Kitchen worktops from doubled DTD

Doubled laminated particle boards (36 mm thick) used for the construction of furniture are also often used for the construction of kitchen worktops. Such cheap kitchen worktops are most often mounted in the small kitchens in the office interiors (because of the maximum material reconciliation the kitchen with other office furniture or as a result of minimizing costs while equipping the interior), where they are not used so often as worktops at home kitchen.

The core of classical laminated particle boards used for the manufacture of furniture is not impregnated, and their surface is not suited for long-term resisting to moisture. The risk of devaluation of such a worktop is increased by using edge tape or ABS edges. Low resistance to mechanical damage and high temperatures are another arguments, speaking against the use of such a worktops. The positive is (in addition to a relatively low price) a wide range of available patterns and color shades of particle boards and the possibility of manufacturing a deeper worktop (opposed to the standard of 600 mm).

Laminated worktops with postforming

More appropriate (and much more used) alternative to cheap and low quality kitchen worktop from DTD is laminated worktop with the so-called postforming thickness of 28, 38 (Egger) or 39 (Wodego) millimeters. It is resistant to high temperatures (up to approximately 180 ° C – but I do not recommend to put the hot pots directly to it because the hot bottom of pot has much hugher temperature), it is also resistant to mechanical damage (but I also recommend using special wooden underlays when cutting food) and chemicals. Postforming on the front edge of laminated kitchen worktop ensures integrity of surface, so the maximal waterproofness is guaranteed.

In the current modern kitchens there is a significant disadvantage that the laminated kitchen worktops are produced in most cases only at a thickness of 600 mm. On the other hand, by sticking appropriately chosen large-scale material you can achieve almost any thickness of the worktop - in this settlement you must replace the original post-formed front edges with the ABS tape, laminate edge or an aluminum bar.

Kitchen worktops with pressed laminate

Rezopal, Duropal, Homapal … these are just some of the names of laminates used for the manufacture of luxury kitchen worktops. Even though the final quality of the worktop is almost the same as the laminated worktops with postforming, their price is much higher. The manufacturer of such worktop must make it itself - laminate with a thickness of about 0.7 to 0.8 millimeters is pressed the core of particle board or hardboard.

The rich offer of the decors to the board but also the edges, complete freedom when choosing the thickness and the possibility of a production of worktop about 1,200 mm thick are the main reasons why this material is often used in production of the most luxurious kitchens.

And what about kitchen furniture? Even the cheapest kitchens must meet several times more functions then table under the TV or wardrobe. The kitchen must be able to cook, drain steam from the pots, shine some light on the kitchen board, wash dirty dishes … So let’s look at how much the real price increases in the kitchen, where we expect a fully operational product, fully ready to serve. From the results of the searching for word „furniture“ in google I have selected two popular sellers of furniture.

The cheapest kitchen from IKEA catalog

“Lagan” - 3 lower cabinets, 2 upper cabinets - this is the cheapest kitchen from IKEA catalog. For the 6.990 Sk you will receive a 1.95 meter wide kitchen group of white laminate particle board. In this price is, as the IKEA employee said, included beech worktop, a sink and faucet. According to the latest price list the price of transport will vary from 290 to 670 Euro (but only in the case of Bratislava and its surroundings - otherwise the price of import could increase up to 3.000 Sk) and there is not included the price of transport of kitchen to higher floor of your house (or flat). Another important item is the installation of the kitchen - price list shows that for the installation, connection appliances and assemblying the sink with a faucet we have to pay another money – 4.800 Sk (the employee recommended us to install the kitchen ourselves, but he added that they can install it for this price). The cheapest smokestack hood (1.690 Sk), electric boiling desk (2.490 Sk), fridge and freezer (10.990 Sk), the lamp under the upper cabinet (399 Sk) and sealing water bar to the worktop (250 Sk per 2.8 meter) increase the final price to approximately 28.089 Sk! In the price there is not yet included oven for baking because the cheapest kitchen from IKEA has no place for it.

The cheapest kitchen Tempo Kondela / Drevona catalog

In a leaflet of this company you can find 2.2 meters wide kitchen set “Táňa” (I assume that it is kitchen “Nika” from the Polish furniture producer Black Red White or its very successful copy). It consists of 7 cabinets and its bodies and doors are made of a laminate particle board using alder wood (one of the high cabinets has glass door). Leaflet price of this group and the kitchen sink is 8.690 Sk (the seller of furniture Drevona has in its current leaflet entirely the same cuisine for 9.230 Sk).After several phone attempts to contact the furniture shop Drevona in Bratislava, I resigned and began to dial phone numbers one by one until I successfully contacted furniture seller Kondela in the small town on the west Slovakia. Here I learne that the worktop is also included in the price. On the other hand, you have to pay 350 Sk for transport and 869 Sk for installation (10% of the cost of kitchen). Batteries, lighting or kitchen appliances are not offered – I will use the prices of cheap appliances from e-shop mall.sk - free-standing combined fridge and freezer Whirlpool ( 9.190 Sk), free-standing stove Mora (6.190 Sk), classical hood Zanussi (1.280 Sk), kitchen faucet Blanco (2.850 Sk). For the water sealing bar to the worktop and the lamp under the upper kitchen cabinet I use same price as IKEA. The last items are connecting stove to the gas (300 Sk), sink and faucet to the water (about 400 Sk) and the hood to electricity (300 Sk). And what is the price of a complete cheapest kitchen in furniture shop Tempo Kondela / Drevona? 31,068 Sk!

My note

I personally do not recommend buying these (but not only these which I used as an example) cheap kitchnes. But if you do not have any other financial possibilities and cheap cuisine is your only real solution, I recommend to calculate all prices associated with its buying!

1. Furniture with the loaded door

If the furniture door or drawer is mounted to body of the cabinet in such a way that it overlap the front edges of the upper bottom, the lower bottom and sides (or at least the edge of the side on which the hinges are mounted), it is called loaded door (door loaded on cabinet body (A )).

2. Furniture with embedded door

Furniture door and drawer inserted between the upper bottom, lower bottom and the sides of the cabinet (that is, when these parts overlap the edges of the door ) is called embedded doors (door embedded into cabinet body (C)).

3. Furniture with half-loaded door

The door which overlap (on the side where thehinges are mounted) less than half of the edge of the vertical or horizontal bar is called half-loaded

As illustrated in figure (B), the door may be settled by a combined way (door loaded on the sides but embedded between the upper and lower bottom, or door loaded on sides and on a lower bottom and upper bottom is loaded on it).

If you do not plan to use services of an architect or interior and furniture designer (for example, in an effort to save the funds), I can offer you an example and a few tips for you for drawing basis of furniture
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Example: shelf-box for folders

It’s strange, but many people seem to forget during drawing that the furniture is not constructed of thin paper, but it is made from a large-scale material (DTD, MDF, plywood, coreboard …) which has its minimum thickness. These mistakes evokes bad calculations and contradictory proportions. It is clearly demonstrated on drawing of the shelf-box for folders. Customer wants box with 4 shelves for folders with height of 1,650 mm (A) and he counted the height of folder (320 mm + 10 mm store). Is it possible to meet these conditions? The manufacturer of furniture can keep the height of a box and a number of shelves (B) only if 6 x thickness of particle board (the upper bottom, the lower bottom, shelves) is substracted from the total height and thus the space for the folders is reduced by 22 millimeters (so the box is for folders no more). Another option is to increase the height of box (C), or to reduce the number of shelves by one.

Standard thickness of materials used to manufacture furniture

Furniture and particle board – boards with thickness of 18 mm are usually used for cabinet body and door. With „duplicating“ (sticking together two layers of boards with glue or double-sided adhesive tape), the board reaches the thickness of 36 millimeters - these thick furniture boards are used as the upper table boards but also when it is necessary to have thick cabinet corpus. By bonding several layers you can achieve even greater thickness, the limiting factor is the width of the edge tape or ABS edge. Other standard thickness of laminated particle board: 10, 25 and 28 mm (these thicknesses may be combined in effort to reach the final thickness of the various laminated board).

Furniture and veneer particle board and hardboard - a standard thickness is 19 mm (veneer glued on DTD / MDF is thicker than laminated board) and with the “duplication” it is possible to produce boards 38 mm thick. In the case of veneer boards their maximal thickness is not limited - the use of veneer edge tape makes it possible to create DTD / MDF board of any thickness.

Furniture and sprayed hardboard - MDF boards treated to a high gloss or matte surface of different colors have the same thickness of 18 mm. “Duplication” of these boards is technologically more difficult (before spraying, the edges must be edged with veneer so the paint does not crack between single layers), but sprayed board can have any thickness as well.

Furniture and “raw” particle board and hardboard - 3, 4, 10, 16, 18, 2, 25, 28 mm … raw DTD / MDF is produced in various thicknesses but you can achieve any thickness too.
My final advice:

If you want to draw a sketch of furniture yourself, work with the thicknesses of boards and their multiples which I have described above. If you use residential architect ask them to do the same.

As any furniture fittings, also hinges are made in the various quality and the price categories. On the cheapest furniture there are assembled furniture hinges of Chinese production with almost no guarantee of quality (although the production of cheap furniture is one of the few industries where China does not have succes in Europe - in this case Polish furniture is popular), superior furniture is usually equipped with an excellent Blum hinges with complete guarantee. In the case of the furniture made to measure, the selection of appropriate furniture hinges corrects its final price - it depends on the customer’s priorities.

Well-made furniture hinges, however, do not guarantee long-term faultless and comfortable opening of the door. Another important condition for the smooth functioning is assembly. To make hinges work well, they must be fitted to approximately 100 mm from the top (upper hinge) and bottom (lower hinge) edge of the door. If the hinges are mounted from the edges to a greater distance, the action of gravity will change the position of the door (it will twist) and it will start to clash with the neighboring door (so it will not be able to close them), or in the worst case hinges will whip out of the cabinet corpus because of the door weight. A similar situation may occur if the manufacturer of furniture saves not only on quality but also on quantity. Rule is that the hinges should be from each other in distance of about 500 millimeters - that’s why the cabinet with higher doors must have installed 3 or more hinges (in determining the number of hinges there is important height and also width of the door).

For these reasons, I recommend to check and verify the location and number of hinges and test the strength of the suspension with gently pulling. If the seller of furniture says you to do not touch exposed furniture, it would be beter find your furniture somewhere else.

Space versus functionality

Into the lower corner kitchen cabinets are often mounted so-called rotary wire or plastic programs (carousel). The advantage is the high level of organization of kitchen dishes and pots, which are placed in this box (and associated maximum usability of the box) so you do not have to take it out from the back of the corner cabinet but you just rotate needed kitchen tool to the front of the box and easily pick it up. The accompanying simplified shape of the bottom of the kitchen clearly shows that the usefulness of such a cabinet is not the maximum but on the contrary it is dropping to almost 50 percent against the corner cabinet with a shelf! Therefore, I do not recommend to use wire program in small kitchen – more comfortable access to cooking pots must be replaced with the necessary storage areas. The problem appears different in the big kitchens, where it is better to prefer comfortable control of the kitchen (placing rotary wire program to corner cabinets) before the saving a few cubic centimeters of space.

Easy-to-use drawer systems excellently serve in the corner cabinet but in a small kitchen, this solution is also inappropriate. Loss of storage space in this case is even more prominent than in the rotary wire programs - to eliminate this loss a little bit, atypical cabinets can be attached to the sides of corner drawer cabinet.

Kitchen appliances in the corner cabinets

In the corner kitchen cabinet there may also be some built-in appliances (refrigerator, stove, microwave, coffee maker …). These appliances are built into the cabinets higher than the lower box so a lot of area in the kitchen wasted in such cases. The only excuse is perhaps the higher rate of ventilation for these kitchen appliances. In any case, I do not reccommend to built these appliances into cabinets in small kitchens.

The location of the built-in wardrobe in the interior

One of the important factors influencing the final price of cheap built-in wardrobe is design and construction, based on its location in your interior. Cheapest solution is the locating the wardrobe into niche in the wall (or on the entire length of the wall) because the fibreboard at the both sides of wardrobe are substituted with walls (more expensive wardrobes are equipped with a full fibreboard walls). In this case, the internal shelves and horizontal bars are mounted by a plastic supports of triangle shape directly on the wall. The built-in wardrobe at the same size may cost more if you want to place your wardrobe in the corner of the room and then the wardrobe will have only one wall replaced. The most expensive option is that the wardrobe is placed in room in so way that it can’t have any walls replaced (then it is called ” in area ” wardrobe).

Standard internal interior height is approximately 265 cm and therefore the built-in wardrobes which have same height do not usually have the upper floor. This will save the amount of material. However, in older interiors where the ceiling height is often up to almost 400 cm and the owner does not want to have so tall wardrobe , the upper floor must be created (higher consumption of material - higher price). If the owner wants so tall wardrobe, he must also expect greater prices and that the sides and sliding doors will be high-connected (because the fibreboards are produced at the maximum height of about 275 to 281 cm and and profiles for the production of sliding doors also have a maximum length). The price of built-in wardrobe can increase when we want to put it in the attic rooms.

Internal equipment of built-in wardrobes

You may have noticed that manufacturers of built-in wardrobes often declare stock prices for internal equipment made from some specific material (such as shelves, horizontal bars and vertical bars of white laminate fibreboard), which makes the prices lower (sometimes even several tens of percents). Why are the discounts offered only to the interior equipment and are not also offered to the sliding doors? White laminate fibreboard is a cheap material and internal components are essentially made from a simple rectangular parts, edged with the cheap laminated edge tape (ie, low materials prices and low production costs). Therefore, the value of internal equipment makes only a small part of the total wardrobe, sliding door are much more expensive and important for the manufacturer.

Between internal equipment there are not only the shelves and the bars, but there are also the drawers, slide-out baskets, hanger bars and many other special fittings. All these fittings increase added value of wardrobe. However, higher functionality means higher price. It is therefore important to think about the equipment, i.e. how many drawers you need in the wardrobe, whether ordinary fixed hanger bar is enough for you or you want more comfortable folding bar, whether you want special hanging fittings for trousers or the classic hanger rod, whether you want lighting in the wardrobe … The combinations are almost limitless so the time spent thinking about your wardrobe equipment will return back multiply.

Cheaper built-in wardrobe does not have a lower bottom or fibreboard back wall but in a luxury wardrobe I recommend these parts - the price does not increase so impressive and wardrobe look better. In luxury wardrobe I also recommend to do not replace the fibreboar sides even if the wardrobe is located between two walls. Some holes can be drilled for shelf support props so the shelves can be height-adjustable .

Materials

Interior fittings in more luxurios wardrobes do not have to be (or, in my view, should not be) made of precious materials (veneer oak, beech and Zebrano, makasar, wenge and sprayed construction MDF boards …). Cheaper laminated fibreboards are fine (price for different patterns of laminate fibreboards is either the same or only slightly different) - these wardrobes closed for most of the time and the money saved can be spent on better aluminum frame and on filling of sliding door or on the material, which is visible even when the doors are closed (visible sides respectively the side rails, the upper bar which has mounted the upper rail for the sliding doors on it). The only suitable material change in the internal equipment is replacing cheaper laminate edge tape with a higher quality ABS plastic edge.

Wardrobe sliding doors

The cheapest sliding doors are made of steel profiles, are filled with laminated fibreboard with thickness of 10 mm (unfortunately, not completely each pattern of laminated fibreboard is produced in the thickness of 18 mm for the production of the usual furniture and also in thickness of 10 mm for producing the fill of sliding doors – so it is a little bit more difficult to combine materials of built-in closets with the materials of the rest of the furniture in the interior) and are mounted in steel rails. More expensive aluminum profiles and rails can also be combined with a laminated fibreboard fill, the most luxury impression, however, raise a glass panels, plexi-glass, veneered and painted panels and other special materials (as a filling of the door can be used almost any large-scale material with a maximum thickness of 10 millimeters).

The focus, design, transport and assembling the wardrobe

The focusing and designing of built-in wardrobe is usually free of charge. Manufacturer may cleverly hide these costs between the other ones. But the assembly is often made by someone else then manufacturer. If the assembly price is not included in the bid, you’ll need to pay it particularly after the assembling of the wardrobe. This amount may be calculated by the percentage of the total price of wardrobe (8 to 15 percent) or by hourly wages multiplied by the number of installer. The price of transport is calculated by multiplying the distance from the manufacturer workshops to the final interior with the amount of approximately 15 Sk / km (prices per kilometer are certainly different, some manufacturer may „forgive“ you the price of transport)

Silencing fittings for a cheap furniture

The easiest, cheapest and therefore the most widely used method of silencing the closing doors and drawers in the (cheap) furniture is a silencing rubber with a diameter of about 6 to 8 mm and a thickness of about 2 millimeters, glued to the innner side of the door mounted in place where mounts are attached or at the place where the doors contacts the edge of the cabinet corpus. So closing the doors doesn’t make so much noise because the sound of the impact is muted by hitting the rubber. With this simple way you can adjust your older furniture without any special tools.

Silencing fittings for a luxury furniture

Luxury furniture should have a high quality of design, better functionality and easy and comfortable operability. Therefore, I think that it is not sufficient to equip such furniture with cheap silencing rubber working on the principle of passive silencing but there should be installed more intelligent silencing fitting.

Such fittings include gas piston muffler shock working on an active principle of a reduction of the noise of the door. The piston pushes out at the opening of the door and at their closing the reverse pressure compresses the air (or gas) which pushes the piston back - this is ensuring maximum comfort of a gradual and gentle closing of the door. The compact hinges with a modern construction are working on similar principle in which the pistons are directly mounted and therefore are not visible.

The pushing out fittings which are mounted on a kitchen drawer cabinet (eg tandembox blumotion) or other furniture drawers (eg tandem blumotion) are working on the principle of pressing the air (gas) and stretching springs. When opening the drawer, the spring is stretched and at closing the drawer, the spring affects the piston with a pressure which slows the fast and noisy closing. Manufacturers of such systems are many - tandemox blumotion mady by Blum or quadro silent system from Hettich company are just some of the better. The prices of pushing out fittings with silencing system correspond to its quality - they are much more expensive then usual kitchen drawers.

Saving chipboard

Some time ago I wrote that every kitchen cabinet consists of several parts. On the lower cabinets in the kitchen the working board is mounted so it replaces upper bottom So manufacturer uses two wide strips (of wood) about 100 millimeters wide instead of standart upper bottom (in the box with 600 mm width 60% of material are saved).

Such cabinet adjustments have no effect on its strength and strips fully replaces usual desk. Solution is ideal for opening cabinets but I do not recommend it to be used in the outlet cabinet in which you have a plates, spoons, scoops or other similar small kitchen accessories and equipment. Your equipment may stuck in the outlet so it has to be opened by a specialist (technical people can handle this themselves). On the contrary, outlet has often replaced the lower bottom - the strips are around 170 to 200 mm wide.

Saving while assembling cabinet

Kitchen manufacturer can shorten the time needed for assembling (completing) kitchen cabinets and thus also save funds. If the boxes are assembled using wooden pegs or strips, the assembling will last much more time than when the cabinet is only screwed by special screws. So the cabinets which are not at the end of the kitchen unit(that means the sides are not visible) are often assembled by this faster method. In extreme cases, all cabinets in the kitchen are assembled by this method and visible headers of the metal screws are covered with a plastic cover of the same color as the cabinet color. But I do not recommend this solution

Saving edge tape

Visible edges of furniture parts are adjusted with edge tape (foil or veneer) or ABS plastic edge. In the construction of kitchen cabinets with doors the edge tape is more often used (it is thinner than ABS edge) and its usign also saves the money. The upper edges of the lower cabinets sides are not edged because they are cover by the kitchen work desk, the lower edges of the lower cabinets sides are not edged if the manufacturer wants to save - these edges are not visible. However, there is the risk when there is a lot of moisture in the kitchen - the unedged cabinets may be damaged (they change their volume and shape). You can save some funds in the upper edges of upper cabinets, which are not visible from the ground.

When ordering the kitchen you should contact the manufacturer and ask for all the above details - if the lowest price is your priority you can lower it by using „saving“ technics. On the other contrary if your first priority is maximal quality you should ensure yourself that the production will not be save any funds.

The door painted to a high gloss fall due to greater technological difficulty and longer time needed to produce them among the more expensive. But also we have the modern look, almost unlimited choice of colors, easy maintenance and possibility to repair the surface of the door. Painted door core is made of MDF board, which has colored paint on it in several layers. The door may be smooth, but they may be milled on the desk or on the edges before the spraying.

Veneered door

Veneered board used for the manufacturing of such door is a very thin layer of wood glued on both sides of the structural core. If you use a veneer of exotic plants (Zebrano, makasar, wenge …) and the surface is adjusted to be high-glossy, the door will fall between the most expensive ones. In the case of the use of cheaper veneers such as oak and beech or use of flat varnish the price. Manufacturer can imitate those expensive exotic plants as wenge etc. by using similar shades.

The door of solid wood

More expensive alternative for veneer doors are doors made of solid wood. These doors have two disadvantages - high price and high risk of changes in their volume and shape So I recommend the use of massive doors only in specific cases.

Glass doors without frame

Glass used for furniture doors may not be only sheer. The choices are many even if you like milk glass (lacomat, satin white, sandblasted …) or completely opaque (Lacobel, mirror …). There is also wide range of colors. Glasses are mostly at about the same price level but the final price of the door slightly increases with the need for drilling holes for the mounts and hinges (hinges and mounts on the glass are also glued).

Glass doors with aluminum frame

The modern look of glass door with aluminum frame is guaranteed when using any available aluminum profile. You can also use any glass fill but in the room with a high moisture or dust (kitchen, bathroom …) I do not recommend using sandblasted glass (from the sandblast side its cleaning is very difficult).

Sheeted door

Low price, high mechanical resistance, easy maintenance, a large number of available colors… this is just a few of the benefits for which the sheeted door are so popular . Sheet is pressed on core of MDF desk so when these doors are damaged you have to buy the new ones.

The doors of laminated chipborad

They are perhaps the most economical choice between furniture doors. Simple and fast technology of their production and use of relatively cheap materials puts them directly to an application for the cheapest furniture. But do not be mistaken only by price. Today, there laminated chipboard have such high quality that the nonspecialist does not often recognize between them and veneered doors . But there is one disadvantage - when these doors are damaged you have to buy the new ones.
All the materials can be combined with each other - for example, glass can also be embedded in an aluminum frame, but also in the frame of the painted MDF.