Kitchen and Bath cabinetry is tough. You talk to one person and they tell you custom is the way to go and the next person gives you contradicting information. As a Certified Kitchen Designer since the 1990's Eric Goranson dives into with Caroline Blazovsky into what to look for when looking at kitchen or bathroom cabinetry. What are the secrets that you should be paying attention to and what doesn't really matter? All that is answered right in this episode of Around the House.

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[00:00:47] Eric Goranson: It comes to the modeling and renovating your home. There is a lot to know

[00:00:54] Eric Goranson: around the house. Welcome to around the house with Eric G and Caroline. Be your home improvement [00:01:00] source every single weekend. Thanks for joining. Man Caroline, it's been a busy week. Hasn't it? It's always a busy

[00:01:09] Eric Goranson: It is, but we're a podcast magazine.

[00:01:16] Caroline Blazovksy: Like, I know we have a subscription, but where do they get it?

[00:01:33] Caroline Blazovksy: Yeah. I don't think they can just read the article blindly, but we are featured on the cover. So if you see it's on our picture. And our featured story

[00:01:59] Eric Goranson: Cause [00:02:00] we're in the top 50 of all podcasts on the podcast magazine. Podcasts charts. So head over there and make sure you vote, because I tell you what people have been voting. You got us up to 42 in December, so that's pretty darn

[00:02:22] Caroline Blazovksy: They ask you, I think like two or three of your favorite podcasts. So it helps to keep it audience driven, right. Instead of being apple charts or, or Spotify charts, it's actually driven by audience, which I liked the people.

[00:02:44] Eric Goranson: And then there's this beautiful picture of me on the front of the cover. Oh, I'm just kidding. The very

[00:02:54] Intro: very low cut shirt

[00:03:03] Intro: which is hilarious,

[00:03:08] Eric Goranson: I thought you were going to catch that. So we were talking to everybody, uh, you know, were we were Caroline and I were talking about, she sent me this thing of the top NFL quarterbacks, if they were females and they basically deep fake them onto.

[00:03:31] Caroline Blazovksy: He's uh, he's uh, he's kind of a Looker. We kind of rank them. We did hot, we did hot or not. I don't know how appropriate it is, but Eric and I

[00:03:48] Eric Goranson: Well, today, Carolyn. And I were talking over the last few weeks about cabinetry and I thought, you know, this would be a great time to do a cabinetry deep dive for this [00:04:00] episode, because I want to make sure that we go through and really touch on all those different things that we've got going on. You know, cause cabinetry is a tough one for people in and only one or two times a year in their lifetime.

[00:04:18] Caroline Blazovksy: and I need to learn a lot about cabinetry. Cause I want to replace some cabinets in my kitchen and I'm really, I'm an amateur. I know nothing. So I'm going to hold you to a good explanation.

[00:04:41] Eric Goranson: To lay it out for you. And here's why I say this, you know, a kitchen design, a typical kitchen, the lifespan of a kitchen is 20 years. So when you're talking to. Insurance companies or anything else? A life span of a kitchen is 20 years. We both agree on that. It's kind of like,

[00:05:01] Caroline Blazovksy: Yeah. I never knew you had that 20 year rule either. I do for other reasons like mold and inspection and stuff like that, but I think that's cool that we both think 20 years, that's it. You guys are done. How about bathrooms 20 years for bathroom?

[00:05:17] Eric Goranson: You know, you can, you can have a bad bathroom environment that, that renders that cabinet fairly useless at 10, if you don't have ventilation and things like that. So, you know, that's a whole other story, but as far as kitchens go in and what supports that as well as you'll see cabinet companies out there go, we offer a lifetime warranty.

[00:05:56] Caroline Blazovksy: I never knew that. So it see, learn something.

[00:06:20] Eric Goranson: Here's the other thing when it comes to cabinetry like that, that I want to say that's one rule is make sure you hire a designer because here's why, if I have a designer that just went to college, they came out. They've got their degree in interior design. They spent, you know, a couple semesters doing cabinetry design.

[00:06:59] Eric Goranson: [00:07:00] After about two years. Hmm. So it takes a designer to blast through probably 30, 40 kitchens before they really got their arms around it. And you as a homeowner, thinking that you've designed a kitchen once before, maybe even if you're doing your own house slips five or six times before you don't have near the experience to really do that kitchen, right.

[00:07:36] Caroline Blazovksy: So if you're just doing a replacement and an update, do you still need a designer?

[00:07:47] Eric Goranson: Okay. So you want to think about this? Yeah. You always want to update because you think about it. Let's say you've got a 30 year old kitchen, right? That was, you know, let's call it [00:08:00] 1990s. Think of how the kitchen has changed since the 1990s in the 1990s, you still had this big box with a microwave that was sitting on the counter.

[00:08:43] Eric Goranson: So you didn't design it around all of the latest gear it's literally like taken, okay. I'm going to design it around. It's like buying a 1990 BMW. And just painting it and maybe putting some new body panels on it versus going out and buying a [00:09:00] brand new 20, 22 BMW. It's just a different thing altogether.

[00:09:24] Eric Goranson: Yeah. When we come back here, let's do this. Let's dive into one of the things with appliances just for a minute and how that affects cabinetry, because that is one of the things you do have to keep in mind, but we'll talk about that and even drawer systems here, because that's another big one. When we get into cabinet construction, we'll dive in.

[00:09:48] Intro: be loud, be so hot.[00:10:00]

[00:10:03] Eric Goranson: to around the house with Eric G and Caroline. Be your home improvement source every week. Thanks for joining. So we're still kind of laughing because as I just checked on during the commercial break there, I checked my phone and my buddy texted me. He goes, Hey man, great article. I saw it. I'm like the cover photo.

[00:10:26] Caroline Blazovksy: the, for those of you haven't seen the cover of podcasts magazine, there's a beautiful woman on the cover and she, yeah. And she's, she's wearing a very risque outfit too. And so we're joking. He thinks, you know, that could be Eric.

[00:10:43] Eric Goranson: absolutely. Absolutely. The gym. That's all. I only wear that on Friday nights. So,

[00:11:19] Eric Goranson: You know, it's the, it's just what it is. It's, it's the import stuff it's knocked down. Um, and quite frankly, that stuff scares me to death because the chances of it being filled with formaldehyde. The chance of it having dangerous chemicals in there it's high. None of it is tested, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's rough, it's really rough.

[00:12:03] Eric Goranson: Some of those guys now got hit really hard.

[00:12:31] Eric Goranson: And so what dumping cabinetry means is that basically the government in China was subsidizing these products that they were selling it below what the cost of the materials were normally on the marketplace. So they were just dumping it here and. That ended up, uh, you know, the one that tariff, so that really raise those prices.

[00:13:13] Eric Goranson: So that made it a little bit more interesting, but really one thing that I want to get into before we get into like the plywood boxes and the particle board and the drawer boxes and the hardware is there's one thing I want you to think about on the finish, and I'm not going to talk about the materials so much of the finish is what you expect out of it.

[00:14:05] Eric Goranson: Uh, paint shows every Nick scratch, dent, chip, everything. There's no place for it to hide. How

[00:14:15] Caroline Blazovksy: fingerprints? Like people often complain that's so painting would show that more so than a

[00:14:30] Eric Goranson: But the thing is Woodgreen is super. Super hight ability of that is amazing. It will hide a lot because you've got all these random lines that take your eye off, away from a little crack, a Nick, a chip or whatever. And here's the other thing. And I, and I've had, I had one client that I sold cabinetry to four or five years ago.

[00:15:21] Eric Goranson: You didn't buy a Ferrari. And that's one thing when we get into finishes that I want to talk about when you go and buy. And, uh, a common cabinet grip, you know, great of cabin. Let's say it's in a home center in KraftMaid, which is in Lowe's and home Depot and thousands of dealers across the U S or a Kia or a key is on the low end.

[00:16:12] Caroline Blazovksy: Is that a pretty common complaint? Cause I mean, when I look at cabinets, I mean maybe I just don't have an eye for it, but most of it looks generally the same. Like I haven't ever walked into a kitchen and thought it stuck out at me and I'm pretty OCD with my eye that, you know, it doesn't match up or something.

[00:16:35] Eric Goranson: do. Cause I've sold all those different lines. Right? So when I sit there and look at it, for instance, and I'm looking down a door, I might see a little wave in the finish. I might see where there was a green where, you know, it was a hard, it was a softer piece of green.

[00:17:19] Eric Goranson: So I paid that 10 grand. I might've paid 30 for the exact same design or. In wood mode, Downsview William owes one of these other brands. So you have to get up there just like any car. You can't go out and buy that Kia and expect to have the fit and finish and everything else to be the same is that Bentley down the street, you're in two different price points.

[00:17:53] Caroline Blazovksy: You get, what you paid

[00:17:57] Caroline Blazovksy: Do you think there's any exceptions? [00:18:00] Like if are there maybe middle of the road cabinet makers that make a pretty decent cabinet that could ride with a higher grade?

[00:18:12] Eric Goranson: Um, some of my favorites out there that I like personally are a company called crystal, a company called. Let's see, uh, Crestwood out of Kansas. They're really cool. Um,

[00:18:32] Eric Goranson: going on. All right. Hey, let's go out to break here real quick. Claire, Caroline.

[00:18:46] Intro: from attendance.[00:19:00]

[00:19:04] Eric Goranson: Angela. And you're listening to around the house

[00:19:16] Eric Goranson: welcome back to around the house with Eric G and Caroline be your home-improvement source every week. Thanks for joining us. Carolyn and I been sitting here talking cabinetry today. It's kind of our, our, our boxes special kind of getting ready for

[00:19:30] Caroline Blazovksy: holidays. And this is something that everybody needs to know.

[00:19:46] Intro: personally,

[00:19:57] Eric Goranson: I've been. On, [00:20:00] I have done a lot of consulting with major brands out there. I mean, um, no secret one-time KraftMaid flew me out to their, to their factory in, uh, Michigan to go out there and we sat there and we're picking out cool new things for the next year's catalog from door styles to colors, to accessories.

[00:20:29] Caroline Blazovksy: a lot of fun on this since birth, he was born in a cabinet.

[00:20:47] Eric Goranson: That cabinet box is something that you should think about. Cause there's a couple different types of actually three main types of construction. Now. There's your traditional American face frame style [00:21:00] cabinet, where you see kind of that one by two frame, it's very traditional where the door that either overlays the frame fully or a half inch, those are the two common kind of overlay door styles that you see.

[00:21:37] Eric Goranson: The problem is, is it's very susceptible to humidity changes and there's areas in the country that I would say I wouldn't put that in at all.

[00:21:54] Eric Goranson: swells up because you've only got about a three 32nd gap around that [00:22:00] door and drawer front where they slightly.

[00:22:06] Eric Goranson: with that. Yeah. That's not a good thing. Not a good thing. The other thing that I like is, and one of my favorite styles is what they call the European frameless. It's kind of like what the Akia ones are. So instead of having a face frame around the front of the box of the cabinet, you've got just a three-quarter or even five.

[00:22:51] Eric Goranson: In many cases, you can gain another 18 to 24 inches of storage in the average kitchen, just because you're [00:23:00] using that space. That makes sense. We think about it. If you've got a four-inch I mean, a four bank of drawers, that's maybe just your typical 18 inch wide. And you've got that face frame around it.

[00:23:31] Eric Goranson: So in my

[00:23:46] Eric Goranson: kitchen. Yeah, I would, I would.

[00:24:07] Caroline Blazovksy: I don't like the way particle board holds up when it starts to get wet. So for example, around the sink, That's you ever see particle board when it starts to degrade, it breaks off into this like soft material.

[00:24:27] Eric Goranson: fiberboard. I do many homes that I've been in. That I've been in where they had water damage in there. The plywood is either de-laminating or it's warped in the bottom where it's all wavy.

[00:24:43] Caroline Blazovksy: what so that wet that's it? That soft mushy gunk, right? Like mush and it breaks off and it gets everywhere.

[00:25:01] Eric Goranson: Floods? Well, guess what, if you have a big leak where you got to pull cabinets out anyway, it doesn't matter if they're particle board or plywood, because you're going to want to replace it anyway. If you already flooded that cabinet, you're going to want to replace that box. No matter what,

[00:25:16] Caroline Blazovksy: Is there such thing as an. Would natural cabinet. You hear people talk about this, like, oh, I'm putting in, I'm going to get custom cabinets and they're going to be all wood. Does that really exist?

[00:25:37] Eric Goranson: That's eight inches wide. Most of the stuff on the shelf is all warped to hell you would have in a cabinet. If you took. A three-quarter inch panel and made that all out of solid wood on the sides, it would be foolish because every cabinet would be warped. It just would, you would have this wonky clown looking kitchen that [00:26:00] would look absolutely.

[00:26:03] Caroline Blazovksy: about it. Like they say, my clients say that, well, I want to go high-end kitchen. I'm going to do all wood cabinets, but I don't think people really understand what that means. Right.

[00:26:17] Eric Goranson: That's all wood that is ground up wood. So really when it comes down to it and a bunch of glue, or you could have wood that is all cut off. That is in the thin little layers that's put together is held together with a bunch of glue that's plywood. You still have two wood products held together with a bunch of gloves, no matter what.

[00:27:14] Eric Goranson: Most finishes that they're using are lower quality than the top major manufactured.

[00:27:42] Eric Goranson: A lot of times it's more gimmick. Custom is custom it's. I have plenty of guys that I, some of these brands I can order, uh, you know, like out of Crestwood a few years ago, when I dealt with those guys, I could order a African mahogany kitchen or a Walnut cabinet or [00:28:00] anything else that would be considered custom.

[00:28:28] Eric Goranson: Yeah. All right. We'll come back. Let's think about that one. We'll let that brew. Here's we go out to brink. We come back. Let's talk about finishes. We'll do that just as soon as around the house returns.[00:29:00]

[00:29:12] Eric Goranson: I'm Eric command from even I spam and you're listening to around the house with.

[00:29:23] Eric Goranson: welcome back to around the house with Eric G N Carola and B. We've been talking cabinetry today.

[00:29:39] Caroline Blazovksy: A custom cabinet would be better. And like, you never think about it though. There's human error. There's all kinds of things that can go wrong. It's just, it's marketing, it's all marketing. But, and I stayed on that. I mean,

[00:29:52] Eric Goranson: And you're paying five times for this stuff. What you would pay for a home center? Most builders are not using this [00:30:00] quality for their homes. This is that. Uh, state that has, you know, some guys in the shop, but you got to think about it. And you and I were talking about this on break. I used to work for a cabinet shop that is no longer around, but they were a large, not a custom cabinet shop.

[00:30:34] Eric Goranson: Even I could hold a stand up on that thing. It would support me with no mechanical fasteners or glue. That's how well these things fit together. And you just can't get that sitting there in a production facility, using manual hand tools like a table saw, or a Eunice are one of those things. You just can't get it that dialed in because if you're taking that amount of time to do [00:31:00] it, you now can't afford to sell the cabinet seat to get that dialed in because you've got a guy spending way too much or girls spending way too much time trying to finish that.

[00:31:12] Caroline Blazovksy: talk about like the elite or someone who's doing a really high-end job, what kind of cabinet are they putting in? Cause they say it's custom, but are they going to a manufacturer that produces a high-end cabinet or they actually go into someone who's manually doing it?

[00:31:45] Eric Goranson: It was a lot of fun doing those high end projects. But think about it when I was doing that 20 years ago, an average cabinet, like your kitchen for cabinets 20 years ago would be $50,000 for the [00:32:00] cabinets. And so now you look at that and go, oh, that would be a hundred thousand dollars. Well, this brings us to

[00:32:08] Caroline Blazovksy: What is the average price point? So if somebody's thinking about doing their kitchen over, what type of money do they have to allocate? Like, what do you think an average kitchen kitchen runs

[00:32:27] Caroline Blazovksy: give you a price.

[00:32:40] Eric Goranson: road. Oh yeah. I mean, I could probably buy a Camaro for that, but I'm not going to buy a Jaguar.

[00:32:50] Caroline Blazovksy: Mercedes fiddle, we're talking middle. We're not talking low end high end

[00:33:04] Caroline Blazovksy: know, but I'm saying cost average. Let's just give an average. If somebody is going to do a kitchen, what do they have to look at allocating?

[00:33:10] Eric Goranson: know, I'm going to do a kitchen these days. It's hard to get it under $80,000 from start to finish

[00:33:21] Eric Goranson: And we'll talk about that in another time, because you're dealing with all the code updates that you have to do along the way.

[00:33:48] Eric Goranson: To put on a finish that is as good as one of the major retailers to they're probably spraying a lacquer finish in there. Now a lacquer finish looks [00:34:00] pretty good, but if I was going to compare a lacquer finish that they would put on a custom cabinet job, you saw lacquer finishes on the cool cars coming off the assembly line in the fifties and sixties and seventies.

[00:34:39] Eric Goranson: You didn't have to do that because the finish wasn't breaking down a lacquer finishes brittle. It likes to check. On maple, if you get it by the sink, likes to fall off, lacquer finishes are not generally a good cabinetry finish. That is technology to this. This is the layman's

[00:35:02] Caroline Blazovksy: It's

[00:35:27] Eric Goranson: And that would set up even in your spray gun, if you left it there to. So those two chemicals would react. It would harden faster than waiting for lacquer to dry. And he gave you a harder surface. We've seen people go to many, well, all of the big cabinet companies have gone to a baked on finish. And this is where we got into the durability issue.

[00:36:19] Eric Goranson: Most of it happens right. There comes into your house. It's way better for you. And it gives a more durable finish because it's baked on before it gets to your house. You're not waiting on a lacquer finish to go to put it in there. And you've got 30 to 45 days before it cures in your house. So

[00:36:45] Caroline Blazovksy: Oil-based finish. I don't even know if they still use oil. I think in custom cabinet places. I know they, ah, they

[00:37:02] Eric Goranson: Waterborne finishes have come a long way, but on woods, I still think they look plastic-y, they're getting. But to me, many of the wood finishes that are water-based, it looks like they dipped them in clear plastic and handed it to you. Cause you don't have that furniture feel yet at the, I have a waterborne

[00:37:26] Caroline Blazovksy: This parade of cabinets over the years. Right. So you can really look at it and ascertain like, this is, this, this, this, this, this, this, this we're told layman, like me, I look at it and I say, it's cabinet, right?

[00:37:46] Eric Goranson: So you run into that a lot where people go, oh no, that looks a little weird. They can't put their finger on why, but the sheen is off. The depth is off right now. Some of the best finishes out. There are some of the water-based and some of the baked on [00:38:00] urethane finishes. Those are kind of where a lot of the cabinet companies are going for.

[00:38:25] Eric Goranson: And

[00:38:29] Eric Goranson: Yeah, it

[00:38:30] Caroline Blazovksy: off gas out. I've heard

[00:38:41] Caroline Blazovksy: Yeah. So we were talking about, you know, is it preferable to go all the way to the.

[00:39:04] Caroline Blazovksy: If you put in something to the ceiling and your ceiling is not level.

[00:39:20] Eric Goranson: Is that it can, if you take a small narrow 1920s house with tall ceilings and you put kitchen the cabinets to the ceiling, it can look like you're in a forest of tall trees. It can be out of scale. We'll dive into it next week, a little bit as well. I'm Eric Jan, Caroline, and you've been listening to