Fort Myers Home Remodeling Tip; How to hang base cabinets

Base cabinets or ‘bases’ sit on the floor. That’s simple enough but from there it gets complicated.  Most bases have a ‘kick’ which is a space for your toes to fit into when you stand at the base cabinet to work, cook or vent your aggression on that pizza dough.  There are at least two different types of basic base cabinet depending on how this kick is formed.  One type has a separate kick or sometimes adjustable legs holding the box off the floor. The other type has the box sides going all the way to the floor and notched at the front to form the kick.           

Upper cabinets

Wall cabinets or ‘uppers’ hang on the wall.  Well DUH! you say, that’s so obvious! So let’s start there. I once took a job hanging some ‘bookshelves’ in a lawyers’ home office. These shelves were 4’ wide and 8’ tall and had 1/8” backs. They were big enough to hold far more books than they could support…and I got laid off for saying so but I didn’t want to defend a lawsuit.

Father's Day Gift Ideas

Buff & Shine Shoe Polish Kit
Just for kicks: an all-in-one shoe-shine set for your dapper dad.
To buy: $26, paper-source.com

Fort Myers kitchen remodeler, Tropical Kitchens, is proud to announce we're an authorized Lumicor dealer.

Lumicor translucent resin panel inserts are a stunning alternative to traditional decorative glass. They are available in a number of convenient panel sizes that can be easily trimmed to fit any application. They're an excellent choice for cabinet and door inserts, partitions or interior windows.

14 Small Space Design Tips

Living on a sailboat is a good way to learn to small space design. On a boat, even an inch more or less is the difference between a good night’s sleep and waking up on the cabin sole with a nasty bump on the head. We know, Doreen’s been there.

Of all the kitchen designs we do, designs for small spaces are the most difficult. You would think that there are so few cabinets that it would be easy.  The hard part is each individual element of the design needs to be perfect. An inch out here and another there and soon the design just stops working. So where or how do you start your small kitchen design?

Fort Myers Kitchen Remodeling Tip; Kitchen Flow

Traffic flow in your kitchen is an important aspect of good kitchen design. You will remember I told you this after you bump rumps with Uncle Harry on your way to the sink. Flow, workability and the well known ‘work triangle’ are all well-known aspects of traffic pattern design.

Fort Myers Kitchen Remodeling Tip; Kitchen Cabinet Types

There are two basic types of kitchen cabinets being sold in the U.S. today, face frame, the style you grew up with, and European, first developed by our friends across the sea and called frameless in the cabinet world. Let me throw in a quick definition before we wade in too deeply.         

 A cabinet is simply a box with a door (or doors) on it.

Fort Myers Kitchen Remodeling | Tip: Appliance Placement

Placing Appliances

Last time we talked about basic kitchen design rules and the best place to start when remodeling your Fort Myers kitchen, the refrigerator. Once we know where it is going we can then think about the sink and then the range.

Existing plumbing will influence the sink placement. Water supply pipes are normally easily moved around but drains are a very different story.  In Fort Myers and throughout Florida, many houses are up on stilts and many don’t have finished ceilings under the floors. Most other houses are either on slabs or have finished floors under the kitchen floor.  Both these types present expensive problems when moving drain pipes. The good news is that base cabinets normally have at least a 4 inch kick and drain lines that disappear into the floor can be run horizontally for several feet under the cabinets, making sink placement easier. When in doubt, consult with your local plumber.

Where Do You Start?

Kitchen design is not rocket science but it can sure seem like it when you are trying to make choices about your new kitchen. It helps to know where to begin. Let’s keep in mind a few simple rules of kitchen design before we start;