LOML and I went and hit all the big box stores and a kitchen design center in Toledo yesterday looking for ideas for our kitchen. Guess she trusts me now that I pulled one off.
Our original plan was to replace the doors and drawers on our existing cabinets which are run-of-the-mill mass produced cabinets installed in 1991. For the most part the boxes are in good shape, except one that is loose and a lazy susan that is sagging. I could deal with both of those issues. The cabinets themselves aren't that well designed--some of the uppers have fixed shelves, most have a stile down the middle which causes us to lose 3" of space on the bottoms where there are pullouts and drawers. And in general they are just kind of plain. We planned to do an inexpensive laminate counter since we didn't want to put big money into a stone counter on old boxes. In the end, it just doesn't make a lot of sense.
Some of our plans are:
- Red oak, because LOML likes it and it fits our house well. We're thinking a "natural" finish, which means I shouldn't have to worry about staining. It will age well compared to some of the trendy finishes out right now too.
- Prefinished maple ply--because I'd be crazy to do anything but.
- Blum Tandem undermount slides with Blumotion. We used Blum side mount slides on my parents' kitchen and in retrospect I wish I'd talked them into the better slides.
- Mix up the heights and depths of the upper boxes. This seems to be in right now and I really like the look.
- Build a box around the fridge space and pull the cabinet above out 24". That makes for a massive deep-storage area.
- Add details for character. Some things we are looking at are crown molding, a base molding around the bottoms of the uppers, shelves on either side of the cabinets above the sink, some kind of valence over the sink, and a wine rack.
- A pot filler faucet (LOML's requirement) Should be easy to do with PEX.
- Lots of drawers in the lowers. In fact, I think we might only end up with 4/9 boxes that have doors including the sink base instead of the current 8/9.
- Tile backsplash (we've had the tile for 4 years--maybe we should do something with it.)
- Keep the layout the same because it works great for us. This will save cost too because thee will be no plumbing (other than the pot filler) or wiring changes.
Hopefully this week I'll start working out a Sketchup plan. The plan is to start construction around April-May, but maybe not until spring cleanup yardwork is done since that's a major undertaking around here.