Chinese kitchen cabinets
pc
I've been reading the Chinese product threads with interest.
I've had some experience with the recent recalls [occasionally
supplemented dogs homemade food with a canned food that was voluntarily
pulled]. I've bought products at the 99 cent store that I've thrown away.
We are FINALLY redoing our kitchen. We have been getting prices and
info over the past two years. We looked at prices for self install as
well as total package. We also looked at refacing vs. total new cabinets.
We are ending up buying all wood raised panel cabinets, which we must
assemble [or tack on 5% for preassemble] and granite countertops
[assembled and installed] from a local company somebody informed me about.
Their products are really beautiful. And the price is less than what
Thermofoil door replacement alone would have cost from the big box store.
We are just awestruck. Coming from the "granite capitol of the world"
[NH, VT]..it amazes me that I can get cheaper granite shipped all the
way from China!
While I am a bit creeped out by the price differential between the
Chinese products and the other products we priced out, I am comforted by
the fact that we will not be ingesting our cabinets and countertops.
PC
PaPaPeng
>We are just awestruck. Coming from the "granite capitol of the world"
>[NH, VT]..it amazes me that I can get cheaper granite shipped all the
>way from China!
>
My one way of getting adventure was to take a bus at random in Beijing
and let it go to strange places. This one took me to the east end
combat zone that had something like 10 acres of barracks like
buildings next to a busy rail marshalling yard on one side, a large
dirty storm drainage canal on the other and under the massive main
electrical grid towers. The barracks were filled with dozens of
stores of each kind of building trades and supplies. I was like a
kid in a candy store and spent five hours wandering through that
place.
Each business had had only about a thousand sq. ft. of store space.
Kitchen cabinets, bathroom fixtures, luxury lamps, closet modules
and hardware. I can't remember them all but they had much better
stock than many an upsacle home decorations and fixtures store in
North America. I was impressed by a section that had at least a 100
businesses dealing in cut dressed stone. They were the usual white
marbles and grey or black granite. But there were also fantastically
colored red, crimsons, yellows, beige, browns, blues, all manner of
greens and purples. Among the colored slabs were equally intriguing
natureal stone patterns some of which suggested swirls of clouds or
water or range upon range oif hills receding into the distance. The
slabs were commonly 10 feet by 8 feet, of course with their natural
rock edges. One could order any size or shape of cut from these
slabs. At one section of this stoneware area were readymade stone
sculptures like those giant stone lions in front of a bank entrance,
the stone lanterns, dragons, etc. Don't like Chinese? You can also
buy ready carved stone facades and carvings to customize your
restaurant in Spanish Meditterreanean, classical or modern Roman
Italian, Egyptian; in fact in any style if you can show them a picture
of. And these are expertly carved stonework any museum will be proud
of.
In another part of Beijing closer to downtown was a whole district
devoted to building and home renovation supplies. Whole floors with
something like 300 stores on one floor dealing with just hardwood
floors. The next floor with plumbing fixtures and bathroom fixtures.
The third one with vefry modern kitchen cabinets and appliances that
no Chinese house can afford. The kitchen are is already bigger than
the average Chinese apartment.
Whatever, you ain's seen nothin' till you have visited these stores.
>While I am a bit creeped out by the price differential between the
>Chinese products and the other products we priced out, I am comforted by
>the fact that we will not be ingesting our cabinets and countertops.
I'm not boasting. I'm just as awed as you are.
Rod Speed
Yeah, they really are exploiting their low labor costs.
Going to be interesting to see how long it takes till all that stuff
dominates the modern first world country stores. It hasnt yet.
pc
Well PaPaPeng..
We just finalized the cabinet layouts and paid half the money.
While we were there I overheard a fellow who had been trying to rectify
a problem that had gone on for many months. While we were waiting for
some printouts, I went outside and talked to him. Seems there some
problems with finish on a few doors and a few other minor defects. He
bought the cabinets flatpack and had his own installer. He needed new
doors, extra stain, some hardware. His installer was long gone and the
repairs were up to him.
I've heard this before...that sometimes quality control can be bad. So,
we opted for the company [owned by a Chinese man..I don't know if he
owns the factory in China though] to assemble and deliver the cabinets
to us for a rather small fee. That way I can inspect the cabinets right
away and reject any that do not meet our expectations. They are also
giving me some matching stain for small touchups.
Because we are installing them ourselves, I thought that this was good
insurance.
I'm really looking forward to getting them. And, with half my kitchen
already demo'd I'm even excited about the thought of installing them!
I'll give an update when it's all done.
..PC