In “Fiddler on the Roof,” Tevya, the husband and father, sings a song about things people do without thinking, just because they’re an honored tradition. So, applying that to cabinets, must all Traditional style kitchen cabinets look the same? No! If you like the feeling of reassurance and comfort created by the lines of Traditional kitchen cabinets, there’s a lot of leeway in your choices. A Q & A session may be in order here:

Defining Traditional cabinets

1. Q: Your husband says traditional cabinets are dark wood. You say they’re light. Who’s right? A: Both of you, and your mother, too. They can be of any shade of wood, or even painted, especially whites or off-whites.
2. Q: So what defines a very traditional cabinet style? A: Both doors and drawer fronts are framed. No arches. The frame is often, but not always, curved down toward the center. Narrow half-round moldings separate the frame from the center panel. Those rounded moldings are a quintessentially Traditional, though they may be flush with the frame or raised above it. The molding may be tight between the center panel and door frame, or it may be somewhere in between. There may even be more than one set of rounded moldings between door frame and center panel, or a rounded molding around the perimeter. The number and placement of moldings allow a surprising degree of creativity. They create a soft geometry and repetition that is pleasing and soothing.
3. Q. What about the cabinet tops? Plain or fancy? A: Traditional kitchen cabinets have a crown molding of various heights, angles, and amount of half-round moldings. Make them more prominent in a large, tall, formal kitchen. Keep them minimal for a small kitchen or a more contemporary look.
4. Q. Are the door center panels raised, flat, or recessed? A: Yes. Any of the above.
5. Q: What about carvings, pillars, arches, lattices and the like? A: You can make your kitchen a bit more contemporary by not including such ornamentation, or you can give it a heritage look by including them. This is great if one spouse likes contemporary and the other likes traditional, as it’s possible to blend the styles.
6. Q: How much  do Traditional cabinets cost compared with other styles? A: Traditional cabinets remain very popular becaue they are timeless and can blend with many types of decor. Price will depend on your choice of wood or paint, the contruction techniques (e.g., dove-tailed versus butt-jointed drawers,) how much hardwood there is and what type is used, and the degree of ornamentation.

Go ahead. Choose Traditional for your kitchen cabinets. As for the rest of your life–cut loose a little!

Country kitchen styles can be anything from farmhouse, to French or English provincial, or that beloved, woodsy style called “cottage.”  If you want your kitchen to evoke that inviting cottage feeling,  there are products from lighting and plumbing fixtures to cabinets, countertops, appliances and floors, that help create a cottage kitchen look.  So if you’re cottage-addicted, what are the essential elements?

Must-haves for a cottage kitchen

1. Cabinets:  Warm, medium-hued woods with the natural knots still in place are the signature of a cottage kitchen.  Knotty pine is traditional, but several other woods, including cherry, hickory, maple, and oak are also available.  Between them you can choose the color, degree of visible grain, and knot size.  Replace existing cabinets and take advantage of new trends such as roll-out under-counter cupboards with roll out drawers , narrow slide-out pantries, and excellent suspension systems.  Alternately, save big time by refacing existing cabinets with new doors,  drawer fronts, and hardware.  The cabinet cases can be veneered to match.
2. Countertops:  True, butcher block countertops create an authentic cottage kitchen look, but they can breed bacteria unless diligently maintained.  Reserve a small area of butcher block for food prep.  Soapstone is a natural stone that has been used for American countertops, sinks, stoves and floors, for 200 years.  Applying oil or wax periodically will help retain its rich colors, but soapstone won’t burn, stain, or be etched by food acids. Veined slabs are often gray with subtle or dominant green, blue-gray, and brown hues.
3. Appliances: Retro-look refrigerators and stoves with current features and historic colors are available from several sources such as Big Chill, Heartland, and Northstar. Some are ENERGY STAR rated!
4. Plumbing:  Many faucet manufacturers, including American Standard, Delta, Moen and Pfister, and  carry styles appropriate to cottage kitchens.
5. Lighting:  Many rustic lighting styles are suitable.  Stained glass lighting and lights wound with metal motifs of nature and animals are possibilities, as are lantern, Craftsman, antler and simple metal cone styles.
6. Flooring:   Choose waterproof, abrasion-resistant materials. For a wood look, choose polyurethane treated wood or wood-look laminates.  Tile, stone, and cork are other alternatives. Sheet and strip vinyls that simulate natural materials are tough and inexpensive.

Sure, you want it all, now!  Start with the cabinets for immediate impact. Prioritize other changes and your cottage kitchen will get ever closer to your dreams.

Anita is currently remodeling her kitchen and stopped by a local custom cabinet shop after admiring cabinets from that shop in her sister’s home.  Anita’s new countertops and appliances are installed, the wallpaper is gone and the walls prepped for painting.  She plans to tear out the lighting soffits over the countertops and is shopping for sleek new track lights, and also for tiles for the backsplash.

Anita has prices from two standard sources for refacing her cabinet doors and drawer fronts and veneering the cabinet cases.  Slab-style doors seem an economical and stylistically pleasing choice.  She wasn’t expecting to be thunderstruck by the Shaker cabinets she saw in the local cabinet shop.

You aren’t wed to your original choices

The solid cherry Shaker cabinets with figured center panels in the local showroom made Anita’s knees go weak.  The door frames shine with a reddish-gold luster, and the  center panels have aged to an even richer reddish tone.  Every pair of doors has book-matched patterned wood center panels of furniture-grade plywood.  The drawer fronts are flat pieces of solid cherry.  For Anita it was love at first sight. 

Shaken by the custom Shakers, she talked with the shop owners about options that could make that look affordable,  fearing that these  dream cabinets were  beyond reach.  But she’s assessing her remaining kitchen projects to see if the Shaker custom refacing is possible by rethinking her options. 

1. Cabinet materials:   It’s those magnificent deep red figured center panels that are key to the custom Shaker cabinets’ beauty.   The cabinet shop will price out door frames of a less expensive, cherry-stained wood, while retaining the oiled book-matched cherry wood center panels. Fortunately drawer fronts will be unframed, as with Anita’s existing quotes.  She’s willing to use the same less expensive cherry-stained wood on the drawer fronts that the shop is suggesting for the door frames.  Another drawer-front alternative is furniture-grade cherry plywood, even though the plies will be visible when the drawers are open.
2. Omit the backsplash:  Paint will definitely be cheaper than the tiles and labor needed for a tile backsplash.
3. Keep the lighting:  The lighting soffit can  be retained, and the costs of  tearing it out and putting in new lights will be saved.

The price from the custom cabinet shop shows a modest, affordable increase over Anita’s original refacing budget, what with savings gained from the revised plan.  Anita knows that kitchens are a major factor in resale value, and that the custom Shaker cabinet doors will create more visual impact than any of the sacrificed items.  Keeping an open mind and taking advantage of some cost-saving options is a great example for any remodeler.

Creating a kitchen backsplash from all the gorgeous new materials out there today can be  mind-boggling.  Almost any choice can last longer and make clean-ups  easier than painted drywall.  But the amount of maintenance required will vary depending on your choice of materials. 

Grease and grime take work and time

Airborne cooking particles are adventurous, settling on everything from cabinets to countertops to floors. They breed bacteria.  Backsplashes earn their name by taking the brunt of such droplets, blobs, and splatters, especially near your cooking and food prep areas.  Restaurants and homes with modern or contemporary architecture solve the problem by utilizing stainless steel backsplashes, an easy-to-clean, groutless choice.  But if you’re all slathered up about those beautifully textured, cobbled, multi-dimensional stone, glass, shell, and tile choices, keep the pasta sauce test in mind: Picture yourself with an old toothbrush excavating dried red residue.

Some backsplashes are tidier than others  

1. Surfaces: Smoother, shinier surfaces are likely to clean more easily than textured, bumpy, or matte surfaces. 
2. Scale: Larger scaled materials clean more easily than small scale, because the ratio of  tile to grout is greater.  The more grout there is, the more little ins and outs there are to catch goop.  A beautiful little mosaic that has 16 segments in a 4 x 4″ area can take more time to clean than a single 4 x 4″ tile.  A work-around is to use the more segmented pieces as occasional accents in a backsplash with a larger-scaled pieces.
3. Ins and outs: Many backsplash options vary in depth on their backing, creating deeper shadows and a rich 3-D look.  Linear trim pieces may bulge or bubble, or have an incised design,  creating a welcome mat for a dust-and-grease gumbo.  Look instead at trim pieces may that complement your major material in color, texture or material while being of about the same depth. 
4. Grout: Keeping grout clean is the bane of many homeowners. If possible, seal your backsplash grout periodically, keeping it less porous.  Or if you’re happy with a darker grout color, go for it.  Good camouflage reduces the frequency of cleaning (if not the growth of bacteria.) 
5. Compromise: Many kitchens have a special focal point  design in the clean-up war zone behind the taller backsplash of the stovetop area, and a similar shorter design behind the main food prep countertop area.  Choose shinier, flatter, and larger scale coordinating tiles in those areas.  Satisfy your  3-D longings elsewhere in the backsplash.

Backsplash materials suppliers sell sealers, stains, cleaners and mold removers.  Keep cheap toothbrushes on hand, and some good sponges.  Clean big messes immediately.  And if your desire for texture and matte surfaces can’t be denied, make your maintenance committment and go for it!

What?  Replace those framed kitchen cabinet doors, however worn, with a flat, one-piece slab door? Why?  Listen, my children, and you shall hear.

The virtues and varieties of slab door refacing 

1. Contemporary and modern kitchens:  Simplicity and boldness of line are key elements of these decor styles.  Reface the cabinet cases with your choice of paint, solid-colored laminate, textured or patterned laminate, or a wood grain. Mix and match any of these surfaces by, for example, choosing a dark brown solid laminate for the cabinet cases and choosing a rich wood grain for doors and drawer fronts. Or paint the cabinet cases a metallic silver and choose a very contemporary patterned or textured laminate for the slab doors. Awesome!  Sky’s the limit on ideas. Usually a thin, square-edged slab door style is used.
2. The Euro look:  Northern European cabinets have a unique take on the slab door, yah sure!  Cabinet cases and doors are often white or cream to reflect lots of light during long dark winters. Some have a simple strip of wood across the door bottom or drawer top that is routed to serve as a grip.  Woods with somewhat parallel grain may be used for both cases and doors.   Tweak the look by running the wood grain horizontally for overhead cabinets, vertically for under-counter cabinets.  Hardware often has a wide, thin stainless tubular or rectangular profile.  Woods are more often medium to light colors. Slab doors are thin with a squared edge, as with contemporary kitchens.
3. Oriental decor:  Achieve an Asian kitchen style with wood and/or colors for refacing the cabinets.  Use a beautiful bamboo veneer or laminate for the doors and drawer fronts, and lacquer paint the cabinet cases black, red, or rich gold.  Choose the rich beauty of teak, either as a laminate or veneer, for both cabinet and cases.  Use a hidden grooved edge for door grips, or select Oriental-style hardware. 
4. Country:  Farmhouse or country kitchens often have simple slab doors with a rounded exterior edge.  Paint is the customary finish, but cases and doors don’t have to match.  Creamy doors on a dusty warm green case look  inviting and historic, or you may prefer rich sky blue doors on white cases, or some other mix.  Door and drawer handles may be wood or simple curved chrome designs.

Slab doors require no tedious sanding and delicate staining for do-it-yourselfers. They can be a very cost-efficient choice if purchased from pros.  Fail-save advice?  Try them–you’ll like them!