15 Lustrous Kitchens That Make Smart Use of Laminate Cabinets

ByMyProperty Life

Budget-friendly and versatile, laminate is a popular choice for kitchen cabinets.

This lovely kitchen features laminate cabinets by Danish brand Reform.

The right combination of kitchen cabinet and countertop materials can create an upscale vibe without busting the budget. Considering major factors like durability, aesthetics, and cost, laminate kitchen cabinets offer a lot of bang for your buck: laminate is relative inexpensive, comes in a wide range of styles and colors, and quality-wise, holds its own compared to wood cabinets.

“In my Alpine Noir project, we used laminate kitchen cabinets because of the ease of maintenance and cost savings,” explains interior designer Casey Keasler of Casework. The vintage Moroccan checkerboard runner is from Kat + Maouche.

Read another article:Design Trends for Creating a Vacation Vibe at Home

Photo: Mikola Accuardi

Laminate, a synthetic material fused to particleboard (compressed wood), comes in high-pressure and low-pressure varieties. High-pressure laminates (HPLs), like Formica and Pionite, are higher quality and come in a wider range of color options. High-design brands like Reform and Henrybuilt also offer some beautiful HPL options. Low-pressure laminates, like melamine, are less durable.

“I use laminate cabinets as a less expensive option [compared] to custom wood cabinets from time to time,” explains interior designer Casey Keasler of Casework. Keasler also points out that laminate kitchen cabinets are also easy to clean and maintain: “I don’t recommend laminates as a countertop surface in a kitchen—but as cabinet fronts, they are perfect.”

While researching houseboat design, Harry and her team
Read another article:Hot Trends: 20 Best Farmhouse Style Kitchens in White and Wood

The design of this Australian houseboat features a soft, modern color palette. Here, light sage laminate kitchen cabinets are paired with leather recessed pulls.

Jonathan VDK

However, laminate cabinet fronts don’t lend themselves to some styles. As Keasler points out, “The edges need to be finished if you want a seamless look, which makes it more difficult to achieve a more traditional or detailed cabinet front.” Laminate can also suffer heat or water damage, and chips can be difficult to repair.

Read another article:Revamped Small Barcelona Apartment Combines Multiple Styles and Finishes

Another consideration is your kitchen’s long-term value.  Kitchen cabinetry can take up a significant part of your new-build or renovation budget, and installation expenses are the same no matter what type of cabinets you choose, so it may be worth it to consider the highest-quality cabinetry that you can afford in the long run. However, if you need to keep costs down—because we all know how renovation costs can quickly skyrocket beyond even the most realistic quotations—it is definitely worthwhile to consider laminates. Here, we round up some of our favorite laminate looks that break outdated stereotypes. 

A fresh coat of paint can work wonders for a tired kitchen, but the original finish of the doors could limit your options. A laminate door will not take paint as well as an unfinished or sanded-down wood or MDF door, for example.

Here, laminate kitchen cabinets are topped with Corian in Glacier White for a fresh and fun colorblocked look.

Photo: Ross Mantle

See the full story on Dwell.com: 15 Lustrous Kitchens That Make Smart Use of Laminate Cabinets

Similar Posts

  • Bringing Home the Vacation Vibe: Gable Roof Hewn House in Austin

    A home that has the vibe of a vacation house is one that definitely creates a more cheerful atmosphere that everyone enjoys. At the same time, you want some semblance of balance between the holiday-vibe and modern functionality that offers the best of both worlds. It is a practical choice that makes sense. And this […]

    You’re reading Bringing Home the Vacation Vibe: Gable Roof Hewn House in Austin, originally posted on Decoist. If you enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Decoist on Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest.

  • Maullin Lodge

    This lodge is a 120m2 house located in a rural scene in a southern region of Chile. The brief was to design a house with two bedrooms and two bathrooms with a main shared space, interpreting an old small traditional southern Chilean dwelling. The challenge of the proposal was to get that traditional southern look, which implies very opaque facades, but with a full translucent side where the landscape and light can get inside the building, creating its own private world. The house is placed between a forest of native trees, giving its back to the main street. So, the house is oriented to the north and west to get the most of sunlight, which this south down is much appreciated. The concept of the design is organized based on 3 contrast between old and new:
    1- Removing non-structural walls and floors: the main structural shape and volume are maintained the same as the old traditional house, but the interior is liberated from any non-structural dividing element, which helped to create a clean and continuous space.
    2- Concentrating the apertures: The main source of light is the north façade, keeping the other free opaque as a traditional southern house would have, so the proportion of void and mass was not lost.
    3- Material contrast: Big floor to ceiling windows in contrast to recycled traditional timber shingles, an evident contrast between old and new. The distribution of the house is developed in an almost square plan, divided into three volumes:
    The main one has the public areas of the house: kitchen, dining room, sitting room and mezzanine.
    The east one, the widest, has sleeping rooms and bathrooms with the main access of the house.
    And the west one is 1.5m wide acting as a corridor and informal dining room adjacent to the public areas of the main volume. The mezzanine is an opportunity to use the roof space, with a lot of light and natural heating, having control over the main space.