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Kitchen Cabinets
Kitchen cabinets are basically very expensive,
pretty wood boxes for holding out of sight
your pots, pans, food, and all the rest of
your kitchen supplies. Cost and appearance
are the two primary concerns, but you should
also consider ease of cleaning and durability.
If you are handy with a drill and hammer,
you can replace your cabinets yourself, although
you should have a friend available when it
comes time to mount the upper cabinets (they
can be very heavy).
Materials
Solid wood, wood veneer, and melamine are
the most common materials. Solid wood is
the most expensive but allows prettier surface
contours and is the most durable. Almost
always, only the fronts (doors and frame)
of solid wood cabinets are solid wood; the
rest of the cabinets are usually made from
plywoods or fiber or particle boards. Veneer
cabinets provide the appearance of solid
wood (and often blend solid wood in order
to provide surface contours) at a considerably
lower cost. Melamine and other synthetic
surfaces can provide a modern, sleek surface
that is very easy to clean.
Choices
You can choose between standardized cabinets
and custom fit. Standardized cabinets are
usually shipped in pieces and assembled in
your kitchen. The cabinets come in a variety
of widths to accommodate most
kitchens with
only small areas lost to filler
boards. Custom
cabinets should fit like a glove
and maximize
the space available. Custom cabinets
usually
ship pre-assembled (some using
furniture-quality
assembly techniques). As you
would expect,
custom cabinets are considerably
more than
comparable standardized cabinets. |
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