How to Choose the Best Cabinets for Your Kitchen

When you’re looking to improve your house, whether you want to sell or make your abode more comfortable for many years to come, the first thing you probably thought about was improving and updating your kitchen. From gathering around the table for dinner and late night chats, to card games and homework and elaborate dinner parties, kitchens are the command center for most homes, providing physical and emotional nourishment for the people who enter.

As a result, homeowners have many options when it comes to appliance upgrades, floors, lighting, and paint choices. Before making any of those decisions, though, you should make a decision about your cabinets. The appearance and style you choose can set the entire tone of the room, and will direct every other design decision.

Choosing Your Cabinets: Factors to Consider

 

1. Your Budget
It’s important to decide upfront how much you are willing to spend on your cabinets. Looking for a full-service provider that does everything from design and selection to installation, as well as individual custom pieces, can help the DIY homeowner find the best options for their kitchen.

2. Your Needs
Start thinking about how you’ll use the cabinets. There are many new options to choose from, including drawers that can roll up or pull down, built-in cutting boards, storage options, and functional additions that will help you make the most of your cabinets.

3. Your Taste
Cabinet doors can be some of the costliest investments, with several different factors playing into the overall appearance, including:

• Overlay: Full overlay doors are a modern-looking choice that requires hardware, and can give you a little more storage space, while covering the entire face frame of the cabinet. Partial overlay has been the standard for many years, and is a cost-effective option. Inset doors can be the trickiest to install and maintain, but have become popular choices.
• Panels: A raised or sunken panel can change the appearance of the kitchen, as well as a flushed or beaded panel.
• Style: Do you want a more modern, sleek kitchen? Or a traditional or country kitchen? The cabinets you choose can play into that appearance.
• Drawers vs. doors: Your base cabinets can feature a mix of cabinets with doors and shelves or drawers that offer larger storage areas.

4. Your Finishes
Once you’ve made a decision on the style of cabinet you’re looking to install, you can look at small details that will help to personalize and give you truly one-of-a-kind cabinets; consider:

• Stains: Stain colors can look very different based on the type of wood chosen for the cabinets, with the natural color of the wood adding underlying tones of red or yellow, absorbing the stain at different rates, and giving a different appearance to your kitchen.
• Hardware: From the hinges to the handles, you have thousands of choices when it comes to personalizing your cabinets. From sleek chrome to ornamental copper, modern pewter or understated nickel, the pieces you choose show off your personality and taste.
• Moldings: When you want to finish your kitchen, look at the molding choice that ties your cabinet design to the rest of the kitchen. There are many different providers who make custom moldings, from traditional and braided to highly decorative or smooth and sleek.

 

Our Favorites

 

We love the design features from cabinet makers like KraftMaid, Merillat, QualityCabinets, Echelon, Executive Cabinetry and RSI.

The Addison Slab from Echelon’s Prestige Collection provides a modern door in a variety of colors. The rich brown, or black Belleview, would be a gorgeous addition to your trendy kitchen. The company follows a 17-step finishing process to give customers the best quality possible. Similarly, Ohio-based KraftMaid’s suede topcoat finish takes the same resistance available in their other cabinet door finishes and softens the sheen. It’s the perfect finish for a distressed cabinet style.

Merillat’s easy-to-finish cabinets are enhanced by their expansive collection of knobs, from antique and vintage styles to mixed-medium knobs and pulls that shine in modern kitchens. Alternatively, for more than 50 years, Middletons Mouldings has been using cherry, hickory, aspen, poplar, maple and oak to create custom moldings that match your cabinetry.

At Primera, we work with a variety of different manufacturers to give you the kitchen of your dreams—from the first meeting, where you can sit down with a designer to sketch out and visualize the final appearance of your choices, to the professional, experienced installers who ensure precise, timely project completion. Primera operates in five different states with more than 40 years of experience. Contact us today to schedule your appointment.