Well, as some of you know, the building we were in burned down on November
2nd, 2006. We have reopened at 322 N. Santa Cruz Avenue, that puts us
across the street from Bank of America. Next time you are at the Los Gatos
Cafe, stop in and see us. Our official opening was on Saturday, June 17,
2007. I hope to have fancy grand opening soon. We are gearing up for more
room addition remodel projects, with our emphasis on kitchens. I can take
your project through plan approval for a kitchen room addition for about
$3,500. This gets you blueprints, title 24 and engineering, this is for
a typical addition of about 200-300 square feet.
Kitchen cabinets and kitchen designs have changed drastically in the
last 3-4 years. If your project does not look like furniture, then you
are about to make an expensive mistake. Think of kitchen cabinets as kitchen
furniture, albeit more functional and with MUCH better finishes, or at
least they should be much better finishes. You will get the best finishes
from manufactured kitchen cabinets vs. locally built. Not only better
looking but more durable too.
The finishes on all of our cabinets are known as cross linked and catalyzed.
These are the best finishes available today, and are also known as "
Baked on ". They are best understood as being like Epoxy (R), in
that the finish starts out as two parts but after they are mixed there
is a limited amount of time for them to be handled after which they "cross
link" and "catalyze" into a new material. This new material
is a third and distinctly harder surface than would be possible had they
not linked molecularly. What this means to you is that your new kitchen
cabinets' finish will probably outlast your desire to look at them. This
is of particular importance if you are planning to sell your home and
move up after several years. Most saw shop built (aka "custom")
cupboards are coated with lacquer. This finish is sadly known as a temporary
finish, designed to last long enough to get paid and get out of there.
These finishes will fail. Faster on some woods than others (cherry and
lacquer are a poor mix), and when they do, usually the local saw shop
owner will pretend like it has never happened before, send a guy out to
wipe some oil on it and hope you go away.
Some of our kitchen cabinets are all wood and some are a combination
of wood and particle board. This is really a matter of budget. If you
have the budget and it is important to you and your sense of "quality"
you should get all wood cabinets. Having said that, there is only one
flaw in particle board cabinets, and this has to do with shipping...they
are HEAVY! When I install cabinets, I LOVE all wood cabinets, they are
light and easy to handle, after that there is very little advantage. Most
particle board (and some wood) cabinets use melamine on the interiors.
This is probably the most durable interior available, even more so than
a "Baked on" finish. You could pour gasoline on a melamine interior
and have no problem. I would personally not compromise the quality of
the cabinet finish or the overall kitchen design (or bath design for that
matter) to save money for an all wood cabinet, if it fits your budget,
fine, otherwise the carcass of the cabinet is a great place to save some
money.
Here are a couple views of a kitchen
we just finished 
Here another
