Caring For Your Fine Wood Cabinetry

With spring cleaning just around the corner, thoughts often turn to giving your home a thorough scrubbing, but in the case of your fine wood cabinetry, you need to exercise some caution. Just like your elegant dining room table or those heirloom chairs handed down from your Grandmother, your fine wood kitchen cabinetry also deserves your loving touch.

Wood reacts to light, temperature and humidity, and all three must be addressed to extend the life of your cabinetry:

·       Sunlight’s effect: While wood gradually mellows into a richer shade with exposure to normal daylight, avoid excessive direct sunlight, which can fade the wood dramatically.

·       Setting the temperature: Wood cabinetry is best maintained at a room temperature of 70 degrees.

·       Controlling humidity: The wood products used in fine cabinetry is based on furniture industry standards. Such standards dictate that the wood be conditioned to a 5-8% moisture content in the wood. The humidity in the kitchen itself should be maintained at between 25-55% to be a compatible environment for wood cabinetry. As humidity increases, wood gains moisture and expands. If the humidity decreases, it contracts. Such expansion and contraction can, over time, become visible at the joints of the cabinets and frames. (These stresses are more visible on painted finishes.) Normal stresses that happen in a properly humid environment are a natural characteristic of the wood and not considered a defect. But humidity higher than 55% can cause wood failure—meaning cracks, splits, and separation at the joints—causing door expansion (meaning the door will rub against the frame when opened or closed). Humidity lower than 25% can cause problems of its own from wood's shrinkage, which may create cracks.

How to clean your wood cabinetry:

·      To avoid scratching, never use abrasive cleansers or pads on cabinet surfaces. They can cause scratches.

·      Always keep cabinet surfaces dry and free from standing liquids.

·      Use environmentally safe cleaners like Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day, Method, Seventh Generation, Caldera or Ecover at a ratio of two cups water to two teaspoons of soap. Don't use strong soaps, detergents or liquid wax cleaners.

·      You can experiment with a quality wood wax, but try it on an inside surface first to see the effect. Many people never use anything but soap and water on their wood cabinetry.

·      Stained finishes: Remove the dirt and grease using mild soapy water, a soft cloth and light pressure. Avoid rubbing too vigorously. Rinse immediately with a clean cloth and dry with a clean soft cloth.

·      Painted or Matte Finishes: Never use wax on these surfaces. Wipe with soft cloth and mild soapy water solution. Rinse immediately and never let water stand on cabinetry.

·      Metallic Inserts: Don't use anything abrasive (pads or cleaners) as you can permanently damage the insert's surface. Also avoid acids, solvents and ammonia-based cleaners as you may etch the surface of the metal.

·      Hinges: Keep the hinges lubricated with white lithium spray grease. As hinges may loosen over time, you may need to tighten the screw to restore them to perfect working order (remove the hinge cap on frameless cabinets to access the hinge screws).

For more questions about caring for your fine wood cabinetry or to choose new cabinetry to install, please contact kitchen designer, Jason Landau at Amazing Spaces, LLC. Jason's decades of experience with choosing, installing and caring for fine wood cabinetry will help you protect your investment for years to come. Visit www.amazingspacesllc.com or phone 914-239-3725.

Tying Together Rooms With Color

Boxy little rooms, all decorated separately, is dated design. Today's savvy homeowner wants sight lines to and continuous flow between rooms. Such a flow creates harmony, but carving out a connection between rooms in the open floor plans favored these days can be a challenge. The key is vision and to see “The Big Picture” and for this you may need the help of a professional kitchen designer, like Jason Landau of Amazing Spaces, LLC. One of the ways Landau creates a harmonious flow between rooms is by the clever use of color.

Landau's training in architecture prepared him to see how seemingly disparate elements can come together to create a seamless whole. Landau keeps in mind that light, texture, shape, scale, pattern, and color are all elements of successful design, but balance must be heeded above all. A kitchen design should have energy, but not be too kinetic or disruptive. The design should flow as naturally as a creek over pebbles.

First the designer will help you consider the space. What rooms will you be able to see from the kitchen? What portions of other rooms? Then try to see, with the help of your designer, all these spaces as connected, not separate entities. It's like looking at a whole mountain range instead of only one dramatic peak.

Then choose five paint colors you like without considering which paint would go where in your final design. A color palette may suggest itself by your choices or you might want to discard two of the colors that don't seem to work with the others. If you find the colors all in the same family of hues, say blues/greys/silvers, start to envision how they might work in the various spaces:

• Make use of a color wheel where shades are grouped into schemes and color combinations are suggested.
• Colors can carry through to more than one room or act as background colors or accents.
• Molding, baseboards, wainscots and window frames may be the only use of one color or perhaps the ceilings may share this color.
• Try blending color or using a lightly colored glaze to complement a darker wall color in the connecting room.
• Blending glazes can “suggest” a color in a hallway, blossoming into a brighter shade of that same color in the room the hallway opens into—creating a flow from one space to another.
• Varying the intensity of the paint application or adding texture suggests movement while maintaining a harmonious whole.
• Take artwork and furnishings into consideration. Focal points for each can be create by contrasting colors or brightness around the piece and then used in nearby rooms in larger areas as a tie-in.
• Tiles may be used—both as a backsplash in the kitchen and with a center decorative band that carries throughout the adjoining rooms.
• Trying a sample of various colors painted on small sections of your walls may help you visualize how the scheme will come together.

It is said that the eye “carries the color” from room to room as you walk through the house. Make sure that the colors your family and guests carry are soothing, inviting, or invigorating, creating a positive subliminal message: Your environment is a warm and welcoming one.

For harmonious kitchen design and space planning, call Jason Landau at Amazing Spaces, LLC at 

914-239-3725 or visit www.amazingspacesllc.com.