for full details and styles, or give us a call for a free consultation and design. You can call Benjamin at 503-724-9400 or call our office at 503-591-7107. We’ll be happy to meet with you and help you build the kitchen of your dreams.


GET STARTED ON YOUR CABINET CHOICE...

Choosing cabinets for your new kitchen can be a bit overwhelming - stock vs. custom-made, wood vs. stainless steel, natural finishes vs. painted finishes - the list of choices seems endless! Narrow down your preferences one at a time, and you'll soon find that choosing the perfect cabinets is as easy as pie!

Budget.

Whenever you start any construction or remodeling project, your first step should be to decide what you want to spend. In kitchen projects, especially, costs can quickly spiral out of control with one upgrade here, another there, and just one more over here! After you have decided what your overall budget is, cut that amount in half. This should be your cabinet budget. It sounds excessive, given that you may also need to purchase appliances, flooring and countertops, but cabinets are typically the biggest financial investment in a kitchen.

Type of construction.

Once you've decided on budget, this question becomes much easier. There are three types of cabinet construction - stock, semi-custom and custom-made cabinets.

Stock cabinets are the ones that you will find at your local home improvement store. They are manufactured in a limited number of widths, with a limited number of options and materials. Because they are not made to fit exactly in your kitchen, you may need to use filler strips to disguise spaces between your cabinets and walls. However, stock cabinets do have many advantages. Even though you have limited choices, they are made in the most popular finishes, sizes and materials. So, although you may not be able to get a one-of-a-kind look, you can still possibly find exactly what you want. Stock cabinets are the least expensive option of the three types of cabinet construction. However, this doesn't mean that they are cheaply made. The quality of stock cabinets can be every bit as good as custom cabinetry.

Semi-custom cabinets are manufactured after you place an order with a cabinet supplier. Since they are made to order, you will have more options than with stock cabinets. You may be able to choose from drawers with slide-outs, pantries, and odd-size cabinets, as well as a wider array of materials and finishes. However, they are not custom-made, so your options are not limitless. Semi-custom cabinets are more expensive than stock cabinets.

Custom-made cabinets are the creme de la creme of kitchen cabinets. They are made by either a custom cabinetry manufacturer or a local custom wood shop. Because they are made exactly according to your specifications, you can choose from nearly any material or finish possible. You can also design cabinets which will maximize the space in your kitchen. If you want cabinetry that looks more like furniture than kitchen cupboards, a custom cabinetmaker can do that, too. Of course, the price for all of these choices is quite steep - custom cabinets are by far the most expensive option.

Style.

Before you try to choose a style for your kitchen cabinets, it's helpful to go through magazines and kitchen design books and mark pictures of kitchens that you like. You will probably start to notice a trend in the kitchens that you admire. This can make your decision on a cabinet style much easier. It's difficult to walk into a cabinet showroom and choose which ones will look best in your kitchen. However, if you already know that you like a streamlined look more than cabinets with lots of carved details, it can help you focus on the cabinets which best reflect your style.

Material.

Here's where the really tough choices start! You used to be able to choose cabinets in painted metal or unstained wood. That was it - two choices! Now, there are so many choices, you could spend an entire day in a cabinet showroom and not have time to see them all.

Alder is a wood that has just recently come into favor as cabinet material. It has very little grain, is very pale, and accepts stains easily, so it can be colored any shade you'd like.

Birch is the least-expensive option in cabinet materials, and it's the material most commonly used in stock cabinets. It's usually quite pale, but may vary in porosity, so if you stain it, you may not get color quite as uniform as you'd like.

Cherry wood has been used in upscale kitchens for decades. It has a very smooth, uniform grain and looks very elegant. It can be stained many shades, but the most common is a deep brown-red.

Hickory is another option. It's a very hard wood that holds up well. It has a pronounced straight grain and is most at home in country kitchens.

Maple is the number one choice for kitchen cabinets presently. It has a smooth, fine grain that accepts color well, so it can blend right in with your kitchen, no matter what the style.

Mahogany is gaining in popularity as a cabinet material choice. It's very dark, with a straight grain, so it fits in best with formal kitchens.

Oak has traditionally been the most popular choice for kitchen cabinetry and it's easy to see why. It has a coarse texture that can be made more pronounced with a dark stain, or lessened with a lighter stain. It's very durable and doesn't expand with humidity as much as other woods.

The final choice in kitchen cabinetry wood is walnut. Walnut is very dark, although not as dark as ebony. It has an open grain, which means the texture that occurs naturally in the wood is very apparent. Walnut is usually more expensive and can only be obtained through custom cabinet makers.

Finishes.

Once you've chosen a cabinet material, you'll need to decide on a finish. If you've chosen laminate cabinets, all you need to do is choose a color. Make sure you choose a color that you can live with for quite a while. You don't want to be remodeling again in a few years because you're completely tired of the butter yellow cabinets that seemed so perfect in the beginning.

If you've chosen stainless steel cabinets, you will need to decide only if you want to use all stainless or a blend of stainless and wood. As mentioned before, adding a few wood cabinets can make your kitchen look more contemporary and less industrial.

If you've chosen wood cabinets, you'll need to decide between leaving your wood in its natural state, which means to simply apply a clear varnish; staining it, which will add color, but still allow the grain of the wood to show through; and painting it, which adds opaque color and obscures the grain. This choice depends solely upon your own personal preferences, although if you've chosen a very expensive wood, it's a bit silly to cover it up with paint!


CABINET STYLES