Kitchen Design

In addition to choosing materials, we are also redesigning our kitchen. It was originally a small, narrow, galley kitchen, and we’re going to remove the center wall and create an expanded kitchen and breakfast nook in what was the kitchen and dining room. Then we’ll use the Arizona room, which was being used as a family room, as the new dining room.

We started with my own birds-eye sketch, which we took to the cabinet designers. Many cabinet retailers have in-house kitchen design staff.

It took several iterations to get it right.

We started at ProSource. Their designer had cool software; here’s an early mock-up.

But the designer there wasn’t very helpful with design questions and was kind of an ass. Plus we didn’t like their cabinets, which were very expensive.

Then we went to a cabinet representative in Albuquerque we had used for the Placitas house, but his cabinets were also too expensive. Twice as expensive now as they were when we did the house in Placitas in 2017-2018.

We also tried Lowes – still too expensive, at least for the cabinet lines we wanted. We aren’t going to buy any sort of particle board, such as MDF, which stands for medium-density fiberboard. That will expand and warp if it gets damp – a very poor choice for kitchens and bathrooms. We are determined to find affordable, cabinet-grade plywood.

We finally think we’ve found our cabinets at a place called Window Depot. Not an inspiring name, but our contractor recommended a particular designer there, and we do like her. We also like the looks of one of the cabinet lines that they carry. It’s a small company called Gila based in Phoenix, and they only make a few color options. Luckily, we like one of the colors. They come as close to affordable quality as it’s possible to get right now. And they generally ship in 4-6 weeks, unlike some lines that are still taking months and months.

There’s still a couple minor adjustments to be made to the layout, but we’re getting close.

Her software isn’t as cool as the first guy’s, but we can see what we need to see.

It’s been stressful for John and I. A lot of work and expense.

But luckily, Biska is a very secure dog, and hasn’t been at all upset by the construction so far. “Oh yeah, I forgot you moved my doggie door to the bedroom, woof, woof!”

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