Any experiences with Crystal kitchen cabs. I would do the plywood option, with natural wood veneer box interiors. Wood will be Lyptus and Crystal is one of few semi-custom makers that place that in the line. My major “hot button” is finish–quality and consistency.
Any other makers of Lyptus cabinets other than full custom. (I know Showplace but have had finish problems with samples–enough to rule them out.)
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We do kitchens using RTA (ready to assemble) carcases, and get our packages from Scherr's. They show Lyptus as an available species at this page http://www.scherrs.com/products/doors/woodcolor.htm
Here is a pic from their gallery of customer jobs showing a kitchen in Lyptus.
Off Topic, does anyone know of a company that sells RTA cabinets that include office type fittings, bookshelf type, and file drawer style cabs.
I'm a Crystal dealer. We love their product line. They are very accurate in what they ship (meaning you don't have the factory making many mistakes). They are a true custom cabinet line. They can build just about anything we can draw. As contractors that also have our own cabinet line, it's been a great combination.
Be careful on lyptus though. You need to send your sample door back to the factory to make sure they pick the lyptus stock to match your door. Lyptus has a high degree of variation and many people are suprised by what they get. By sending the sample door you have, they will know what you are looking for at the factory.
Lyptus is a very hard wood that holds up well to children and other abuse. It also finishes well and will make a nice cabinet. Crystal has the best catalyzed finish in the business.
Which Crystal dealer are you using?
Here is a followup for you. My own house, which I built as owner-GC, has a Crystal kitchen.
Ours have frameless carcases, some are black melamine with black-finished open-frame (glazed) doors, and others are done in a maple-veneered scheme, with the doors all made from the same flitch of veneer so the grain is continuous across a run. You can get a glimpse of part of the kitchen by looking in the background of the badly focused pic, attached. Note: Do not open the big one. I realized too late that it is too big, and resized it. Open the small file.
I can tell you from experience, that Crystal made mistakes on the order, and caused us large headaches. Perhaps it was their error, or perhaps it was the dealer's, but it was a mess.
What we get from Scherr's is a match or better to what we got from Crystal in this single experience of mine. Our Scherr's relationship has been going steady now since '03, and in about a dozen projects, we've seen few errors of consequence.
Scherr Cabinets are interesting, but with all my shop and finishing stuff in storage until I move they aren't too feasible.
I'm pretty sure that Scherr's does finishing as well.
Edited 6/1/2007 2:37 pm ET by TomW
Assembly is done with these tools: cordless impact driver or screwgun, 16-oz hammer, phillips bits, and you. That's it. No holes to drill, no clamps needed, just your hands.
Everything is finished.
I did a photo essay the last time we assembled a kitchen from Scherr's, and posted it here. Use the search engine and you can see.
As we would if dealing with a Crystal package, or Wood-Mode, or anybody's, installation take a whole 'nuther toolkit. But you knew that.
And I'll guarantee you'll save enough money to buy all the tools needed, brand new, and then some.
It's not the tools but the space--I've got a contractor building the house so I'm not going to set up to get in the way of that. Where I am now, I would be putting them together in the living room, over the landlord's (and friend's) carpet, and having to stack up all his (and some of my) reproduction furniture.
The other thing that Scherr's doesn't do is face frame cabinets. I'd like inset doors, and without the shop I'm not making faceframes to go on their boxes.
Besides I've got sailing to do while this would need to be done.
Bertch Custom line cabinets also does Lyptus. They even show several in their "standard" door pamphet. The company responded on the same day to my e-mail asking if they did Lyptus which is why I visited a local "showroom".
I will probably use Scherr cabinets on the wet bar (mother-in-law kitchen) in the media center. I'm going to finish all that out myself.