Explaining Kitchen Styles and Cabinet Making

Since colonial days, the American kitchen has been thought of as the heart of the home. It is the first room a family shares each day; it is not only the place where meals are prepared but also where they are often eaten. The kitchen is where children do their homework, and where the family members hang around for conversation. Although the role of the kitchen has not changed in a couple of centuries, its appearance has altered a lot. Once, cooking was done by the central fireplace, and the larder was stored against the cold, north-facing wall. Today, a kitchen must be carefully planned to meet the demands of a busy household and to accommodate a battery of labor-saving devices. We focus on the work of today's kitchen, especially by providing the best quality wood for cabinetry, and assistance in choosing the right wood that will help you create a kitchen that meets your needs.

Shaker, Victorian, and Colonial Style Kitchens

A kitchen design often starts as a natural extension of the architectural style of a house. Just as trim, molding, and furnishings can distinguish a home as being Victorian or Colonial, cabinet doors, molding, and hardware can define the style of a kitchen. For example, Victorian is a luxurious style marked by complex egg-and-dart molding, porcelain pulls, and exposed hinges, while Shaker style is a model of austerity, relying on simple, recessed frame-and-panel doors, an absence of molding, and the muted colors of milk paint. A few pictures of kitchen styles from traditional to modern are shown below:

Types of Kitchen Cabinets

Despite the huge variety of kitchen cabinets, they all come down to two basic types; face frame and frameless. Each has characteristics that greatly affect how the heart of the modern home will appear and function. The designer, cabinetmaker, and installer, also determine how the cabinets will be created.

Face Frame Cabinets

Face frame cabinets are the most popular type of kitchen cabinet in North America. This long-standing method of construction involves attaching a framework of solid lumber to the front of a carcass. Doors and drawers can be mounted in one of three ways: inset, lipped, or overlay. Inset, the most elegant in appearance, is a true test of a craftsman's skill in construction and installation. Tight tolerances are required to accommodate seasonal wood movement and yield a pleasing margin between the frame and door. During installation, cabinets must be set perfectly level and plumb to maintain that margin. People who choose framed cabinets are very interested in forging a link with the past. They appreciate the classic look of well-fitted doors and drawers that open with ease and close with a gentle puff of air as they nest within the frame.

Frameless Cabinets

Frameless cabinetry was born in Europe after World War II. It tackled some of the challenges of the time, such as the shortage of lumber and the need to rebuild housing rapidly. The simplicity of the frameless, or European, kitchen cabinet greatly reduced material, needs, and production time. Doors would align tightly together, creating a clean, flowing line of casework. This reflected a modernist view of a changing world where time was short and production and efficiency reigned supreme. This construction method yielded other benefits. Drawers could be wider and deeper because they didn't need to clear a face frame. And storage and removal of items along with cleaning the cabinet interior became easier and more efficient.

Today, the line between the face frame and frameless casework has blurred slightly. Frameless cabinets are no longer limited to flush-laminate doors; most of the frameless kitchens that are built these days, feature traditional raised panel doors, multi-part cornice moldings, and other accessories furnishing each kitchen with warmth and comfort. For building, installing, maximizing storage, and ease of use, frameless cabinets can't be surpassed. If, on the other hand, you would prefer a touch of timeless tradition in your kitchen, your cabinets are only a face frame away.

Efficient Layout & Design of a Kitchen

Arriving at an efficient layout for a kitchen in a confined space can be a challenge. Invariably, the size and location of your kitchen cabinets will have to be flexible enough to accommodate the location of appliances, utilities, windows, and doors. Drafting scale floor plans and elevations can help you visualize your layout. Once you have settled on the placement of your cabinets, you can divide their runs into individual cabinets and drawers. While most kitchen cabinets stick to basic dimensional standards in height, their width and number of doors can be fine-tuned to reach a visually well-balanced kitchen design.

Accuracy is crucial when drafting floor plans and elevations. A site-referenced story pole tells you everything you need to know about a kitchen wall in precise detail, including the location and size of the cabinets. By using these small lengths of wood for each wall and cabinet, you can proceed from the floor plan to the cutting list with a minimum of errors. From there to your dream kitchen is only a few more careful steps.

Building an Eye-Catching Kitchen – Using Cherry, Oak Woods, Ash, Maple or Mahogany

In the kitchen environment of today, designing and building kitchens is much more than a way of recycling leftover homebuilding materials. To create eye-catching residential kitchens, today's designers have taken a cue from the extraordinary work of cabinetmakers. The different woods and finishes that make up the cabinetmaker's palette provide the freedom to conjure up any style. With his tools, the cabinetmaker might carve cherry or oak woods, create French or English Country cabinets, or shape an intimate Arts and Crafts kitchen in beech. He could fashion an Art Deco look in the richness of walnut, or an Art Nouveau, Victorian, or Early American look in a variety of woods; Pine, Ash, Maple, or Mahogany, to name a few. The cabinetmaker might even work with laminates, putting at his disposal the entire color spectrum. And let's not forget the stains that produce an array of hues and patinas. The range of choices is breathtaking.

Impacts of Kitchen Cabinets on Cooking

The cabinetmaker has also made the cook's life a delight by incorporating the right kind of accessories that can make the cook's job easier, even fun. For example, there are drawers and roll-outs with hardware that gives the cook fingertip control, and pantries that are only a foot wide yet 84 inches tall, providing enormous storage when pulled out of a wall cabinet with ease. More and more, the kitchen designer of today is drawing on the past and the present to create a kitchen environment that looks and cooks beautifully.

Smooth Installation

Kitchen cabinets need top-quality installation to look good and function well. Unlike fine furniture that can look good in a dusty corner of the shop, cabinets don't come to life until after they have been installed. Unfortunately, we tend to put off considering the problems of installation because it happens in an unfamiliar environment and requires skills different from those needed to build the cabinets.

To avoid these problems, start with and stick to a detailed installation plan, drawn up well before the cabinets are finished. Don t be tempted to change it because you suddenly like a 42-inch drop-in cooktop instead of the 36-inch one you originally planned for. This will force you to modify the range base, both adjacent cabinets, and their drawers. It's far more efficient to bring all parties to the negotiating table and make that kind of decision before you build the cabinets.