A Truly Green Kitchen…your Friends Will Envy
As a kitchen designerfor the last eight years shoulder to shoulder with my clients I havebattled a myriad of kitchen remodeling challenges: soffits out of level floors windows over stoves chimneys and pipe chases to name a few. I love it when my client rattles off five or six things about their existing kitchen designthat they absolutelyhate. I now know exactly what to avoid in their kitchen remodel andI know there is nothing I have found yet that I can’t fix with a new kitchen layout! I never looked for alternative solutions such as kitchen refacingwhy would I? Selling cabinets was part of my job. And if anyone brought upkitchen refacing it became very clear: I was a kitchen cabinet refacing snob.
If asked I would explain simply to the customer that the kitchen refacingprocess was nearly as expensive as a full kitchen remodel and after all the mess and inconvenience involved in kitchen reface you ended up with basically the same kitchen designyou had before who would want that? The kitchen cabinet refacing service provided by most companiesI explained pretty muchlike this:
- remove old doors and drawers fronts
- sand cabinet surfaces
- smear with glue
- slap up plain laminate
- install new doors and drawer fronts
- leave customer with same old floor counter top layout and basic look
…and then the nice folks generally purchased a new kitchen. The neighbors new it was coming the moment I had a30 yard dumpster dropped in Mr. and Mrs. Happy KitchenCustomers driveway. A typical kitchen remodeltakes between six and twelve weeks and the dumpsteroften remains there for almost the whole time just to be sure that all the debris was properly removed.
My limited knowledge of the kitchen refacingprocess had me mentally confined to a pen and I couldnt see beyond it.In fact it wasn’t until I began to work forEmpire Kitchenamp; BathUnion New Jersey thatI began to see a different way more customa whole new added value in the kitchen reface process. It took a little time and understanding of the approach and one main rule to qualify a cabinet refacing candidate the kitchen cabinet boxes had to be in “good” condition and in fact many older kitchen cabinets have full plywood construction or solid wood far higher quality than what most homeowners will manage to afford in a brand new kitchen cabinet. That meant clearly that structurally the refaced kitchen would have more strength and intergity. Other than that I learned there wasn’t much I couldn’t do in a reface kitchen and the process really went more like this:
- remove all old doors and drawer front and drawer boxes
- sand all exposed areas as per plans
- finish interiors of any cabinets with glass doors
- make plumbing amp; electrical upgrades as per plans
- add custom reface cabinets and make necessary modifications to existingcabinets
- refrigerator gets concealed behind custom panels and a new deep cabinet installed above it
- new flooring is installed
- high Pressure Laminate or wood paneling is applied refacedto all exposed cabinetsurfaces as per plan
- new Doors are installed with concealed European hinges
- new solid wood dovetailed drawers with full extension soft close drawer glides are installed
- new drawer faces are installed
- new counter top surface of customers choosing is installed
- new roll out trays base wastebaskets vegetable bins liter bottle pullouts spice racks cutlery dividers every convenience you can imagine is available and installed per plans
- new crown molding and light rail
- under cabinet lighting is installed
- and a full custom back splash is added tile Corian granite customer’s choice
That sounded and looked to me much more like a newly remodeledkitchen and with the right craftsmen on the job I learned cabinets could swap out their old function for new in the blink of an eye. The fact that most of the kitchen is saved means I don’t contribute an extra 30yards of trash to the landfill.A cabinet refacing crew generally brings back thedebris in the back of their standard work van!
The benefit to the environment is undeniable. This is the ultimate in recycling and the array of choices of styles colors andfinishesavailable rival any new cabinet manufacturer’s offerings:
- new crown molding and light rail
- glazes
- hand wiping
- penciling
- high gloss polyester lacquer paint
- natural stains
One of the many benefits to Mr. and Mrs. Happy KitchenCustomeris the amount of money they save on reusing the bones of their kitchen it helpsafford more bells and whistles in the finished product kitchen accessories are key to good function and homeowners enjoy their use every day rollouts cutlery dividers spice organizers and pantry storage systems! Other benefits to consider are that it takes less time start to finish an average of two and a half weeksto complete a kitchen refaces ifthey install a new counter top and back splash the savings yielded also provides additional budget for counter top upgrades and beautiful hardware.Then there is the behind the scenes benefit to the environment by not manufacturing new cabinet boxes trees are spared less cardboard is used there is a savings on shipping and the pollution from manufacturing is reduced dramatically. When the replacement doors and drawer fronts are purchased from a source that uses their factory excess to heat their factoriesand kilns or resells its wastetosay the pet industry you havenearly closed the loop onunnecessary disposal.
These are someofthe solutionswe can look to moreand more the list of products is growing almost daily. While these solutionsmay not be for every client they are for some are they possibly for you?
Ask yourself what else can I learn about kitchen refacing is it for me? Is it for some of my clients? I know it is for some of mine.
About the writer: I have 20 years experience in Home Furnishings and Interior Design specializing in Kitchen and Bath Design since ’02. I have a passion for learning and love the opportunity to collaberate on projects of all sizes. My strengths in the field begin with my design background use of color and texture to bring interest to a room spatial relationships organizational skills innovation decisiveness and planning. I have had the thrilling experience of helping hundreds…?maybe thousands of people with their projects and what I love is it never gets boring and no two are ever the same. Thanks for reading.
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