Home Improvements
How To Achieve High-Fashion Kitchens For Less
By
Nov 15, 2005, 20:54

(NAPSI)-Getting just what you want in a kitchen has never been easier thanks to new developments in composite panel products and decorative laminates.

Doors and drawer fronts are a good example.

"As someone who has been involved in the cabinet industry for 27 years, I look at the latest products and go 'wow,'" says Steve Webb, a sales and marketing executive with Pentco Industries.

Mixing laminates that look like stainless steel with wood grains has become very popular with kitchen designers-and may save money in a remodeling budget. Domestically engineered veneers and laminates used over a variety of composite panels is a technique that has long been used in Europe and is now becoming very popular in America's kitchens.

Mixing laminate types has become popular due to the number of options now available. This works well on furniture-like cabinets that help create a seamless flow between rooms-a vital consideration in today's wide-open floor plans.

The most popular cabinet designs still revolve around wood grains with some solid colors mixed in to create a crisper look. Other trends that many designers are edging toward include the use of darker woods in the kitchen. They are also opting for doors and drawers with radius profiles on the tops and the bottoms rather than on the sides, and with the grain running horizontally rather than vertically. "This is a direct influence from what we see going on in Europe; it's a very nice look, very lineal," said Webb.

Whatever the design, product consistency is important and starts with using great panels. Pentco uses premium medium density fiberboard with melamine backing for all its paint line doors, which are precision-machined and finished with catalyzed enamels and polyurethanes. Once again, composite panel products deliver the flexibility of mixing decorative laminates with architectural paint coatings.

A generation that grew up thinking of laminates as fake is seeing them in a new light as they become more aware of what they get for their money: high durability, easy maintenance and a wide range of high-end design possibilities.

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