for the bar chairs. Either extend your kitchen’s spill-proof floor under the bar side, or make the whole dining floor spill-resistant with laminate, tile, etc.
3. Add to an island: One end of a kitchen island may be over-cluttered and under-utilized. Often this end faces a family room. Repurpose it. Raise it enough for an under-counter shelf for mail or homework. Add some swivel bar stools and you’re in business!
4. Bump out a wall: Leave the sink, plumbing and most electrical right where they are. Bump out the exterior wall behind them four feet, more if possible. Add the bar into the new space.  Yes, you’ll need foundation, floor, wall and roof work. Remember kitchen improvements create a great return on investment at resale time.

Fortunately symptoms of Breakfast Bar Deficiency Syndrome disappear almost immediately after remedial steps are taken. This works whether you use either the Sweat Equity or Remodeling Contractor treatment of symptoms. Give it a try. You owe it to your health.