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What are the current trends in cabinets?: Home and Garden

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Everyone knows that the kitchen is the most important room in the house (or at least anyone who likes to eat knows it). We spend much of our time in the kitchen-preparing food, eating food, being together with our friends and family.it’s a common gathering place. It is often a very friendly place. There are usually pleasant smells and warmth emanating from the kitchen. This is why it is so important to have a kitchen that you enjoy being in. It’s no fun at all to have a kitchen that it musty, out-dated, and unattractive. You should have it painted with colors that you love and decorated with things that you enjoy. And you should have cabinets that are space effective and attractive. Now that you’re thinking about them, it just might be time to remodel those out-dated kitchen cabinets. But before you go out and start looking for the perfect cabinets, let’s talk about the current trends in cabinets.

“Light” and “open” are two key words when discussing today’s trendy kitchens. When selecting a cabinet front, try adding a white or light colored, cabinet door. Having a light color adds a crisp look to the room and makes your space not only seem more inviting, but also makes it seem larger. White cabinets are especially trendy today. One reason for this may be that they can be easily combined with a white countertop for continuity or a dark countertop for extra contrast. They go well with metal hardware, such as nickel. White cabinets look great with almost any color paint on the wall. They are also attractive with bold rugs or other brightly colored accessories.

Another trend in cabinets is creating a “furniture” look to kitchen cabinets. Instead of lining up box after box of cabinets, designers are adding tables, decorative molding, and other features that create a furniture look. You can also achieve this look by using glass in place of a few cabinet doors to display dishes or glassware. Homeowners are asking for particulars such as pull-out waste cans, slide-out towel bars and pull-down shelves. Such furniture-like aspects of cabinets save space and are much more convenient and functional than cabinets of former days.

Wood-finished cabinets are still just as popular as ever. According to the National Kitchen and Bath Association, they are about 80 percent of all cabinets purchased. Many of these wood cabinets are still just as casual and functional as other styles. Maple and cherry are the most popular type of wood, but beech and alder are also being used more and more frequently. Unusual species like lyptus (which comes from a quickly renewable tree) is popular with many environmentally-conscious consumers. Wood cabinets may also have finishes or glazes to make them appear more antique, as people are asking for a more “Old Word” style.

This leads us into another trend in cabinets-antiquing. Consumers are going for a more “Old World” style with distressed or whitewashed finishes on their cabinets, as well as on the hardware. It does, however, leave you with a relaxed and contemporary feel to your cabinets.

As is the case in almost any home décor trend, earthiness seems to be a big craze in cabinets. Earthy materials and earthy colored tones are a hot item in cabinets. They create a warm and tranquil environment in your kitchen. This is also reflected in the colors people are using to paint or decorate their home with (browns, sage greens, burnt orange, etc).

Another option that is quite popular today is refacing your cabinets rather than replacing them with new ones. Refacing can be cheaper than buying new cabinets, and often offers just as wide a selection as buying entire new cabinets.

So now that you know what’s out there, go ahead. Get new cabinets and enjoy your new kitchen.

Painting Kichen Cabinets

Prepare Your Kitchen Cabinets

It makes life and a kitchen cupboard job a lot easier to make all preparations first. Some sawhorses are a must. You can make them real easy. Use Saw Horse Brackets, a pair for each sawhorse.
sawhorse brackets

Each sawhorse will require four 2 x 4 legs, cut to a length comfortable for you, and a 2 x 4 cross piece, about two and a half or three feet long.

Looking at the brackets as a robot terrier, each leg is inserted up through the bottom of the jowl and the cross piece goes between the ears. There is a swivel point on the forehead, so the sawhorse can be folded and hung on the garage wall. There are holes to nail or screw the brackets to the 2 x 4s. I always used screws so a leg could be replaced as necessary. Two eight foot 2 x 4s set between two sawhorses will give ample work area to set up several kitchen cabinet doors at a time. Get the cheapest 2 x 4s that you can, they may be irregular, but they don’t need to be pretty.

Pre assembled Portable saw horses are pretty reasonably priced and easy to store too.
Mark the doors

Mark the doors in some manner, use a bit of masking tape with a number or something to identify which door goes to which opening. It can be a major hair tearing jigsaw puzzle trying to match doors to openings and screwholes if they aren’t identified.

A more positive method is to use die number stamps which make an impression in the top or bottom of the door. They’re there forever so you don’t need to worry about the stripping and finishing process removing tape or marker numbers.

Remove the kitchen cupboard doors including the Hinges from the cupboard fronts and lay them on your sawhorse work table and remove the rest of the hardware. While you have the cabinet hardware off, it’s a good idea to clean it well with 0000 steel wool.

Unless the insides of the kitchen cabinet doors are in bad shape finish wise, they generally won’t need to be redone since they don’t get the wear or frequent scrubbings that the exteriors get.

If you’re a husband, be sure to use lots of drop clothes and newspapers on countertops, on the floor and taped to adjacent walls. Besides the rewards for a job well done, you may get an extra hug for leaving the area clean.

If you’re a wife, the preparation is definitely a benefit and will save time, but you’ll probably have to clean up the final mess in either case.
Clean the Surfaces of Your Kitchen Cupboards

Before you scowl at me too hard, I know you keep your kitchen cabinets clean, but hygienically clean isn’t always enough for redoing kitchen cupboards. No matter how well your kitchen is ventilated or how healthy your diet and cooking are, there is always a small amount of residue on the surface of your kitchen cupboards. If you like bacon and eggs for breakfast, a fried hamburger for lunch and a fried or broiled steak for dinner, then there is a bunch of residue. One little pin head of grease will cause a clear finish or paint to make a little crater with ridges and no matter how you coax the crater won’t fill until the grease is gone.

Prelude Furniture Cleaner and Orange Oil are two of the best cleaners for removing the unseen greasy residue that can be harmful to a kitchen cabinet job. Besides doing a good job of cleaning, the Orange Oil gives a pleasant scent of a freshly peeled orange. It’s always a good idea to try new chemicals in a small area first.
Repaint Kitchen Cupboards

If the old finish, either paint or clear finish is sound and attached firmly to the surface, use it as a base for painting, it will save hours of work building it up to the point where it is now and will generally give a smooth base surface.

One tried and true method for painting kitchen cabinets, after a thorough cleaning, use a liquid deglosser. That should remove all traces of grease, but to be extra sure of a good, smooth surface, under coat with Kilz spray, or KILZ brush on. KILZ will cover crayon, lipstick, ball point pen or almost anything else that regular paint will stick its tongue out at and avoid like sin. After applying the KILZ, following label instructions, you’re ready to apply the final coat.
Metal Kitchen Cabinets

The above methods work equally well on metal kitchen cupboards. In fact, you will save yourself a huge amount of frustration it you don’t strip the old finish off of metal kitchen cabinets, but use several coats of Kilz primer, sanding between coats, on chips and scratches, until they are feathered and smooth with the surrounding area. Just use the primer where it’s necessary, not over the whole area.
Other Kitchen Cupboard Finishes

Other methods of redoing your kitchen cupboards will be covered on separate pages which are in the making now, just as fast as eight fingers and two thumbs can get it done while taking care of a four year old granddaughter. I thought about a voice activated program, but then I thought about how my granddaughter stems from several generations of, to put it mildly, chatterboxes, I figured that there might be some confusing information conveyed. Then too, one of my nephews had a voice program and periodically, while he was concentrating on something else, his computer would talk to him or ask him questions or tell jokes. That makes you jump and look around when you’re in a room by yourself.