Handles, knobs and pulls, help to protect both the lacquer and stain applied to cabinets. Over time, oils and grime on fingers will wear down any finish. Handles also can be functional particularly for frameless or overlay cabinet styles. Here’s a few guidelines.

Shaker style cabinet construction is a timeless and popular choice for 2023. Not all fashion forward décor lasts, but this current design is beautiful, elegant and enduring.

Cabinets of any kind—kitchen, office, storage room, bathroom, closet—are expensive and you want to make sure you’ve selected a style and number that future tense your need. Build in a little extra room, always fitting within both physical and budget restraints.

Why a woodpecker on our home page? Of course, the wood needed in creating cabinets and millwork has some symbolic resonance with this bird. Woodpeckers spend a lot of their time working with wood. But the real story has to do with a beautiful happening in our backyard.

I frequently recommend to homeowners struggling with adding a new and exciting slant to their remodel to wander around large hotels for inspiration. Hotels have used high end designers and architects to create their extraordinary spaces and fill out with useful, fun niches. Of course, home remodel magazines and shows have great ideas, but for that professional twist, look to the commercial pros.

When you’re planning your kitchen or office or closet or bathroom of your dreams don’t forget the extra functionality that can be added easily when you’re custom building from the ground up. That extra functionality can come as pullout drawers, specialty racks, appliance ports, and creative spaces.

Nothing can destroy a great kitchen cabinet design like forgetting to pre-plan for electrical.

For your home office, give yourself a nice backdrop and orient your workplace facing the traffic. Go high with your cabinets, add cable management and keep your space functional for your needs.

At ARHTX, we do a lot of plastic laminate (p-lam) construction. P-lam is a great material for offices, restaurants, hospitals, schools, anywhere where there are high traffic and high use areas. P-lam can take the challenges of abuse and neglect and come out unscathed. And p-lam has gone beyond just being a utilitarian product. To create p-lam that looks finished and elegant, the trick, as always is in the details.

Nothing says quality and professionalism like finishing the inside of a cabinet. It may look like a hidden space, but it’s not. We open and close our cabinet doors and drawers to reveal not just the items inside but the beautiful space in which they reside.

Adjustable shelves provide the ultimate versatility. Whatever you own can fit. Whatever odd sized appliances or equipment or collection you have, adjustable shelves are your storage answer. Shelving stuck in place at some pre-ordained spacing, is an unnecessary constraint in the world of cabinets.

Cabinet painting is where people try to do it themselves and most of the time, wind up calling in a professional to fix the mess they’ve made. The quality of the paint, using a brush instead of spraying, or not prepping the surface correctly are the main pitfalls. ‘Painting’ in a cabinet shop like ARHTX means using a furniture and kitchen cabinet grade system of pre-catalyzed lacquer that is formulated with high quality synthetic resins, the finest grades of nitrocellulose, and represents an intermediate step between conventional lacquer and conversion varnish.

When we live in an environment where we can choose what we build around us, think quality not quantity, think elevate not compromise. When we can create the surroundings that hold us every day in our life journey, choose elegant design, perfect function, and the promise of cabinets for the ages.

This is an industry-wide debate: Plywood or Particle board, which is best for construction? Plywood is the craftsman’s choice for cabinet construction. The difference in price is not great and in the long run it will be a better deal to invest in a long-term product like plywood. The knowledge and experience you need for all your cabinets and millwork is with a master craftsman who can advise you on the best materials for your job.

It makes my heart ache to go in and see a new remodel, $40,000 or more of kitchen cabinetry newly completed and all the homeowner’s dishes are in a deep drawer that’s bending and breaking under the weight. Why? They never noticed that the cabinet width of every upper cabinet they ordered was too narrow for a standard dinner plate.

Builders and remodelers keep their costs low and profits high by using vinyl as a cabinet wrap. Beware of shrink-wrap on cabinets. Lacquer and stain finishes last tens of years and are easier, inexpensive options to repair.

Yes. Shelves are definitely cheaper to make than cabinets. They can be easy and fast. But I can’t tell you how many times we’ve put cabinets where homeowners once thought shelves would be better and here’s why.

Cabinets are either custom or stock. Stock cabinets are provided in sizes pre-made to some kind of ‘standard’ measurements thought to be used in kitchens, bathrooms and closets. Where cabinet height can be standard for many kitchens and bathrooms, length and width are almost never standard. Custom means cabinets that are built by a master carpenter to fit perfectly in a very specific location.