The Planet of Cabinets

Cabinets are an essential and exciting part of any home design, offering a multitude of options to enhance your living space. At Saddle Horn Custom Homes, we specialize in helping you choose the perfect design, form, and function that best suits your lifestyle. Cabinets can be incorporated into various areas of your home, including the kitchen, bathrooms, laundry rooms, bookcases, mudrooms, custom closets, window seats, and more. They provide opportunities to increase storage, create functional workspaces, and add aesthetic beauty. However, cabinets are also one of the biggest expenditures in a custom home building budget.

The design possibilities are endless, from different styles and finishes to knobs, pulls, drawer organizers, under-cabinet lighting, and electrical options. Buck, with his extensive expertise, guides you through this process, helping you avoid common pitfalls such as manufacturing mistakes, sizing errors, and placement issues.

Planning Your Cabinet Journey

Your cabinet journey begins with your house plans, including the placement of sinks, ovens, refrigerators, showers, tubs, washers, and dryers. It's crucial to figure out your working space and how it best serves you, ensuring a smooth flow and layout. For instance, a gourmet cook may have specific requirements for the kitchen, while a functional laundry room might include a countertop for folding clothes with adjacent cabinet storage. In my closet, I wanted a center island with cabinets below to lay out clothes and remove pet hair (we should own shares in Evercare rollers).

Do you want cabinets framing a bathroom mirror with hidden electrical outlets for hair tools and toothbrushes to reduce clutter? Separate cabinets for him and her? Custom cabinetry offers incredible options to maximize space, storage, and fluid work areas. Your design can be unique, with budget being the only limiting factor. Saddle Horn Custom Homes will provide a cabinet budget based on your overall home price, with kitchen wall cabinets potentially taking up half of the kitchen budget.

Visiting the Cabinet Shop

The next step involves visiting cabinet shops. A representative will walk you through a showroom with various colors, finishes, styles, and materials. One helpful tool is a fold-out brochure showing all styles listed under different pricing levels, allowing you to study and decide on your spending in different areas. You don't have to stick with the same cabinet style throughout your home. For example, we splurged on kitchen cabinets with bullet detailing but opted for simpler designs elsewhere.

A significant cost factor is whether you choose hardwood plywood boxes versus particle board boxes. Hardwood plywood is more expensive but more durable, while solid wood door and drawer fronts hold up best to frequent use.

Styles and Materials

Cabinet doors come in six main styles: Contemporary, Craftsman, Traditional, Tudor, French, and Rustic, with designs ranging from flat panel and raised to slab and glass. Inset slab cabinet doors are classic and timeless but more expensive. Materials include hardwood, wood veneer, plywood, Thermofoil, laminate, particle board, Medium Density Fiberboard, and Melamine. In a custom home, hardwoods like oak, maple, cherry, and hickory are the most durable and traditional. Wood veneers are more affordable but less durable, with a tendency to chip or peel over time. Plywood cabinets are strong, resilient, and better at resisting water, though not as durable as hardwood and may have veneer finishes that can peel over time.

Choosing Colors and Additional Features

Next, consider the color of your cabinets, which influences the room's overall look and feel, whether rustic, colorful, or Mediterranean. Color is a personal decision, factoring in wall colors, room size, and ambiance.

After deciding on style, material, and color, a new universe of possibilities opens up: under-cabinet lighting, pull-out drawers, open shelving, customizable drawer organizers, appliance panels, full overlay or inset cabinet doors, appliance garages with inset outlets, bathroom cabinets with outlets for hair tools, and pull-out drawers for trash and recycling.

Conclusion

I am grateful for Buck’s expertise in cabinetry, as I was unaware of the endless possibilities available today. Modern cabinets significantly reduce clutter and enhance convenience.

My advice to anyone building a home is to enjoy the hunt and research. Explore the internet, visit box stores and specialty home stores, attend home shows, and browse Pinterest. Use free home design apps to visualize your ideas. With a good builder like Saddle Horn Custom Homes, you don’t have to handle the technical details. You get to dream, choose, and we will build that vision.

Check Our Work:

Discover how we seamlessly integrate contemporary aesthetics with the natural beauty of the western Montana landscape.

Apply to Be a Client:

Are you ready to experience the Saddle Horn Custom Home difference? Submit your application to start your custom home journey.

Montana Homes & Service

The homes we build and the way we build them are what makes us different. We not only do it right, we do it with a disciplined passion. Learn more about each.

Learn About Our Homes

Quality. Personal. Crafted. Montana.

Learn About Our Service

General Contracting. Design. Consulting. More.