Quote:
Originally Posted by zakthor
I was thinking to ask you about these designers and their business silo. I'm getting pretty skeptical of these people. Had to be we had some sort of misunderstanding of the service they offered.
For some reason everyone we've seen about this has been utterly useless, don't seem to have any idea about wood or structure or how difficult a particular thing is. Like maybe lulling cattle to relax before they go in the zapper. They could only see in terms of everything new.
I couldn't tell what their angle was, they seemed to only be able to think in terms of the most expensive solutions. Move the doors? Extend the windows? Sunken floor? No way could their typical customers be so careless with money. Cuckoo.
I'm guessing the 'new kitchen' is all the profit and that's their raison d'etre.
Oh I see, so the doors would overlap vertically? Why vertical instead of horizontal? Doesn't vertical imply a spring or counterweight to avoid lifting the entire door weight?
What are the negatives you see with the Hafele sliders? Looks perfect to me. Now that I've looked at their plans the Hafele sliding door hardware bears an uncanny resemblance to the fancy store display panels...
Man this has been a helpful thread.
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Tear 'em out and rebuild with brand new custom is how they make their money. Plus, they fail to understand how it will be used or its function. I found many kitchen designers or designers in general fail within this never ending quest. I have been doing lot of our own design work in the past 15-20 years. Now, just ask me to match the color of the living room curtain to the outdoor sofas in the gazebos in the back yard.
To be honest, trying to figure out what works for you take time and the required work is minimal so there's absolutely no money in it. A kitchen remodel with custom cabinets is upwards of 50-60k. A typical shop set up to make cabinets like ours can finish a set of custom cabinets in less then a week, that's about 15,000 worth of work and another 2-4 days to install. Doing that you need will burn half day in the shop, another two days to make it work on site. No one will pay 3-4k for anyone to do that. Some might?
You need to find a good old fashion finish carpenter that has a small garage shop to mill the parts needed and are good at messing with doors with plenty of knowledge of modern hardware. In the smaller towns, they just don't have the experience with modern hardware like Hafela or some of the complex European hardware. Again, they aren't difficult to install or make thing work, but the installer must be willing to read instructions. If you can't get them, I will order for you because they do not sell to just anyone off the street.
No need for counter weight. Its a simple old fashion system to hold the door up with a small pin through a hole. That door is half pound or as much as a mug with coffee in it, small and lifts easily. I think your best bet is to leave the upper doors the way they are and use the lifting mechanism for the lower doors. They only need to be installed perfectly level on both side to avoid any alignment issues. Use the existing doors but install new drawer slides. Hafela, Blum, Grass, Salice all make lifts.
If you decide to get fancy, use the Blum under-mount self /soft closing slides. You can slam them and they just soft close by itself. Its worth it with thee heavy items you have there. They are one of the few companies that make them in long lengths beside 21/22" or less. We only use them only because they are one of the best out there but not cheap.