Kitchen and Bath Design News, the premier industry magazine for kitchen and bath designers and industry suppliers, featured 50 top innovators in the kitchen and bath industry in their October issue. Main Line Kitchen Design’s President Paul McAlary was selected as one of these top innovators.
.
The Bio from the article is below:
Paul McAlary possesses a voice that resonates far beyond the boundaries of Philadelphia’s western suburbs and the city’s prestigious Main Line – the location of his well-established Delaware Valley design firm. McAlary, president and senior designer of Bala Cynwyd, PA-based Main Line Kitchen Design, is an internationally recognized kitchen design authority who has won more than a dozen local and national design awards, including being named a 2017 Viking Appliances Designer of Distinction. Beyond his achievements as a designer, McAlary has also forged a burgeoning reputation as the creative force behind the “Main Line Kitchen Design Blog,” a unique online forum and social media resource that is read by more than 40,000 people each month and has been honored as one of the top kitchen design blogs in the world. Main Line Kitchen Design’s videos and blogs address a wide range of kitchen/bath-related topics aimed at sparking a constructive exchange of ideas among both consumers and design professionals. McAlary, whose kitchens and comments often appear in trade magazines and on social media sites, is sometimes at odds with the kitchen design establishment, but he maintains a distinct sense of humor and is known as a fierce advocate for design standards, ethics and transparency in the kitchen design trade.
.
Paul being mentioned in an article is refreshing in that he is often a critic of The National Kitchen and Bath Association. So including him among the innovators is the type of transparency that we appreciate. Giving our customers honest appraisals of our designs and the products we sell even when the those appraisals are negative is something we always strive to do.
.
Hoping our industry and the world in general continues to become more transparent. And as always a hearty . . .
Bon Appetit!
.
Paul, Julie, Ed, Chris, John, Lauren, Tom and Stacia
Today cabinets can be purchased online at prices as much as 20% below what cabinet dealers and showrooms sell them for. Some of the online cabinet sellers even make pretty well made cabinetry. So why would saving money and buying your cabinets online not make sense?
.
The answer simply put, is that buying kitchen cabinets is not like buying a toaster or a pair of pants. It is the first and most important purchase that locks you into a renovation, design and construction strategy. And it is just the tip of the iceberg. Many thousands of dollars in choices are made after finalizing the kitchen design and purchasing the cabinets. Flooring, countertop, lighting, backsplash, appliances, sinks, fixtures, molding, and even the types and locations of windows and doors determine how your kitchen functions. How much you decide to spend on these choices determines whether your money is well spent or wasted.
.
When you buy cabinets online or at IKEA, Costco, or other extreme discount retailers, you are giving up having knowledgeable kitchen design help. Having a professional measure your home, weigh design choices and help you make sensible decisions is worth far more than what you might possibly save on cabinetry. Without expert design help the majority of kitchen renovations are a waste of money and poorly designed. Left to their own devices, homeowners nearly always spend more and spend it ineffectively.
.
The truly sad part for these homeowners and the frustrating part for good kitchen designers is that people seldom realize how foolish the choices they are making are. Precisely because they aren’t kitchen design professionals. See our funny video on this topic here.
.
Worst of all even if homeowners get good design help and recognise how much better their design is after working with an expert, they could decide to go right back and buy cabinetry online. Believing that NOW they don’t need any MORE help. I especially don’t have sympathy for these customers. Once unencumbered by knowledgeable help they eventually make the poor decisions that get them the kitchen that they deserve.
.
Embarking on a 20. 40, 80, or a 200 thousand dollar kitchen renovation without the help of an expert kitchen designer makes no sense. And thinking that your architect, contractor, interior designer, or other pseudo kitchen professional is all you need is even more senseless. Expert help usually comes free from the cabinet dealers when you purchase your cabinetry from them. So avoiding getting that free help by buying cabinets online is the most senseless decision of all.
.
Hoping you will allow Main Line Kitchen Design or another kitchen design professional to help you create a well designed kitchen, and to spend your renovation budget wisely.
.
Paul, Julie, Ed, Chris, John, Lauren, Tom and Stacia
This is one of our favorite conversions. A high ceilinged barn in Villanova transformed into a understated and stately, light filled home. I love the tasteful choices and the elegant but not too formal furnishings.
.
Our avid blog readers might notice a cooktop and hood in front of a window that we will often warn against. In this case both are OK because the stone exterior wall is 12 inches thick and so the window is not only 12 inches up from the level of the cooktop but also 12 inches back.
.
For those not “in the know” – the danger of putting a cooktop in front of a window is that a gust of wind from an open window could blow out the flames on the cooktop burners allowing gas to fill the room. Or curtains could be placed on the windows creating a fire hazard. Or finally the heat from the burners could break the seal on the insulated glass in the windows. Thankfully the combination of the added wall thickness, the windows located 12 inches above the countertop and the window in back of the cooktop being fixed all made the design safe.
.
.
Hoping to help you make your home a place that makes you just a little bit happier each day . . . and of course. . .
.
Bon Appetit!
Paul, Julie, Ed, Chris, John, Lauren, Tom and Stacia
The Cabinet world is full of confusing information about the fumes new cabinetry can give off after installation.
.
Unfortunately the cabinet industry is not policed beyond a certain level and the companies that tout themselves better than industry standards are often less likely to be honest and reliable. This is because their claims are not being verified by independent laboratories and even some certifications from laboratories like GreenGuard are more about who bothers to pay to be tested than if the tested results are any better than average.
Testing kitchen cabinets for formaldehyde off gassing began in California.
.
What is CARB 2? CARB is shorthand for the California Air Resources Board. This body governs air quality and researches causes and solutions to air pollution. Phase II of CARB’s Airborne Toxic Control Measure (ATCM) went into effect in California in 2010. The rule limits formaldehyde emissions from hardwood plywood (HWPW), medium-density fiberboard (MDF), and particleboard (PB), as well as household and other finished goods containing these products manufactured or sold in California. For many years CARB2 was the only testing standard cabinets could be tested to meet.
.
The Federal Government created their own limits similar and more detailed than CARB 2 and these new rules went into effect this year across the entire US.
.
After March 22, 2019: Composite wood products must be certified and labeled as TSCA Title VI compliant by a TPC (third-party-certifier) approved by EPA and can no longer use CARB-approved TPCs or products certified to CARB ATCM Phase II emissions standards. Only TSCA Title VI compliant panels and finished goods may be sourced.
.
So under the new Federal Guidelines all cabinetry sold in the US that is made by major cabinet companies will now pass CARB2 emission levels.
.
Individual carpenters making cabinetry will not be tested of course.
Under the new and old emission rules plywood is always held to lower levels of formaldehyde than particle board or MDF so the first step in reducing the off gassing of your cabinetry is to purchase cabinetry with all plywood construction.
.
One of the most important things you can to do to limit the amount of off gassing that you are exposed to is to allow your cabinets to off gas on their own prior to installing them inside your home. This can be done in a warehouse or your garage. Removing the cabinets from boxes helps. Four weeks should vastly reduce any volatile organic compounds (VOCs).
.
Even after the cabinets are installed you can still help reduce your exposure. Simply stay elsewhere for a couple of days and close all the windows in your home while raising the thermostat to 90 degrees. This should bake out additional fumes. Be sure to air out the entire house and bringing the home to a normal temperature before moving back in.
.
Placing cabinetry over heaters or using cabinet boxes as heat ducts is also not advised if you are trying to limit VOCs.
One of the most misunderstood elements in this off gassing dilemma is believing that imported cabinetry will have higher off gassing levels, and that expensive custom cabinetry will have lower levels of VOCs. This is because of untested Chinese flooring a decade ago that had very high formaldehyde levels. Today all cabinetry sold from major brands will have been tested so this is notpossible.
.
In fact US companies that are importing their doors and cabinet parts from overseas will have had their parts given added time to off gas due to the shipping time to import and also because stock cabinetry parts are stored until assembled. More expensive custom cabinetry will be made specifically for the individual customer and will usually ship only a few days after completion. So allowing your more expensive custom cabinetry to off gas could be particularly important.
.
Be careful of very small custom cabinet companies. They will not use ovens to bake their finishes between coats. Larger custom lines and semi custom lines will be baking their finishes sometimes even spraying a powdered finish onto their doors that is melted to create a more durable finish coat. Larger manufacturers will use catalyzed conversion varnishes that are much harder to damage and less likely to off gas. This is one reason why we are not fans of Amish made cabinetry. Read link
The most troubling component to this issue is that customers doing their own research are generally not able to evaluate the reliability of the search results that they find. Particularly since the cabinet industry does not have reliable results to find. Moreover the cabinet brands and the kitchen designers that will be the most assuring are generally simply telling people what they want to hear. As is so often the case the person that professes not to know the answer for sure is often not only the most honest but also the most reliable.
.
One further test if you are particularly sensitive to chemical odors would be to buy a test cabinet from the complete cabinet design you intend to purchase. It is better to wait an additional few weeks for cabinets than to rip out a kitchen and to deliver the whole cabinet order only to find that you are overly sensitive to what you have selected.
.
Wishing our customers a wonderful fall season. And of course . .
The most valuable part of your kitchen renovation is the design of the kitchen itself. Professional kitchen designers understand that it takes a decade for anyone, no matter how talented, to become proficient at designing kitchens. And yet many people believe that coming up with the best design for a particular space and spending their renovation budget effectively should be easy for non design professionals.
.
Homeowners, contractors, architects, engineers and real estate agents often believe that a kitchen designer is not needed for their project. And even though professional assistance from a kitchen designer comes free with the purchase of cabinetry from most kitchen cabinet dealers, people can still stubbornly refuse to accept free input from someone who’s been designing and selling kitchens for decades. They believe that they know how they use their kitchen and as every kitchen designer hears several times a day that they “know exactly what they want”.
.
Here is our funny video that tries to put that belief in perspective. Click on image below:
Kitchen Designers Paul McAlary and Doug Mottershead
At Main Line Kitchen Design we know that you can not be an expert in everything. This is why we refer our customers to expert sales people for appliances, flooring, lighting, and backsplash tile. It is also why we subcontract to or simply recommend expert installers.
.
When you are working on a complex renovation you need experts in every field. We hope you will let Main Line Kitchen Design be your experts for designing your kitchen and selling you the cabinets that best suit your needs and budget.
.
Have a great Labor Day weekend and of course . . .
Customers often ask us how much a particular cabinet costs per linear foot. The answer is that cabinets are never sold by the linear foot and that the linear foot price you see for cabinets on kitchen displays inside home centers is intentionally misleading.
Real Kitchen by Main Line Kitchen Design
Cabinets are always sold by the individual cabinet, molding, panel, and part.No cabinet store or home center like Lowes or The Home Depot sells cabinets by the linear foot.
. The linear foot price for a cabinet style uses a formula created by the cabinet industry to both compare one cabinets cost to another and also to mislead customers as to how much cabinetry costs.
.
The linear foot price for a particular cabinet is calculated by adding up the cost for the cabinets in a mythical L shaped kitchen that is 10′ x 10′. This small kitchen always has a big window and a big refrigerator and so two large spaces without cabinets to price. It also usually has 4 small 30″ wall cabinets. Blind or dead corners, no molding, no roll outs, no panels and is all particleboard with the cheapest hinges and tracks that the cabinet line offers.
Example of a the industry standard10′ x 10′ Kitchen
To calculate the linear foot price you simply add up the cost of the cabinetry in the 10′ x 10′ kitchen pictured above up and divide by 20 (10 + 10) to create a starting linear foot price for that cabinet line in that door style. Notice that the corners in this calculation were counted twice. . This linear foot price is sort of like the ads you see for a new car saying “nothing down and $100 per month for a brand new car”. We all know this deal doesn’t exist. When you get to the dealership it turns out that to get the deal you have to trade in a two year old car with low mileage and qualify for veterans, senior, and return buyer discounts. Oh and sorry “that car was sold off the lot yesterday.” . The reality is that once you upgrade and price an actual kitchen for your size home in your door style and finish with moldings and extras like a drawer base and maybe a lazy susan or a trash pull out, you will find out that you are closer to double the linear foot price. And for big kitchens with tall ceilings and with lots of panels and roll outs – far above double the price.
Misleading customers as to what a kitchen will cost is not ethical in my opinion. It is also misleading advertising cabinetry sales of 25, 40, and 50% off. These fake sales are based on the list price of cabinetry. No kitchen place sells cabinetry for it’s inflated list price and nearly all cabinet dealers sell cabinetry EVERY DAY for 25, 40, and 50% off of list price depending on an individual cabinet lines list pricing.
.
Main Line Kitchen Design tries to explain these industry tricks to our customers, and would certainly never advertise or use these methods to attract business.
.
Helping people make sensible choices and educating customers about our industry and the products we sell is what helps people spend their budget wisely. Pressuring people to buy now is never a good idea with complicated construction projects like kitchen renovations. And if someone is pressuring you to buy now you can be certain that they do not have your best interest at heart.
.
Wishing all our customers a great rest of the summer . . .
What’s the mistake amateur kitchen designers make the most often? The answer can be summed up with the old expression “Trying to put eight pounds of sausage in a six pound wrapper.”
When you are not a talented and experienced kitchen designer often you will judge your design success by how much you can fit in a kitchen. Getting 5 stools at the island instead of 4, getting the tallest cabinets in the room possible or fitting the large appliances that you have pre-selected into your design are judged as accomplishments. Fitting all of your “must haves” into the kitchen is the only criteria for success when you can’t appreciate the problems that are created when you jamb those eight pounds of sausage into your six pound wrapper!
Kitchen designers make more money when they sell you more cabinets so when your designer objects to what you are pushing for and tells you spaces are too tight they are putting your best interest above their own pocket book. Becoming annoyed with the professional or thinking you know better will make it likely that your kitchen will be full of mistakes. Because after you don’t listen to the first few warnings, many designers will stop being critical of your ideas and simply sell you the bad kitchen you seem to want, and stop giving the professional advice that is only frustrating you.
.
Unfortunately, because of THE IKEA EFFECT, (a delusional disorder that makes people believe that what they have designed is far better than what is reasonable) you may very well think your design is great. However the people that visit your home will be remarking at how crazy and tight your kitchen is. And when the time comes to sell your home you will get a more objective evaluation of your design by the offers you get from perspective home buyers.
Kitchen designers have to shake their heads at the reasoning many of our customers will give for why they are OK with things being too tight. When the island is too big customers tell us that they will be getting very small stools. If something else is too tight or doesn’t work it might be OK because it is “better than what I have now” or “my friend has it”.
.
The best designers will not stop objecting at each new wrinkle that lacks the space needed, but many designers will be worn down quickly. One of my customers with a great sense of humor assures me that she is coming to her appointments with her boxing gloves on. It is her ability to laugh about our collaboration but still take my advice seriously that has helped her design a great kitchen.
Hoping that you will allow your designer to put your interests above what you think you “must have”.
At the bottom of the page is our list of the top ten tips for remodeling a kitchen in a new home.
Congratulations! You just bought a new home and you are considering remodeling the out of date kitchen. Now please stop and do your family a favor and carefully consider these tips BEFORE you embark on your renovation.
.
Due to the euphoria of buying a new home people can rush into renovations that are poorly planned wasting tens of thousands of dollars and sometimes decreasing, instead of increasing, the value of their new home. Mistakes arise when new home buyers attempt to finish their construction before they move into the home. They mistakenly believe that by rushing they are saving themselves mortgage or rental payments, that will save them money on the overall cost of their renovation. In fact, spending extra time planning and getting multiple bids from contractors on the detailed plans you have finalized BEFORE starting the renovation saves money and has other benefits as well.
Among the benefits of a well planned renovation is that even though the job might begin weeks or months later, because the project is better planned, it is almost always is completed before a hastily planned project. The design itself and the kitchen layout is what adds the most value to your home and so working with a talented kitchen design professional is essential. Meeting and modifying designs and making changes after discussing the benefits of different possibilities improves your design with each appointment. Were you to design your kitchen yourself or let a contractor or architect plan the design without the help of an experienced kitchen designer then the most important aspect of the renovation would lack an expert.
The most misguided decision new homeowners make is to begin ripping out walls and doing demolition with no final plan in mind. Without direction, unguided demolition will always create added work for electricians, plumbers, framers, and drywallers later. Since the demolition of even the complete interior of a home should never take more than a couple of days, starting demolition simply to appease a novice renovators need to feel that things are progressing is foolish.
Below is our list of the top ten tips for remodeling a kitchen in a new home:
.
Never begin demolition until a final plan for all the proposed renovations is complete and a general contractor has been selected.
Never begin the planning of a kitchen renovation without first selecting the kitchen design professional you will ultimately be buying cabinets from.
Even if you think you know the contractor you want to do your renovation. Still get at least three estimates. Estimates give you free advice and pricing from knowledgeable professionals.
Allways hire the general contractor with the total cost of the renovation having been bid in advance. Starting work without a total price is how project costs spiral out of control.
Never pay contractors by the day or by the hour. It gives them no incentive to work efficiently and usually costs you more in the end. Plus it makes budgeting your project impossible.
Keep in mind that construction changes like removing a wall, moving doorways, plumbing or electric, is what creates the best kitchen design. This is what affects the resale value of your home, and construction changes have less impact on the total cost of the project than the cabinetry, countertops, appliances and other materials that you choose to splurge on. Yes, a Subzero refrigerator is great but the additional cost of $5000 for the refrigerator would have payed for renovations that completely changed the flow and look of your new home.
Never bring more than one professional remodeler to look at your home at the same time. You may have limited access to the property before you close, but shuffling contractors in and out past each other is disrespectful and you will pay for it in the bids you get. Some contractors won’t even bother bidding on a project when they get a feeling that they aren’t being respected while others will simply increase their bid by 20% or more to cover the possibility of working with a problem homeowner.
Never emphasize that you are getting other bids. Contractors know this and assume it. Throwing it in their face will make them not trust you which will make their bids higher. Promising future work after the project they are bidding on also sets off alarms for construction professionals.
Good kitchen designers will always insist on measuring your home first. Any designer willing to accept someone else’s measurements is at best irresponsible and at worst incompetent. Designers need to measure themselves and see your home BEFORE they begin working on designs. Never work with a kitchen designer that doesn’t insist on this.
Do not insist on your timeline for work and materials. The length of time a project takes shouldn’t vary that much from one competent contractor or cabinet dealer to another. The homeowner has little control over timelines and being insistent that things are completed when you want them could translate into your selecting people to work with that are simply telling you what you want to hear. Honesty is what you should be looking for. The people giving you realistic competition dates usually meet them, while people that tell you what you want to hear will never give you honest answers.
.
Remember that the thing that people refuse to spend to get a great kitchen is not money. It is the time required to plan well.
Over the 25 plus years that I have been a kitchen designer there is no question that some of the worst kitchens that I have seen sold have also been the most expensive. Even the most expensive kitchen that I personally sold was a design that I was slightly embarrassed to sell.
.
Why are these expensive kitchens so poorly designed? The first reason is that customers with the most money to spend nearly always start their project by consulting with an architect. Once the kitchen design process begins with an architect, seldom does the architect consult with an actual kitchen designer. So the architect who in far less experienced and knows none of the rules of kitchen design nor how cabinetry is built or priced works on the design with the customer until it is nearly complete.
As a kitchen designer it is incredibly frustrating to be handed an amateurish design to price in the most expensive cabinetry that we sell. The homeowner and the architect have spent hours creating a design that often breaks the most fundamental kitchen design rules and looks like what it is. The work of non professionals. Unfortunately after all the time spent creating the ill conceived design it would frustrate everyone involved to go back to square one where the mistakes began. Worst of all, neither the homeowner nor the architect realize how silly these designs are because they aren’t kitchen designers. And to tell them that “the Emperor has no clothes” is usually met with both anger and skepticism.
Just in the last two weeks I have been given two designs to price in custom cabinetry done by respected architects that place expensive 48″ SubZero refrigerators behind the primary sink in the kitchen. You could not place such a wide refrigerator in any worse location. Toll Brothers who use architects to design their kitchens are notorious for making this same mistake.
.
The problem with the refrigerator location, besides looking odd, is that every time someone goes to the refrigerator the person at the sink must leave so that the refrigerator doors can be opened when the person at the refrigerator steps back to open them. The refrigerator doors would also be dented in these designs if the dishwasher doors were down. What a waste of money!
.
In one case the customer was considering spending $74,000 on expensive poorly made cabinetry and over $40,000 on appliances for their bad design. As is usually the case the homeowners were so invested in their poor design that hearing that it had problems or that the cabinets they were considering were overpriced and poorly made was not received well.
Another reason that expensive kitchens tend to be poorly designed is that wealthy clients are less amenable to hearing that their design ideas have problems. Or, that the expensive appliances, cabinets, or countertops they want don’t fit and have issues associated with them. Often people of means have grown accustom to the people working with them simply agreeing with them. Kitchen designers know that these sales will be very large and that by being critical of what the customer wants they risk losing the sale. So many kitchen designers will remain silent about problems that might alienate wealthy clients and their architects.
.
Not all kitchen cabinet dealers and kitchen designers are able step in at the beginning of a major home renovation that removes load bearing walls and possibly adds an addition to a home but some most certainly are. Working with companies like Main Line Kitchen Design that help you design your home from the inside out prior to bringing in the architect fosters better kitchen designs and save on architects fees that were often wasteful and ill advised.
Wishing the 30,000 people that read our blog each month a Happy July 4th.
And to those considering a major kitchen renovation . . . Please find an experienced kitchen designer to work with sooner rather than later.
I was surprised but not shocked when Wood-Mode Custom Cabinetry officially closed their doors and up to 2,000 Pennsylvania workers lost their jobs Monday afternoon. The unfortunate closure is not only a hardship for plant workers and management but also a blow to the regional cabinet dealers that sold Wood-Mode and their semi-custom cabinet line Brookhaven.
Wood-Mode plant
The reason the closure wasn’t such a surprise to me was that as the owner of a cabinet dealership I closely monitor our industry and try to make adjustments to how we do business almost on a daily basis. Wood-Mode on the other hand was unchanging in their business model almost to the point of arrogance. When I heard the news of Wood-Mode’s closure I shook my head and thought back 5 years to when we met with Wood-Mode representatives to discuss Main Line Kitchen Design carrying the Wood-Mode brand.
It was very apparent during those meetings that both companies were taking a very different approach to selling cabinetry. Wood-Mode had little interest in Main Line Kitchen Design’s on line marketing strategy or in generating any kind of significant internet presence themselves. Time and efficiency was paramount for me but was not really valued by Wood-Mode. They felt that pricing and designing fine kitchens needed to be done in the systematic fashion they had used for decades and speeding up the process wasn’t needed.
.
I believe that kitchen designers showing customers what their kitchen will look like in three dimensions and determining how much it will cost as we make changes is essential. This can be a problem with custom cabinet lines like Wood-Mode because they offer so much customization that using CAD software like 20-20 or ProKitchens to show and price their cabinetry isn’t possible. Pricing a kitchen in these custom lines can be a great deal of work and take a ridiculously long time. Main Line Kitchen Design solves this problem by designing the highest end kitchens we sell in slightly less expensive cabinet lines and simply making a good guess on how much more the cabinetry in the more expensive custom line will be. We don’t actually know until sometimes weeks after we sell these very expensive kitchens exactly how much money we will make. We live with this problem so that both our time and our customers time can be spent effectively. This time is money concept was lost on the Wood-Mode reps we spoke with. They poo-pooed our technique believing that selling fine cabinetry didn’t require the speed and computer visualizations I did.
.
The custom cabinet market has suffered the last ten years as semi-custom cabinet lines have continued to offer greater customization. And the difference between fine custom cabinets and less expensive brands is not as obvious in the full overlay painted cabinetry that is very popular today. It is inset and beaded inset cabinetry and the fine furniture stains and other more complex finishes that distinguish the highest end cabinetry from less expensive brands.
.
The custom lines that will survive in today’s market need to change with the market and recognize that making their products more designer and customer friendly is essential. This is why we carry and sell both Brighton and Wellsford custom cabinetry. Besides making beautiful cabinetry, both these custom lines make our design process easier. We may not find out how much the custom cabinetry we sell will cost us until weeks after our customers order their kitchens but our designers and customers spend their time more efficiently and with fewer frustrations. Making the design process easier and more cost effective is one reason that Main Line Kitchen Design has grown over 20% each year we have been in business.
.
Brighton Custom Kitchen
I’m hoping that everyone affected by this sad turn of events adapts and finds new work. Living in a time of rapid change can be both exciting and frightening. Often when something like the Wood-Mode closing occurs I think of my Grandfather who was born before automobiles and yet saw a man land on the moon. He worked for a single company his entire life, starting as a box boy and retiring as a CPA. Today this would almost certainly never happen.
.
As our society continues to change I marvel at the changes and root for a better world…
… and as Julia Child a trend setter and culinary pioneer born a little after my grandfather would wish her viewers …
