You’ve just moved into a beautiful new house, but something about the kitchen doesn’t feel quite right. It doesn’t feel like home. So what’s the problem? And more importantly, how can you fix it? Fortunately, it’s not as difficult as you may think.

Kitchens are particularly prone to feeling cold and sterile. That’s because so many kitchens have harsh lighting, tile floors, stainless steel appliances, and plain cabinets. Thankfully, there are a few easy things you can do to give your kitchen the warm, welcoming feeling you’re looking for. Here are six ways to make your new kitchen feel like home.

1. Add a Fruit Bowl

Something as simple as adding a fruit bowl to your kitchen can inject a much-needed dose of cheer to the room. The great thing about fruit bowls is they also give you a chance to display your personality. If you don’t already have one, you can select a fruit bowl that fits your style and fill it with your favorite fruits. Then, whenever you look into your kitchen, you’ll see a beautiful display of delicious fruit inviting you to sit, have a snack, and enjoy your space.

2. Start an Herb Garden

Plants add warmth and a homey feel to your kitchen. Why not brighten up your kitchen window with an herb garden? You’ll impart a happy feeling to the room and have fresh herbs when you cook. There are many herb garden kits on the market, so you can choose a style you love. Or take it a step further and build your own hanging herb garden. Opt for natural wood, or personalize your planter as much as you like by painting the pots and boxes.

3. Include a Rug

A well-placed kitchen rug adds softness and texture to the room. Choose a rug that fits in with your overall color scheme, or select bright patterns to add a pop of color instead. If you have a favorite rug from your last home, placing it in the kitchen brings a touch of familiarity to the room. And if you have tile, you’ll appreciate the literal warmth of the rug on cold mornings, too.

4. Fix Lighting Issues

Having the right lighting in your kitchen is everything. If your kitchen is too dark, brighten it up by installing lights under your cabinets. You’ll be surprised at how much of a difference it makes. On the other hand, if your kitchen has harsh, bright lighting, choose softer bulbs or consider replacing your light fixtures with a style that fits your personality.

5. Show Your Love

It’s often said that the kitchen is the heart of the home. So doesn’t it make sense for your kitchen to reflect your love? Place items that make you feel good on display in your kitchen. This can be anything from the teapot you inherited from your grandmother, to your most-loved stock pot. Having a familiar item in sight helps your kitchen feel more like home. Alternatively, focus on items that show your personality, like favorite paintings, ceramics, or canisters. The more of yourself you put into your kitchen, the more it will feel like home.

6. Update Your Cabinets

Cabinets are a focal point in your kitchen, so making changes to them can give the room an entirely different appearance. Custom kitchen cabinets allow you to add style, warmth, and personalized functionality to your home. Brighten your kitchen or add an elegant touch with all-wood cabinets, or install a new kitchen island to create a cozy breakfast nook. Your kitchen will feel like home in no time.

Ready to update your cabinets? Edgewood Cabinetry has a plethora of design options, colors, features, and accessories so your cabinets can be truly personalized. And you’ll be able to customize as much or as little as you like, so whether you want to add a new china cabinet to display treasured knick knacks and fine china, or you want to replace all your kitchen cabinets and design every element, we can help. Contact us today to get started.

 

Picking The Right Kitchen Countertop

Your kitchen countertop is one of the focal points of your kitchen and one of the most used areas. Picking the right one isn’t always easy, especially with so many choices.

You have so many factors to think about, such as cost and durability. Plus, you want something that looks amazing too.

Take your time with this decision. The right countertop can easily help you fall in love and stay in love with your kitchen. Plus, it makes your kitchen last even longer.

Consider Your Budget

The first thing you have to consider is your budget. Trying to install high-end granite countertops on a shoestring budget could leave the rest of your kitchen looking terrible. You’d be surprised at just how much of your budget can go into a kitchen countertop. Before you even plan out the cabinets, think about what type of counter would fit within your budget.

You can compromise and actually use a countertop mashup, which uses different materials in different areas. For instance, you might have granite in a heavier used area, but laminate elsewhere to save money.

Compare Materials

The next step is to compare the various kitchen countertop materials. Some of the most common choices include:

  • Laminate – Most affordable, but isn’t as resistant to heat and water
  • Granite – Ideal for daily and heavy and comes in a variety of styles
  • Concrete – Easy to customize, but isn’t quite as heat resistant
  • Marble – Great for daily use, but can chip and stain easier than other options
  • Quartz – More expensive, but is highly durable and resistant to chips and stains

Of course, there are sub-varieties for all of these materials. Laminate is typically a great budget-friendly option and it comes in a seemingly endless variety of colors. With proper care, laminate can last for years.

Granite, marble and quartz are similar in many ways. However, we’ve created a simple guide to help you better understand the differences to pick the right kitchen countertop for you.

Look At Your Decorating Scheme

Naturally, you want a countertop that looks great in your kitchen. The last thing you want to do is have to constantly cover it up because it doesn’t match your decorating scheme.

Think about your cabinet and wall colors. Consider your backsplash. Also, look at the overall theme for your kitchen. If you’re going for a rustic theme, bright quartz might not fit too well. On the other hand, if you have all white cabinets, adding dark granite or marble countertops helps break up the white and make your kitchen look more sophisticated and open.

Thinking about your kitchen decorating scheme helps you not only choose the material, but also the color. Take full advantage of sample books to see how different styles look in your kitchen.

Consider How You’ll Use It

Finally, think carefully about how you’ll use your kitchen countertop. If you cook often and are constantly placing hot pots, pans and bowls on the surface, you’ll need something more resistant to heat. If you’re a casual cook, laminate may work best as you’re not doing nearly as much on the counter.

This is another reason mashups work so well. You might have something more durable on your kitchen island where you handle a lot of food prep. And then, you could have laminate on the rest that matches the color of your island’s countertop.

You’ll want to pick a kitchen countertop that’ll last. Using a little more of your budget to pay for a countertop that you won’t have to replace in a few years is well worth it. After all, you probably don’t want to go through another kitchen remodel that quickly if you don’t have to.

Get the perfect kitchen cabinets to match your kitchen countertop. Contact us today to start designing your dream kitchen cabinets.

Image: Jessica Lewis

Edgewood Cabinetry custom cabinets

Most homeowners who own a tiny home are often pressed for storage space. They usually make up for this by maximizing the already cramped storage in our kitchen. Although a separate storage room would be a great choice, it would take up more floor space in your already tiny home.

Finding Storage Space

A great alternative is to use the under-utilized spaces of existing rooms, walls, or the area underneath the furniture. Being creative and observant of under-utilized space is key to maximizing storage beyond the kitchen.

Remodeling with this in mind will surely help keep your home from looking cluttered while maximizing livable space. Below are some storage design ideas that revolve around custom cabinets that add more storage space while also enhancing your home’s beauty.

Storage Bed

The bedroom is often the room with the most amount of space for storage. Still, modern design sometimes restricts excessive additional custom cabinets other than the main wardrobe cabinet and a few shelves and drawers here and there.

To account for this, the space underneath the bed can be a prime space for storage. Consider installing custom cabinets/drawers in this space. These cabinets can be either shoe racks or storage for sheets and blankets or other items necessary inside the bedroom.

These items usually end up sharing space with the already cramped wardrobe cabinet, so giving them their very own storage space can make you feel more relaxed and less cluttered. This home storage solution is every bit as practical as it’s beautiful.

Mudroom Storage

Mudrooms are essential places in the house wherein you can leave the weather behind and the stains outside your home. Without them, wet soaked raincoats, shoes, or umbrellas can damage wood flooring. These rooms usually don’t get any attention from homeowners, but reliable and functional storage space can be put in this place. For instance, custom cabinets complete with coat hooks, shelves, and drawers are perfect for this room.

This storage space can be dedicated to essential things that we usually carry outside. These items can be umbrellas, coats, bags, and slippers, among many others.

Outdoor Bench Storage

An outdoor bench has become almost a necessity nowadays. This is where we usually plop down while removing dirty shoes or sitting while staring blankly to the sky. In other words, an outdoor bench is a convenient place to relax. But you can rest easier knowing that it can store things essential for garden work such as a hose, extension wires, or other less than attractive supplies. You can build one by making the bench a top-open custom cabinet.

Knee-Wall Dresser

You can convert the hidden and unused spaces of the knee-wall of an upstairs bedroom into valuable storage spaces. From here, you can transform the knee-wall into a chest of drawers or storage cabinet without sacrificing an inch of floor space.

Storage Ottoman

Although the ottoman has many uses, serving as extra seats, coffee table, or a footrest, its potential function is not yet done. Ottomans with under-lid storage, sort of like a top-open custom cabinet, are the perfect storage space for books, blankets, and sheets. Alongside its storage potential, a storage ottoman can also be decorated to fit your household theme or needs. It can also be stain-resistant or vary in style and height to complement existing furniture.

Contact Edgewood Cabinetry

With so many options available, one can select the storage solutions that meet the needs and space available in the house. For custom cabinet ideas for your space contact Edgewood Cabinetry at 919-339-7300.

edgewood cabinetry-social media

Gone are the days of looking in a phone book to find an artisan, dentist, plumber, contractor.

In the year 2014, 87% of the United States’ population used the internet, while 74% of them used social media. 40% use their phone to access social media, hence, information is always in hand. The process of finding the best place for BBQ as you roll into a new town is only minutes. Likewise, finding the perfect cabinet-maker for your home is only a click away.

Social media platforms for businesses

Businesses today, more than ever, use social media platforms to promote their business. In fact, without one, customers view the business as not up to date. One might think, if a business has no web presence, then they surely know nothing about the latest technology, trends, or cannot manage a business properly. It is imperative for businesses today to not only use social media, but excel at it.

Hence, if businesses have an outstanding website, blog, Facebook profile, Twitter account, Yelp review, LinkedIn resume, and so on, then they are more likely to attract more customers over businesses who don’t. This is especially true of local and small businesses.

Ryan Bradley, an avid digital marketer and WordPress developer at Inbound Boulder says, “The small businesses that take the time to optimize and create content for their core social media sites (or hire us to do it), will have a unique advantage over their local competitors.”

Social media and customers

What does a social media presence mean for the customers? A customer searching for a local cabinet-maker has only to type in the search engine what they are looking for. The more social media platforms a business has, the more likely the customer will click on the different sites to investigate their product and service.

Like a showroom, websites present the product to the customer. Vivid photos, locations, telephone numbers, and store hours are important to have front and center to make it easy for the customer to see what the business has to offer and make contact.

As a customer, perhaps you find comfort in the fact that a business has an awesome website where you can examine the goods without feeling the pressure to buy or invest just yet. You can read testimonials and see the process of making the cabinets from start to installation. A business who exposes themselves through social media, shows they not only work hard to promote their business, but desire to show the customer they will work just as hard to make them happy.

Check out our social media sites and see if we have kept up with the times, latest trends, and innovations. We strive to provide modern cabinetry with great service. Contact us and see that our product is as up to date as our social presence.