Worst Kitchen Cabinet Mistakes and How to Fix Them
As you start building your home, you spend a great amount of time designing and developing the kitchen layout. Typically, a homeowner spends around 15-20 percent of their home on a kitchen development or remodeling.
Within the budget limit of the kitchen, a decent amount is spent on developing the kitchen cabinet. This is by far the most important piece of furniture in a kitchen that gives the kitchen utensils the storage facility. Nowadays, installing the oven, stove, dishwasher, and other appliances into the cabinet has become a good practice.
Taking a considerable share of the budget also puts the question of whether the designing plan has been done efficiently. Every owner wants that mistakes are as few as possible. Yet, some mistakes are worth noting so that you get to be prepared from the beginning.
Phases of Worst Kitchen Cabinet Mistakes
Kitchen cabinet mistakes can occur majorly in two phases—one in the Development Stage of the kitchen and another in the Maintenance Stage over the years.
Development stage mistakes are worst as they will consequently suffer over the years. It can range from architectural design mistakes to a simple selection of poor pull or doorknobs. This costs a lot as you cannot change it over the night.
Maintenance stage mistakes are less costly but ignoring these can lead to great damages. It can range from choosing the poor coating to not cleaning the dropped-out water from the cabinet regularly.
If the mistake seems too costly, it should be fixed as soon as possible regardless of its stage. Many proactive and reactive measures can be taken considering the design and layout plan, selection of materials, and guidelines for the organization.
8 Worst Kitchen Cabinet Mistakes and How to Fix Them
1.Not Realizing the Necessity and Congestion of Kitchen Cabinets
This is the first mistake in the development stage. Two points to note: not realizing the necessity of kitchen cabinets and devastating the kitchen with overloaded kitchen cabinets.
Many homeowners don’t realize the benefits of a kitchen cabinet at the planning stage, and they plan the kitchen without keeping the scope for the cabinets in the layout. But at the later stage, when they try to fit the kitchen cabinets into the layout, it doesn’t fit properly.
Few other owners don’t keep enough space in the kitchen and install so many cabinets that the kitchen becomes unhealthy to work. Later it seems that they cannot even move properly in the kitchen, or it becomes challenging to accommodate when you need to arrange a party.
Quick Fix: If you are designing and developing the kitchen for your own, you must be knowing what type of kitchen cabinets you want. Are you going to install the home appliances within your cabinets or outside? This depends on you.
If you are designing it for somebody else, you have to know their choices and the excellent architectural suggestions you can give them.
You have to divide the kitchen space in ratios and decide the best solution to fit into the layout.
2. Not Understanding the Purpose of the Cabinets at Different Parts of Your Kitchen
Over the years, we have used kitchen cabinets only to store kitchen utensils. Gradually, kitchen cabinets got their place for numerous other purposes. One of the greatest changes is installing the home appliances within the cabinets to take extra place on the kitchen countertop.
Many times, we do not understand the potential purposes of kitchen cabinets and as a result, we do not get the most out of it.
Quick Fix: One of the easiest solutions is to observe the current trend for “kitchen cabinet ideas” and align it within your layout. You can install anything ranging from 2 doors deluxe fridge to a small convection oven in the cabinet. You need to understand the purpose and scope of it.
3.Trying to Do It on Your Own
If you are a person with good structural designing skills, planning for the kitchen cabinet is quite easy. But as seen on, mostly a layman gives ideas and ruins the whole purpose of it.
Mistakes can happen in taking measurements, installation, and fittings, selecting tools and tackles, etc. These increase the overall cost if you try to do it all your own.
Quick Fix: Know that it might look like one of the easiest and simplest tasks in the world of structure but remember to take advice from a professional carpenter before any design plan and development. At least a pro member of your friends and family can help.
4.Choosing the Cheap and Wrong Woods and Fittings From the Market
Choosing the wrong woods can lead to poor fitting, wastage, and early damage. Considering the budget can be a little tricky, and you may have to count more bucks for a poor choice in the future.
Different types of woods give different finishes and durability. If you do not recognize the best materials, there is a big chance that you end up wasting more. Cheap materials and fitting give saving in the short run but incur sufferings over the long run.
Quick Fix: Try to save the cost in other areas, not by buying cheap quality materials, such as choosing a different layout; hiring an outstanding professional who will have less wastage; choosing the high-quality hinges, door and pull handles, etc.
Just like the raw materials and fittings, the paint/polish is also significant. Poor choice of paint will not protect the wood from termites, bees, and other wooden insects. Also, you will suffer a lot from greasy and sticky residue on the cabinet.
Moreover, the wrong choice of color will never give a vibrant feeling in your kitchen. It will even destroy the overall look and feel of the kitchen.
Quick Fix: A quick fix is to add kitchen proof paints directly from the market. You can also use normal paint with some other mixtures as suggested by the experts. Use several coatings in the highly steam condensed area like over the stove and burner area, oven and refrigerator area, etc.
6.Choosing the Poor Lighting System
Choosing a dimmable light for the main kitchen, or not fitting any light in the cabinet can be a mistake if you are installing the cabinet for display purposes. Further, the poor lighting system can cause the dropping of several food items on the cabinets.
Quick Fix: Try installing a shiny LED light (or several) depending on the kitchen’s size. You can also use a small LED light inside the kitchen cabinet to give a vibrant look and save you from other hazards.
7.Lack of Ventilation System at the Kitchen
The kitchen always produces heats and steams from the cooking water and food. When the steam continuously affects the surface of the cabinet, it creates a sticky residue over there. When not regularly cleaned, it can damage the woods of your kitchen cabinet. The lack of proper ventilation can put you in such a situation.
Quick Fix: The stove area is a highly steam condensed area of a kitchen. You should install a kitchen hood over the stove. The window of the kitchen should be big enough to circulate the steam out of the kitchen. Besides, depending on the size of your kitchen, 1 or 2 exhaust fans should be installed. To clean the existing residue, use soapy water with a microfiber cloth.
8.Lack of Maintenance
Regular Cleaning: Dust and oil ingredients take place over the cabinet daily. If not cleaned regularly, this can lead to a filthy residue.
Fittings Maintenance: Careless handling of the door can damage the cabinets’ fittings, such as the doorknob, door handle, glass fittings, and hinges, etc.
Coating Maintenance: If not regularly cleaned and polished, the coating/painting of the cabinet can lose its shininess, and eventually, it will be affected by different wooden insects.
Lack of Organization: Unorganized kitchen cabinet is itself full of mistakes. The whole purpose of the cabinet storage system collapses if it is kept unorganized.
Quick Fix: Let’s think together about the maintenance stage’s fixes – comment below about what’s on your mind. We will share ours too.
Final Words
While we spend hours solving mistakes, it is better to spend hours planning before making those mistakes. The kitchen is one of the most important rooms of a house, yet we tend to neglect its priority over other shiny rooms.
We scoured over many top and well-planned houses. We took the homeowners’ opinion to come to generalize a few mistakes they made while developing and maintaining the kitchen cabinets. We believe that helps in resolving your hours of the day and week.
