Kitchens, Part 4
of more than about 220 degrees F.
Some people buy marble tops. That is domestic suicide. Others
buy granite. Granite is fine for temperature resistance but it
can absorb food stains and bacteria. Also, if you ding / dent
/ chip that granite top then to make a real repair you have to
replace that top - all of it.
To get you to buy, the salesman must trash your existing kitchen.
He can usually do this easily.
He will talk about bacteria and mold and grease embedded in your
cabinets. He will talk about how the grease will never come out
so if you try to paint those cabinets of yours the paint will
just scrape off like a moist scab. He will drone on and on about
how painting the cabinets will cause fumes to spread throughout
the home. This is all true. He probably will not talk to you about
the incredible mess that refinishing cabinets on site causes.
It is incredible.
Another problem with existing cabinets is that the shelves may be sagging. Some “new
construction” cabinets have shelves made of nothing but wood chips and glue. After
even just one year of a dinner set for twelve stacked on them they can sag an inch or
more in the middle.
These “new construction” cabinets may be so poorly
constructed that to even re-face them will take all sorts of extra
work – including re-inforcing the back side of the front face
so it can support new hinges, and then there are new shelves and
the new heavy doors.
The salesman will open a carrying case of cabinet doors and let
you fondle them. They are heavy. Usually they are made of printed
PVC (that is sprinkler pipe in a different shape) layered onto
medium density fiberboard. He may have 10 or more different styles
and colors and wood grains for a total possible set of combinations
of maybe 1000.
The salesman might do various demonstrations to show his cabinet
doors to be incredibly wonderful. He can tell you that the core
material for the doors is the same material used by “fine
furniture makers.” His example will be any of the low to
mid-range tract home market funiture companies like Ethan Allen.
With a straight face and with wonder in his eyes he will tell
you that the inner core of his door is made of even the finest
woods on earth, Cherry, Oak, and More, all ground
to the finest of powders and then pressed together under tremendous
pressure -- just like a diamond -- with the finest of
space-age resins to create
