Kitchen Cabinet 101

As you may have noticed, I’ve not been blogging for a year. Reason being I have been heavily focusing on one of my lifetime projects – house renovation. Months before the keys handover, I started doing research on various things such as the hood and hob, air-conditioner and kitchen cabinet. There’s really much to learn for each item, even if it’s just a cooker hob (a.k.a. cooking stove).  

 

I would like to share my experience here, especially for first-timer with no prior house renovation experience. Let’s start with the kitchen which is the “soul” of a house, also one of the most expensive renovations of the entire house. 

Advice #1: Conceptualize your kitchen and note down the requirements. There are a lot of factors to consider before deciding on your kitchen. Some of them include the location of the pipe inlet/outlet, kitchen wall, "built-in" items in the kitchen (e.g. power box), window location, wiring and lighting. Imagine yourself cooking in the kitchen, what you’ll typically do and what will be the best design (e.g. cooking, storage), how good is the natural lighting, which part of the kitchen requiring additional lighting, where you’ll be installing the water filter (e.g. the big machine on the table top, underneath the sink), what are the electrical items you typically use (e.g. bread toaster, coffee maker, rice cooker, blender, fridge) and their locations. Kitchen cabinet designers propose the kitchen design based on the requirements given. Once the design is signed off, any additions may ruin the beauty of its original design. For instance originally you don’t install a hood. Suddenly you decided to do so and the design has been confirmed – most likely there’ll be no ready power points for the hood; if there’s one, the hood wiring to the power point will be visible or you’ll need to drill some holes on the kitchen cabinet. 

Advice #2: Choice of materials. There are many types of materials for different parts of the kitchen cabinet. For the cabinet itself – chipboard (the cheapest and most common), plywood and solid wood. For the cabinet surface – Melamine (the cheapest and most common), Gloss/High Gloss, Glass, Solid Wood. For the table top – Laminate (the cheapest, but not recommended due to poor water resistance), Solid Surface, Granite, Quartz. For sink – single bowl, 1.5 bowl, double bowl; type of stainless steel, thickness (typically 1.0mm), coating, width and depth. The price varies depending on the materials. Also do consider the pros and cons of the material before choosing. For instance it’s easy to get scratches for Solid Surface (a.k.a. artificial stone) table top but it’s easy to maintain or revive its original condition with polishing. It’s also easy to cut, e.g. you suddenly to decide to drill a hole to the table top for water tap. However this will not be possible for Quartz – any cutting or hole drilling will need to be done before the table top installation (because they’re really hard!).

Advice #3: Get good quality built-in items. A lot of my guy friends told me that kitchen is the least important to them. My advice is if you’re renovating, do it all in one go. A kitchen typically last for ten or more years before any major repairs or renovation. To maximize the limited space, normally most items are built-in e.g. hood, hob, sink. The kitchen cabinet is designed according on the size/measurement and design of these built-in items. This would also mean that you can’t change them overnight easily without investing another amount of money. Hence it’s wise to invest more in getting better or good quality brands for built-in items like hood, hob and sink.

Advice #4: Get your measurement correct before purchasing any built-in items. We often want the best or perhaps the largest, the biggest of any items for our kitchen. Reality is we need to make the best out of the space given. At first I wanted to get a double bowl or at least a 1.5 bowl sink for my kitchen. After doing a brief calculation with the sink and stove measurement, I realized that there will be very little space on the table top for cooking preparation, electrical items etc. Stove sizes are quite standard so I can only play around with the sink size. Luckily I am able to get a refund from the double bowl sink purchased and go for a large and deep single bowl sink. To maximize space, I have chosen a built-in dish tray to be installed on top of my sink. Note: The dish tray is almost the same size as the sink so that it doesn’t look odd.

What you possibly don’t know...

Bring your floor plan and photos when visiting kitchen specialists. It will be extremely difficult to discuss without these essential items. Also any photos taken of the actual space will help in the discussion. Design service is free. 2D or 3D drawing is available by some kitchen specialists after booking payment. 

Site visit is typically free without booking. If you make a regular visit to any kitchen specialists, happy with their service and rough quotation based on the floor plan and design, you can make an appointment for site visit at no cost. Normally there will be changes to the original design after the visit (well we’re not experts and there are things that we missed out for consideration). 

Note: This is not applicable if you’re visiting during fairs as the price quoted is much cheaper. What you can is do some research first before the fairs, and then decide immediately if things are right.

One or more than one week gap between cabinet and table top installation. Other than the laminated table top, other table tops will only be installed one or more than one week after the cabinet installation. To get an accurate measurement of the table top, another round of measurement will be done once the cabinet is installed. Only after this measurement they’ll start the “production” of the table top. It’s important to take this into consideration for better estimation of your complete kitchen readiness. 

Get a deep sink to avoid water splashing. It’s important to get a deep sink (around 210mm or deeper regardless of whether it’s a single, 1.5 or double bowl sink) for the ease of washing big pots, wok and to avoid water splashing to the floor. You can check the measurement with the vendor or check online based on the sink model or product code. 

There is an optimum width for the kitchen cabinet. The most obvious negative point noted for long kitchen cabinet compartment is that it tends to sink in the middle after a short period of time, even though it’s not heavily use. As such there’s a recommended maximum width by experienced kitchen specialists (sorry forget the exact width). 

Some kitchen cabinet vendors do not cover hood installation (with ducting or no ducting) and pipe connection. Do check before deciding. Some people do not like the hassle of liasing with different people and prefer a single contact to get everything done.

Kitchen cabinets and built-in cabinets typically come under one roof. Most kitchen specialists also do built-in cabinets. So look no further if you want to get some built-in cabinets e.g. wardrobe, toilet cabinets. It’s normally cheaper as well if you’re getting from the same vendor.