We just started our blog to be able to relay answers to some of the questions that we receive on a daily basis about our kitchen cabinets and bathroom vanities.  We are also going to use the blog to highlight industry trends, successfully completed kitchen renovations and anything else we come across that might be a useful resource for our customers.   To start off the blog, I would like to show you a very successful renovation that we received before and after pictures of.  This is from a couple in Philadelphia that did the entire kitchen themselves using our Marquis Cinnamon Cabinets.  I think you will agree it turned out great.

 

One of the key selling points of our kitchen cabinets and bathroom vanities has always been the fact that they are made from solid wood on the face frames and doors, and they use 3/4" plywood for the sides of the cabinet- creating a really strong box.   I have heard people complain about the strength of the cabinets that are sold at the big retail stores, but I learned something new the other day.   We had a customer contact us about buying the Chestnut Glazed Maple Cabinets.  The first thing he aske was how much weight they could suport.  I thought it was a strange question, so I asked why..  apparently, the name brand manufacturers will not honor the warranty if certain types of countertops are installed.   This customer in particular was told that if he had concrete countertops installed, it would void the manufacturers warranty.  I couldn't believe that these hundred million dollar companies wouldn't stand behind their product.  But it makes perfect sense... they are using particleboard or fiberboard for the sides of the cabinets.  Either of these materials would buckle under increased weight because they are not made of a solid material.    With our plywood sides it creates a much sturdier frame to support any countertop surface.  So when you are out there shopping for kitchen cabinets, make sure you check the quality of the cabinet construction!

A good friend of mine recently bought the Marquis Cinnamon Cabinets for both their kitchen and bathroom.  They have an old rowhouse from the 1900's, and as you can imagine, none of the walls are straight or plumb.  They initially thought it would take a day or two to install the entire kitchen, but they made the fatal mistake of not prepping the walls.....   with an older home you can almost guarantee that the floors and walls are going to be straight, level, or plumb so you can save yourself a whole lot of headaches and aggravation by taking some steps to prep the room.   The most important thing you can do before even bringing the first cabinet in, is to find all of the high and low spots on the floor, and any waves in the walls (check out our installation and assembly section for additional instructions).   By doing this, you will know where you might run into problems.  If you want to make sure that your cabinets are all level and straight, your best friend on this project is going to be a pile of shims.  When all else fails- shim, shim, and shim again!   By taking the time to prep the room and mark your low spots, it will help have your sanity when installing your kitchen cabinets and ensure a successful project.

In today's market, homeowners want to create a custom look in their kitchen to separate the look of their house from their neighbors.  A lot of the big name cabinet manufacturers have started creating customized pieces to be used in conjunction with their cabinets to create the look of furniture.   While we stick with the basics when it comes to accessories in order to keep the costs down, there are still a lot of customized looks you can create for your kitchen when using any of our cabinet styles and a little bit of creativity.  Since we also offer the stain formulas for our cabinets, a lot of customers will actually create their own accessories and simply stain them to match the cabinets.   Here is a good example of a customer that used a combination of our Chestnut Glazed Maple Cabinets  and a little creativity to build a custom island for his kitchen.

 

 

I thought I would share an e-mail that I received on Thursday.  I had been working with a customer in Ohio who was going to be remodeling her entire kitchen and one of her bathrooms.  She was on a 3 week time crunch so she was nervous about making sure that all the kitchen cabinets and the bathroom vanities were in stock.  I gave her a quote and we ended up saving her a couple hundred dollars versus the local supply store.   Even though we were saving her money on her kitchen cabinets, I never heard from her again...   on Thursday, I received an e-mail from her and she needed some help.   She ended up ordering her cabinets from a brick and mortar store because she was nervous about having problems with the order.   Four weeks later, (remember her time frame was three weeks), she received her order and some of the cabinets were missing and some of them were incorrect.   She was asking for my help to correct the problem.  

This is a great example of why ordering from the direct importer/manufacturer can not only save you time, but also save you the frustration of dealing with the retail stores.   Since we typically deliver in under 2 weeks, she would have had time plenty of time to confirm that everything was ready for installation when her contractors were ready to install.  There is a happy ending to this story... since we have all the cabinets she needs, we are going to expedite the replacement cabinets to her house so that she can finish off her kitchen installation.

Today was probably one of the coolest days of my life (not joking).   We spent the entire day watching the behind the scenes of the filming of an episode.   While Jake and I didn't make it on the show, we helped the head carpenter (also named Jake) with the assembly of the kitchen and walked him through the features of the cabinets.   After filming seperate clips about the assembly of a base and a wall cabinet, we helped both Jake and Carter (the host) with the installation of the remaining cabinets.  Both Carter and Jake were extremely nice guys, and appreciated the fact that we were willing to help with the installation even though we were not going to be on camera.

As the day went on, they shot the installation of the countertops, some of the side projects, and closeups with Carter.   It was interesting to see how many changes were taking place as the show was being shot.   We actually made some changes to the layout right before they shot the first installation segment.   We stuck around the rest of the day and helped out where we could (ending the day with a picture with Carter).  

Tomorrow we are heading back to the house for the end reveal to the family.   The producers and product staff were extremely happy with the look and quality of the cabinets, and we are already talking about future shows that we can help them out with.   While I still can't load any pics to the blog yet, we are going to create a new page on the site to cover all of the videos and pictures that we took over the past two days and tomorrow.

Check back for an update about the activities from tomorrow.

They wrapped up the final day of the Carter Can episode yesterday, and the kitchen turned out to be amazing.   Everything really came together in the last 2 hours, with people scrambling everywhere to make sure that it was ready for when the homeowners came back.   The Marquis Cinnamon Cabinets looked amazing with the countertops that they picked out.   We got some great video of Jake, the assistant carpenter on camera, talking about the cabinets and showing them being assembled and installed.   The production staff is going to send us some high resolution pics of the finalized kitchen that we will be using to create a new page on the site to show how the process worked.

I wasn't quite sure what to expect when we got there the first day, since we had never done anything like this before, but I was really surprised at how easy going and friendly the entire team was.   While it is a small team that produces the show, they really know how to work together and get the job done.   In talking to Carter and the production team, we learned a lot about the behind the scenes process for selecting homeowners for the shows and deciding which projects to do (which I found really fascinating).

It looks like the show will be airing something next year in October.   As soon as we have the specific date, I will post it on the blog.  Keep an eye out for all of the pictures and videos that we took.   As soon as I get back to the office, I am going to start working on addiing them to the site.

Today was the first day in Los Angeles at the latest project for HGTV's hit show "Carter Can".   The house is a really nice house in Redondo Beach, about 10 minutes south of the LAX.   On this project, they decided to use the Windsor Maple cabinets to make the kitchen look a little brighter.    We were able to install most of the base cabinets and some of the wall cabinets today, and they look awesome!   What is interesting about this project is that we had to modify some of the cabinets for the materials they wanted to use.  For the sink base, we modified cabinet to fit a farm-style sink, and they are sticking an oven unit in a cabinet (which is an interesting design technique).   They also have a "special" project that will incorporate dishwasher end panels in a unique way (more details to come).  Keep an eye out for details on how to make the custom cabinets that they are using in the project.   As with the last show, we are taking plenty of pictures and will be adding them to the site as soon as we can.