There are so many options for kitchen and bathroom customers to choose from in the area of cabinet doors. Thermofoil (or, “MDF”) cabinet doors pros and cons are something that you need to be aware of before you make your decision. What is an MDF door? Well, the term stands for medium density fiber board. When refereed to by cabinet makers, it means a vinyl wrapped door. MDF and vinyl wrapped doors are both the same as “thermofoil cabinetry doors.” There are basically four price categories that I feel cabinetry doors fall into. The MDF style falls into a medium price range cabinetry doors category with a high end look. Eventually, I will be adding an article about the different types of doors and the price ranges of each category.
The Benefits of Thermofoil Cabinetry Doors:
Below is a comprehensive list showing the pros of MDF doors. I have added an explanation, further below, about the disadvantages of thermofoil cabinetry doors.
Throughout the years, adding roll-out drawers to existing kitchen cabinets, vanity, or laundry rooms, has been a rather lucrative venture. Every cabinet design presents a different method of fabrication and installation to make these drawers work properly. This is a wonderful feature to add to kitchens for elderly people to use. They are ideal for people with back problems as well. The reason being, they eliminate a lot of bending over and reaching into the back of a cabinet to find something.
It’s important to understand that when these are added to a kitchen, bathroom or laundry room, you may lose up to about 4 ½ inches in width for storage space. This is because there are spacer blocks that must be installed so the drawers miss the doors, when they are being pulled out. So, if you have a double door cabinet that has twenty six inches of clearance inside, left to right, when you add the pull out drawers, your inside clearance for the finished drawer will be twenty one and one half inches.
Tip:Figure out the size of all of the parts that you will need and have a local cabinet maker cut them for you. Or even better yet, have them make the drawers and spacers and then you can just install them yourself. Read more…
Cabinet ends swelling, due to water absorption, are something that I have seen in bathrooms more than kitchens. Never the less, the process of how to repair damaged wood or Formica cabinet sides, as a result of flooding water, is still the same. There are several approaches that can be taken, but I want to teach you the simplest one that I have discovered. You won’t need to remove the end of the structure at all. If the damage is comparable to the photo to the left, you may want to just sand and chisel down the swollen area and laminate over it with a piece of Formica or thicker finished board. Read more…
Oftentimes cabinet makers will make the toe kick plates out of particle board to cut back on manufacturing expenses. This will cost the end user if repairing water damaged toe bases, due to flooding, becomes necessary. In some cases, only the cabinet bases are effected because the water level never got high enough to absorb into the cabinets. Please review “How To Fix Water Damaged Cabinet Bottoms” if the level exceeded the height of the recessed riser. Make sure that you use either pine or ply-wood as the replacement material after you tear out the effected areas. It is going to take an expert level of craftsmen ship to get the job done right and acceptable. If you are not familiar with fitting materials to the contours of floors or using a variety of tools such as high speed routers, laminate trimmers (tin snips), chop saws, or table saws, consider hiring a professional. Many of the items you will need could be purchased in pre-cut parts from a local custom cabinetry shop. Read more…
Before you decide to replace cabinetry, it is possible to fix water damaged kitchen or vanity sink cabinet bottoms. If your kitchen, bathroom or laundry area has been flooded, you may need to review the article that we have called, “repairing water damaged cabinet toe kicks.” More oftentimes than not, they are repairable. Of course, this will depend upon the extent of the damage in every case. Depending on your level of craftsmanship, you may want to hire a professional bathroom or kitchen cabinet installer to do the work for you. Matters such as this have many unforeseen obstacles that a cabinet professional will easily maneuver around. Read more…
