Studio Cabinetry

Adventures in Cabinetry

While the boys have been somewhat busy sheetrocking the downstairs, I've been on a new quest to get every last inch of the upstairs mapped out. I don't want any delays once we move the demo up there. Yesterday, I spent a good amount of time with a nice fellow at Home Depot planning out our kitchen for the upstairs. It's much easier to plan for a larger space than for that little studio, so it was a pretty straightforward process. The Depot is having a 20% deal off custom cabinets until the beginning of May which I'm pretty excited about. I don't love buying things at the The Depot, but they are a necessary evil in our lives right now. And we do need to find the cheapest cutest options we can. Ikea would fit the bill, but I want a nice white cabinet for upstairs and the Ikea ones look cheap in white. I think they're really cute in darker hues.

Today I ventured over to Young's Custom Cabinets which is where our pals, J & G, recently bought new cabinets from for their snazzy new kitchen. J warned me that it was a weird place and it was indeed. First of all, it is so far South in San Francisco that I really think it's San Carlos. Next, there is absolutely no indication from the outside that they have any sort of showroom or are the slightest bit interested in random people like me stopping by. J also warned me about this. I hollered out to one of the guys operating a large piece of machinery inside who let me in. He directed me up the winding staircase where there was one little room with a wall of cabinet doors. Again, J also warned me about this but I didn't believe it until I saw it.

I was greeted by the one man that seemed to occupy the space. He seemed to surprised to see me. I explained that I already had a plan and I could tell him exactly what we needed. He didn't want me to stay or to discuss options. He wasn't able to tell me if the cabinets were all wood or not. His first language was, in fact, English so that wasn't the problem. He made a copy of my plan and told me he would contact me in 2-3 days with the price. 2-3 days?? They didn't exactly seem booming with business, so I didn't feel badly urging him to do it sooner rather than later. After approximately 2.5 minutes in their showroom, I was shown the door and told that they'd be in touch.

Several hours later I received an email from them with a price that is 50% less than The Depot cabinets-- even with their discount. Now that is exciting! I have not confirmed yet whether or not they can do pull-out rolling shelves or other built-ins that would be nice. My fear is that he only costed out one of the sheets than I gave him instead of both, thereby accidentally giving me a quote for half our kitchen. The only real piece of information that I was able to get from him while I was there was that they import the doors from China and then build the boxes here. That would explain the cheapness, but the quality really seems as nice as Kraftmaid. I am a little fearful of the imported from China items at the moment after learning about all the drama with the Chinese sheetrock. Who knows what kind of toxins are in the finish. Sorry if I sound like a grade A jerk, but I think it's true.

A Chic Studio Kitchen

We've been debating over our kitchen cabinets for the last year now. I was desperate to use Ikea cabinets downstairs because the cost savings is incredible. By my estimate, it's about 1/4th of the price of the Kraftmaid or Thomasville cabinets that you get at Home Depot or Lowe's, but the sad part is that I just couldn't make them work. I love a lot of the styles that Ikea carries (especially for the price), but for what we need downstairs, I just wasn't happy.

This may sound like a curious layout, but when you enter the studio downstairs, you will actually walk into the kitchen/dining area. In my dream, it will be a chic kitchen that doesn't feel like a kitchen, but more like a hip dining area that happens to have a fridge and a stove (like the pic above from Elle Decor). I don't want it to be bright white like a kitchen, but I also don't want it to be dark. So, we went with Kraftmaid in the end because they offered a lot more options of painted fronts in lighter hues that look really elegant. I just figure that if you're going to be staring at this kitchen all the time in this studio, it should look halfway decent. We chose the Hayward Maple in a Biscotti finish (the second pic). The doors style is really simple and the Biscotti color is nice and warm. I plan to do a small off-white subway tile and a light granite for the counters.

Photo #1 from Elle Decor, #2 from Kraftmaid