Kitchen Ideas

Reply to: I have the midline Merrilat in one of my homes in my kitchen, but I chose the builder basic Merrilat for the bathrooms. I do see a huge difference in quality between the 2 lines. Hindsight being what it is, I should have paid for the upgraded cabinets even in the bathroom. I am sure that the basic line does not hold up particularly well to even moderate usage in a kitchen. However I'm not sure any basic line is going to offer quality construction anymore either. The midgrade Merrilat has been fine for my kitchen. We're 6 years in, the soft close still functions flawlessly and the finish has held up perfectly as well. However I am gentle with my use habits and we don't have children either.

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Reply to: We have 10 foot ceilings and decided to go all the way up. I love the way they turned out! We dropped the trim down a bit, (you can see what I mean in the photos)so the doors wouldn't be too tall. Here's some pics: Our builder does only 10 foot ceilings in his home. His web-site has lots of pics of finished kitchens some with cabs that go all the way up and some that don't. His website is stonecrofthomes.net

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Reply to: I have 10' ceilings. I wanted my cabinets to go all the way to the ceiling because I like the look and hate all the gook that collects on top of cabinets. I decided against stacked cabinets because I would need a ladder to open the doors of the upper cabinets. Instead I did 54" high cabinets with two panels. I don't think they look nearly as big as they are. I can reach the bottom 3 shelves and I can see what is on the top shelf. I haven't put anything up there yet, but I'm sure a tall step stool would do the trick. Here are a couple pictures I just took (still moving in so it's kind of empty). You could do the same thing with the smaller panel at the top of the door and put glass in the top panel. That gives you the look of stacked cabinets at a much lower price.

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