About a year ago, I got a call from 2 nice ladies who said they had a client who wanteded her kitchen remodeled. They were referred to me from another client. This is the kind of call I love to get.

As it turns out, this was not what they do every day, but in fact they apparently often do just about anything their clients ask of them. Their names are Patti Beck and Mianna Harlepp. Their company name is “Bubble Wrap” which I thought was unusual for my industry, but we proceeded to meet and plan for the new cabinetry to be made.


In working on this project with Bubble Wrap I learned exactly what they routinely do: easing the strain of moving.

This particular homeowner had just moved into an older home and traveled so often she couldn’t even unpack. They helped her unpack, arrange furniture, paint, put up artwork, arranged for workmen of every type, including installation of gorgeous window boxes and the planting of them. A contractor they hired came in and gutted the kitchen. The new cabinetry went in. Appliances and granite tops were installed, along with lighting and plumbing fixtures. This room now is one thousand percent more efficient and attractive than it was originally and it’s also beautifully stocked with the client’s dishes, glasses, and cookware. Everything is exactly where it should be. All of the material selections were done for the client by shopping around and e-mailing pictures and specifications so the homeowner didn’t have to step foot in a showroom. She also didn’t have to be home to let anyone in. Now that’s service.

Kleppinger Design Group designs and supplies cabinetry for Kitchens, bathrooms, offices, mudrooms, libraries, pantries, and anywhere else one might want some cabinetry to store things with easy access. We take the time to help decide exactly what items should go where. You want a potholder to be easy to reach from the oven. You want the cabinets for dishes as close to the open dishwasher as can be. We tailor each kitchen to the individual homeowner’s needs.

Bubble Wrap unloads, packs, and unpacks (among so many other things). This service is wonderful for those homeowners remodeling their homes who just can’t face the thought of emptying out their cabinetry and putting it in a pile in their home for the duration of the construction. It also is most helpful on the other end: putting it all away neatly.

Those two ladies can also help with the various selections since they are great with color and scale. Light fixtures, countertops, tile and paint colors are sometimes hard to get just right. It’s wonderful to have a trained eye guiding your choices of such pricey stuff. Clever furniture arrangement is another bonus you receive when you hire this ingenious duo. If you need tradesmen for any service or product, they have a good one.

I will be handing out their card to my kitchen clients who are intimidated by the prospect of emptying the contents of their kitchens before the remodel. Imagine coming home to a clean
room with all your belongings safely packed away (in bubble wrap!) then then, when the kitchen is complete, coming home to a working kitchen.

Clever business, and nice ladies.

T-25 days until work officially begins on remodeling our kitchen. Given that we have been in our house 9 years, my wife can hardly wait. While we have talked about it for years, the funds to actually proceed with the project as well as my urge to do it came to reality about six months ago when I made an innocent little comment. Something about “if we are going to spend X amount of money on the house, I’d put into the kitchen before I spent it on flagstone steps and landscaping.” That of course led to the question of how much will our kitchen cost? Well, four months and about a dozen designs later (yes it took that long to figure out my own kitchen) we finally had a plan and idea that we both love, and it fits into the price range we could afford. About mid December the cabinet order was placed, and on January the 4th, the cabinets went into production. Since that time, my wife has done holiday baking, birthday cakes and treats for our two young sons, and we entertained her family for Christmas, (as a fitting send off, my brother-in-law cooked a fabulous Prime Rib in our old and aging Hot Point oven) and at every step she was imagining where things would be in the new space.


While she is excited to get started and more importantly finished so she can start using her new double ovens, I am the one who is stressed. Where will we store things, how am I going to get all the painting and touch up finished after the drywall is installed, where will we eat breakfast, is the cabinet order right, how will we keep our 3 year old from driving his trains on the exposed electrical wires? Anything can be a train track to him. While the big items are decided (cabinets obviously, hardware and counters) we still need to pick a faucet and paint color for the kitchen. The only thing holding us back now is she is hosting a baby shower for a friend on the 5th of February, so the house can’t be in disarray. However as soon as people are gone, everything begins getting boxed up and packed away. So as Valentines Day approaches (yes the contractor begins demolition on February 14th) and couples are planning their romantic dates, nothing will say “I love you” to my wife more than seeing our old kitchen torn out.

Check back to see how we are progressing on the project, and as I offer my thoughts not only as a kitchen designer, but a customer as well.

Go to the photos...

- Andrew

We are well into 2011, and despite my attempt at getting my new craft room finished for the New Year, we are pitifully behind schedule. All of the pieces of cabinetry I had designed for the room has not yet arrived. (The Winter Holiday is the time for cabinet factories to shut down completely and for all the employees to take deserved vacation time.) I still have yet to get the wallpaper border removed. The Christmas decorations have been taken down and tossed in there and the door closed to keep the cats out. Oh well.


Shall I concentrate on the good news? All the difficult sorting of stuff I needed to keep and stuff I needed to toss has been done. A ton of old fabric has been carted to the thrift shop and donated. The fabric for the windows and the new closet opening has been purchased. I also have the “Dif” product which promises easy wallpaper removal. Decisions about how to store various items for the many crafts I enjoy have been made. New light fixtures are waiting for installation. (I will finally be able to see well to sew!) The design is pretty much refined to a point where I just want to get on with it, but as in many home improvement projects, we have to remain patient. They ALWAYS take gobs more time to complete than we estimate. I know it will be worth the wait.

It has become clear to me that I have a major design dilemma at my house. I used to love to sew when my daughter was small. (She’s 26 now) At that point in my life, I also wasn’t as busy and had more time for this relaxing pastime as well as so many other crafts I enjoy. I realize even now, I could be enjoying it more if I wasn’t inclined to avoid this messy space.
I keep the door closed when people come over because it is the sore spot of my entire house. I’m ready to concede that the room I designated for crafts in my home is in dire need of a makeover. The storage system I thought would work well never did. (converted closet and tall chest of drawers) The small loveseat/twin pullout bed I thought was a great idea wasn’t. (too uncomfortable as a guest bed and too big for the room intended for it.) The old desk I had my sewing machine and serger on is really not enough surface space to jockey them around. The Pier 1 paper lamp hanging from the ceiling is woefully inadequate. My cheap task light broke a long time ago and the table lamp I stuck in its place is too big and awkward.

I have decided that in 2011 I will spend more time crafting. I know I can make some snappy belts and jewelry. I have all the stuff already in my stash. I have tools and beads galore. I have books upon books for inspiration. I just need the proper space to do it in and a way of finding all my pieces and parts needed. I finally realized I needed to approach this challenge just like I do when I design a kitchen.

I am starting fresh. I need lots of countertop space for my sewing machine and serger. (one area for each) I need some drawers for little notions and tools. I need really wonderful overall ceiling and task lighting. I need a separate area for storing fabric and patterns plus the boxes of zippers, seam tape, elastic, lace, and ribbon. I am tired of fighting the closet door, and really don’t like that it intrudes on the floor space when it’s open. I also really want this new room to be an attractive space that I will love to work in. It won’t hurt if others see it and I won’t mind that it will say loud and clear, a creative mind lives here.

These are all the goals of a new kitchen. We want it to be well organized, personalized, beautiful and functional. The things you select will announce proudly what type of a homeowner lives here. Even if you don’t like to cook, you have to get the food on the table somehow. By thinking through all the processes and planning what goes where, your life can be easier and even more fun. We are all about helping you to do that as well as be proud instead of embarrassed when others see your new space.

Stay tuned to see how my project turns out!

Mid Continent is a production line of cabinetry that we've used for many years. We've seen them expand their offerings over the last decade and continue to maintain a very attractive price point. In a letter we just received from the Vice President's of Sales, Jack Laninga and James Buller, it looks like Mid Continent will continue to bring more new products to market in 2011 while maintaining good cost control.
 
Some of the new product offerings we saw in 2011 included:
·         Ten new door styles
·         Five new finish options
·         Hundreds of new cabinet types, sizes, and accessories
·         New programs including custom backs for islands and a new vanity program
 
Mid Continent will also continue to offer their promotions and incentive programs through April 29, 2011:
·         APC – 33 percent off
·         Decorative doors – 15 percent off
·         Free Glaze finish
·         Solid Center Panel doors – 5 percent off
·         As always, standard paint colors have no up charge

If you are interested in seeing a full array of Mid Continent products please stop by our showroom in Merrifield Virginia.

Exclusive to Crystal, Lux Guard is the new top coat with enhanced depth of color durability and a touchable silky feel like no other. Crystal has been hard at work along with Valspar to develop a coating that gives their finishes a hand-rubbed effect with more depth and luster. The new coating offers a better coverage than ever before, increasing the actual thickness of the finish - you can really feel the difference! The LuxGuard coating is applied to all of Crystal's stains and Signature paints in standard or flat sheen.


An earlier post back in July of 2008 introduced the Valspar Zenith G1 topcoat used by Crystal. Here is that earlier post:

Crystal Cabinets uses Valspar's Zenith G1 Products that are now Greenguard® Indoor Air Quality Certified. THis new topcoat meets the stringent requirements of the Greenguard® Environmental Institute's air quality standard for low emitting products.

One May 4, 2009 Crystal began to transition all clear topcoats (standard sheen and flat sheen) and clear sealers to an ultra-low emitting material, called Zenith G1 topcoat. This finish will become the standard clear topcoat and sealer and will be applied on all drawer boxes and cabinetry finished with stains, Signature Portrait with highlight or brushing and water-based stains.


These ultra-low emitting finishes have been formulated to meet or exceed all KCMA durability standards - chemical, moisture, mar and scratch resistance - yet still qualify as a low-emitting finish.

Looking for a unique stain color? We are excited to introduce Slate, our exclusive new stain for maple! The stain has a gorgeous, dark-grayish tone, giving the wood an almost silvery look! Available in all product lines for every budget!!

Crystal Cabinetry continues to develop unique stains that are also eco-friendly. They have also recently introduced 4 new lighter maple stains - Fawn, Prairie, Toffee and Prailine. We will be getting samples of all the new stains for our showroom soon. Until then you can have a closer look at the Crystal website.

This is a question I rarely get asked. Clients who visit our showroom to look at cabinetry often are either nervous about this question, or they already have a good idea about what these things will cost. Sometimes people go into shock when they hear me tell them what they might like to budget for the cabinetry portion of the project. This can vary wildly in what percentage of the overall cost of entire project runs. I have seen cabinetry exceeding half of the entire budget, or using only about 20% of it. This certainly is determined by the level of quality that a client is expecting and which items are priorities to the client as well as how large the room is and how many cabinets there are. If the budget is tight, but the client wants commercial grade appliances and exotic stone for the countertops, there may be only enough money left for cheaper cabinets. The truth is, people usually want better cabinetry, and many are surprised to hear that what they thought was good quality often is less so.

"Production quality" is good for many remodeling projects. This product is a money and time saver as the cabinets are produced quickly (literally 2 days in some cases) and shipped quickly. Depending on the brand, there can be many beautiful door styles and the choices in finishes continue to get nicer looking as these factories do battle with each other to get your business. The fact is though, that if you intend to stay in the house for over 5-10 years, you may want to look to one of the next levels which we call semi-custom and full custom. For the sake of today's blog entry, let's focus on the production variety.

These cabinet companies often print expensive gorgeous literature and hire excellent designers so that the visible parts of the product are great looking, mainly the doors and the drawer fronts. This is what you find in the Big Box stores in a variety of quality levels.

The least expensive has particle board in various thicknesses as the main construction material including the drawer bodies, sides, bottoms, tops, and shelves. Purchasing these cabinets for your project is a great way to save money on getting a home ready for quick sale (flipping), although due to the nature of the construction, these are more liable to suffering shipping damage.


Many production builders will use this product for either a whole house or various rooms other than the kitchen. (laundry room, baths) Their builder's guarantee for one year allows them to use cheaper materials as the homeowner is responsible for things breaking down after those 365 days are up. Typically the silverware drawer is the first to go. Sound familiar???

The levels go up from here often including upgrades like wood drawers, dovetail joinery, plywood sides option, and veneer wood ends instead of printed wood-grained vinyl. Once you have included all these upgrades, added the nice accessories like rollout shelves, pullout trash and recycle units, glass doors, nice moldings, cherry wood or paint, you are getting closer to the semi-custom price but still able to save a bit of money and receive your order in approximately 3-4 weeks.

These cabinets really work well in bathrooms, laundry rooms, family room built-ins, basement wet bars and the like. They might not get the hard use a kitchen does. They can be fine for a kitchen remodel as well, but think of it like this: These products have shorter life spans than the next level up. They were made quickly without to much thought or care or hand finishing. When your whole kitchen is completed, and you have installed beautiful new flooring, fabulous granite countertops, great sink and faucet and integrated new appliances into the plan, the last thing you want to think about is replacing the cabinetry. Those cabinets are literally trapped in between the floor and the top.

Give us call and schedule a time to drop by our Merrifield showroom and have a quick demonstration of the "piece parts" of cabinets. We are more than happy to show you the differences.

If you have a budget in mind for your project, our job is to help keep you there. We can point out some great money saving ideas to meet your comfort level.

-Julie Hendrickson

Kitchen sinks come in lots of materials other than stainless steel. I love stainless myself, but I do have clients who don’t and want to know which way to go on this extremely important part of their new kitchen.

When I replaced my counter tops (10 years ago??) I chose DuPont Corian for various reasons. (the stuff of another whole blog post) I wanted stainless steel under-mount sinks in my new tops, but was over-ruled by my husband and daughter. The seamed-in Corian sinks I got are cool as there is absolutely nowhere for grime to hide. If you close your eyes and feel the area where the sink and top are joined, you will not be able to feel a seam at all. It is quite hygienic, and for that reason doctors and nurses seem to be especially drawn to that feature. My objection to Corian as a sink material is that it is white (or off white). I don’t know about your house, but the stuff that hits my sink is rarely white. It’s coffee, tomato sauce, grease, berries, meat juices and all sorts of dark staining stuff. A bit of “Soft Scrub” with bleach is all it takes to make it look new again though. I did manage to gouge a spot at the bottom by bringing the barbeque grids in and trying to clean them in the sink. When it’s clean you really can’t tell, thank goodness.

Other choices for sink materials exist, and if you don’t want stainless, you owe it to yourself to explore them all. The porcelain cast iron sink is certainly substantial, and does come in some lovely colors. It may take two people to carry it in the house as they are so incredibly heavy. Kohler is the big manufacturer of these and they come in a huge array of shapes and bowl sizes. The surface can be scratched or even chipped, but you’d have to drop a brick on it to make a big mark. The surface is high gloss so cleans
up brilliantly. If you under-mount one of these behemoths, (which you should) be prepared to pay your installer extra to build an armature below it to support the extra weight. These sinks are heavy on their own, but imagine what one will weigh when it’s full of water.


The “Americast” by American Standard looks like the porcelain variety, but doesn’t weigh or cost as much. I have seen one chipped, probably from abuse, but keep in mind what can happen in your house. I learned that American Standard is considering discontinuing this product, probably because of durability issues.

Blanco and a few other manufacturers have been making composite sinks for quite some time. They use ground granite (80%), silica and binders to form the sink. The surface is a bit textured rather than glossy. They are tough, but I have heard objections about them being difficult to keep clean. They make a charcoal black one, which I was fairly certain, would not show dirt, but the client who bought it tells me it always looks dingy.

Marblex, a great granite fabricator and neighbor of ours has been making sinks out of stone for years. http://www.marblexinc.com/ In their showroom, there is a lovely stone farm sink that matches the countertop. I have a client who saw it and instantly decided on that sink for her new home. It looks fabulous, and I can’t imagine anything hurting it. She paid a large sum for it, but it gets a workout as she has 3 kids.

I have seen soap stone farm sinks that look as if they’ve been around for centuries. Smart farmers!

All in all, I like stainless steel the best for it’s qualities:

Beautiful
Durable
Heat resistant
Forgiving of dishes and glasses
Ease of cleaning
Tons of shapes and sizes
Easy availability
Cost effective

But if you must have some other material for your sink, be prepared to do
your homework and shopping. You surely don’t want to regret your choice
when your new fabulous kitchen is complete.
-Julie

When I go to a client’s home for the first time, I take pictures and careful measurements. I note what is stored where. I’ll ask what kind of cooking goes on there? How many people are eating in the kitchen at one time? What about the daily communications? I often find that 70’s style “Mom’s Desk” off to one side. It typically consists of a lap drawer “knee hole” with a small cabinet above it. I even see the old NuTone communication system above it, where apparently Mom was able to speak to all the family members while she was sitting there planning the weeks’ meals and cutting coupons. The phone is always there too, and often still with a cord holding it there like a captive. It’s clear that no one sits there anymore. The chair is often gone, and sometimes a wireless phone has long ago replaced the old corded one. We all have to have an area for our communications. The calendar, schedules, mail, weekly school packets…it all has to go somewhere, right?

That was then and this is now. Sometimes it takes some convincing, but my job is to point out new ways of doing things, and there is a better system for keeping all the stuff of a desk handy, but doing away with the chair. We call this the “standing desk”. Ever since the cordless phone was invented, the Mom’s desk became mostly obsolete. We now can take the phone (or laptop!) elsewhere to make the call, write the e-mail, or chat on the phone while multi-tasking. Checking e-mails is usually done at the breakfast table or island bar where there is more room. The eliminattion of that ball and chain makes it possible for us to get the whole area working harder. I typically place base cabinetry with upper drawers where the knee hole used to be. The stamps, paper clips, tape, scissors, envelopes, pens and paper tuck away here. All the stuff of a desk, without the knee hole or chair. Perhaps we need a file drawer or two there too. No Problem! The cordless phone can dock when it’s charging, and all the directories, phone books, etc can live in nice normal size wall cabinetry above. I point out that all the chargeable devices (cell phones, I-pods, cameras, GPS devices, etc) can be tucked into a basket on a shelf in there as well, with the outlet conveniently place there by an obliging electrician. We now have a hidden “recharge zone” right where we want it, but it and it’s nest of snaky wires is not on full view any longer.


This new “standing desk” now often has enough room for extra cookware, serving pieces, cookbooks, you name it. If we have enough room, we can add glass doors, or even a beverage center so the kids can get their snacks and drinks without going into the kitchen work zone.

Sometimes the way we do things is simply a matter of habit. “We’ve always done it this way” can make way for “Why didn’t we do this a long time ago?

Make an appointment to come in for more ideas on how to “take a stand”.
-Julie Hendrickson