A Transcript of a Kitchen Conversation

We need to cut costs for the kitchen and bathroom cabinets. It is the usual game - keep the look you want and your principles in mind in terms of good materials but get the cost down.

Here goes:

Maple and Birch cost the same but are less than Cherry which holds the stain better. Therefore, go with Maple (not a big saving but it will help).

Not painting the bottom cabinets is an option but then you are back to square one on the look of the room. Low VOC paint is in.

Self-closing, full pull-out drawers cost more than regular drawers but they have the same lifespan and warranty so it is not an issue of durability, only of daily use. Therefore, regular drawers it is (got to trade off somewhere).

The Nu-Green product is the "green" option available but it is only for the material inside the cabinet sandwich therefore any benefit from less off-gassing is limited to the meat in the sandwich. This is a significant mark-up. If the product were more advanced then it might be worth it but the cost difference is about the same as the all-off switch option for the entire house.
Also, we are dealing with off-gassing by the paint type and not going with laminate countertops. Therefore, "green" money allocated elsewhere.

Stone countertops are more expensive (see other blog about their virtues). Corion is more expensive (and less desirable) so the debate is between quartz and laminate. As this has indoor air quality issues AND overall kitchen look issues (including resale god forbid), the quartz is in. The company 'Siltstone' has some good enviro policies on their website if you are interested. As for cost, there are three types of quartz: A, B and C. As A is less expensive, the winner is quartz from the A category.

The laundry countertop causes an extra problem as the counter is small and expensive. The solution is to not include any countertop in the quote at all for this space. Instead, we get to try and find a salvaged piece of small countertop or a butcher block from IKEA. The cost benefit analysis here said no quartz for the laundry room (which makes sense). The added benefit of this is that I get to find something to use in line with the adjacent upstairs bathroom meaning I can say we used salvaged material! Fun.

Whew. Now if only we could do this to the rest of the house.