3 Easy Kitchen DIY Projects Anyone Can Do – #2: The Feel

We’re covering three easy kitchen DIY projects anyone can do, that are less daunting (and less costly) than remodeling your entire kitchen. Last time we covered how to give your kitchen a nice makeover with some new hardware and a deep spring cleaning. Today, we’ll cover the feel of the kitchen, and how to bring it up to modern standards.

Soft Close Door Stops and Drawer Glides

“SLAP—CLUNK–clunk-clunk.” Sound familiar? It’s an older kitchen’s cabinet doors closing. Of course, you can carefully ease them shut, but do you really do that every time? Some cabinets have little felt tabs on them, but those are tacky looking and are literally sponges for dirt, grease, and bacteria.

We’ve also seen plenty of cabinets from the ‘80’s and ‘90’s with spring-loaded magnets that try, and mostly fail, to catch the doors, so they can then click closed like some kind of mutated blend of a door and a ball-point pen.

Modern kitchens instead use soft-close mechanisms, either built into the hinges themselves or, more commonly, separate soft close door dampers. These are little adjustable pneumatic cylinders with rubberized tips that softly catch a closing door, even one closed full-force or carelessly. The charge of air inside makes sure to stop the door before it strikes the face frame. The rubber tip ensures it does so silently. And finally, the adjustable valve lets the door close slowly and silently the rest of the way on its own.

Believe us, the first time you don’t wake up in the middle of the night as someone else in your household gets a midnight snack or a glass of water, they’ll have totally paid for themselves in peace and quiet.

Modern Drawer Glides

If there’s one feature of older and low-end cabinets that’s often skimped on, it’s drawer glides. Cheap glides that don’t lock into place, or can’t support the drawer’s weight without wobbling, or even glides without wheels, that rely on sliding surfaces against each other are enough to drive a person mad! To say nothing of when those cheap glides inevitably jam.

While you’re installing your new door hinges or soft-close door dampers, it’s the perfect opportunity to upgrade your drawer glides as well. We carry a wide range of high-quality soft-close drawer glides, with the same silent catch and slow close action as our door dampers. Whether they attach to the bottom or sides of the drawers, and whether by screws or epoxy, these are heavy-duty, full-extension drawer glides that let you pull each drawer all the way out, totally into the open, without worry that they’ll bend, wobble, come apart, or jam.

Once you have soft-close, self-closing mechanisms on every moving feature of your cabinets, you’ll be amazed how much more luxurious and high-end your kitchen will feel! Of course, it is easier to install all of these things in new RTA cabinets as you assemble them, so if you decide to go that route, we’d love to help you figure out the best way to go about it. Click here to sign up for a free consultation with one of our expert kitchen remodeling specialists, today!

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