The Hawaiian Home
Kitchen's Made Brand New Again!

Kitchens Take A Beating!
Most people start looking hard at remodeling their kitchen when it gets in the 25 to 35 year range. For people that’s a good age range but for kitchens that’s represents a lot of use.

Older kitchen often have laminate counter tops glued down over particle board that is decaying away. The cabinets used in many tract homes built in the 70’s and 80’s or high-rise condominium built in the 60’s forward are of the budget variety. In house’s built in the 1960’s and earlier cabinets were built by carpenters on the job site often by the same tongue in groove siding or plywood that the home is built from.

What Can be Done?
It’s surprising to find in other wise well designed homes and apartment building that kitchen layout seemed to have been barely an afterthought. To be fair professional kitchen design work is of relatively recent origin and a separate discipline of interior design.

The interesting thing about the kitchen is there is often a lot more ability to modify its design to compliment the way people live than is often thought. With the kitchen area gutted down to bare walls serious modification and upgrade is obtainable and affordable considering the use and aesthetics of the finished product


There is often some unique desire in a new kitchen project like more light or a casual bar top for kids to eat lunch. Yet the one rule I find most useful in applying to any kitchen design is creating maximum use of storage space and more open counter top area.

Some variation of a U shaped kitchen tends to give the most working counter space and naturally creates the triangular work area between sink, stove and refrigerator. It’s surprising how many kitchens have two or more entry points which block areas where additional cabinet and counter top could be to obtain better use of the available space.

I prefer tall cabinetry often to a soffit which is a short drop down ceiling which helps gives the kitchen more character and is an excellent place to install recessed task lighting. The base of the wall cabinets should be 18” or so off the finished counter top which in an 8’ ceiling house will mean wall cabinets 36”to 42” tall.

Kitchens Last A Long Time...
In cabinetry I find it best not to go cheap. A lot of mass produced cabinets are good for 25 to 35 years depending on the quality of construction. Truly well built cabinetry will last a century or more if properly taken care of. Now it’s a given a well built cabinet with a slab of 10,000 year granite on top will out last all of us. The point being the well built cabinet like a high quality roof will hold up better inside and out decades after its installation compared to the lower cost alternative.

One last housekeeping point is before the cabinets go back is to clean and seal up all opening in the walls and floors. Replace damaged or rotted drywall, close off the areas the previous builders were careless about sealing. This step helps everyone have a much cleaner finished product and helps protect the whole kitchen.

What About Cabinet Refacing?
When it comes to installing new doors over existing cabinets I recommend if the inside of the cabinet is old and falling apart it’s not a good use of their remodeling funds. Better to wait and go with new cabinetry. If they happen to have cabinet that are under 15 years old and in good shape (usually not the case) I see no problem with ordering new doors.


Paul Mossman
http://pfcremodelinc.com/