Hey all,

 

I know it’s been a few months since my last post, but have no fear, I’m still here to bring you my latest tips and ideas for how to create, design, and maintain a truly bitchen kitchen. I’m just a regular woman like many of you, with a stressful job, a couple of cute kids, a husband who works too hard, and a cat who gets too much attention. My favorite way to unwind and distress is to focus on home improvement and decorating, and my favorite room of all is, of course, the kitchen.  On my budget, I have to be creative and innovative with my purchases and additions, so trust me, I’ve got your wallet’s best interests in mind. Hopefully some of my ideas will make your life a bit easier when making the plunge to redo your kitchen, and I’d love to hear back from anyone who has ideas of their own.

 

In this post, I wanted to talk about hinges. Cabinet hinges, to be precise. Cabinet hinges are the underrated, underappreciated, and underserved glue that holds your whole kitchen together. Anybody who has been cursed with faulty hinges knows exactly what I’m talking about. I actually have a horror story of my own for this one: back in graduate school, I had a dingy rental apartment that I shared with two roommates. Our “kitchen” consisted of a corner with a stove and a fridge, and a few cabinets here and there. Since we had such little storage space, we had installed baskets on the inner surfaces of our cabinets, to hold more stuff. Big mistake. Heavy cabinet doors + bad cabinet hinges = disaster. One day, as if on a cue from a conductor, 4 of our cabinet doors came crashing down, along with many a clanging pot, pan, and spice rack. The place smelled like a mixture of garlic and rosemary for about a week. Anyway, the point is, had they not been a cheap, pretty much glued-on hinges, maybe our cabinets would’ve held up. And since you most certainly don’t want the same thing happening in your home, I’d say, remember to pay attention to those hinges, before it’s too late.

 

Now that I’ve scared you all into running to make sure your cabinet door hinges are intact, here comes the practical advice:

 

Know thy cabinets. Many a hinge has been rendered faulty or useless, simply because it was the wrong size, shape, or durability for the cabinet it was hinging. Make sure to get a good idea of the weight of your cabinet doors, as well as the size and shape, in order to be able to choose the right hinges. This also matters for your décor; hinges don’t have to be hidden behind the scenes, after all.

 

Invest. Much as I like to keep the spending low, hinges hardware is not the place to start skimping. You want to get the best possible quality hinges for the amount of money you can spend, and you may end up choosing to splurge a bit on the ones that will last you several years rather than the ones that will fall apart on you in a few months.

 

Don’t Forget Décor. Like I said above, cabinet hinges don’t have to be hidden away. You can get hinges of any color or design, and use them to accent the décor in your kitchen. They make antique ones, moderns ones, brass, nickel, and copper ones…you name the material, they make a hinge out of it, I guarantee it. Don’t let this opportunity for improvement and decoration slip by. If you’re re-hinging those cabinets, may as well give them a makeover at the same time.

 

Consult. Cabinet hinges may seem like a simple enough matter, but once you start shopping around, you’ll realize how many different types of hardware are out there. You’ve got your self-closing hinges, your demountable and double demountable hinges, your face mount, flush, partial wrap, ball tip, and full wrap hinges. Since not everyone is such an expert on all these terms, it helps to have someone around who knows what they’re talking about, like your local handyman, or some sort of hinges for dummies reference book. I definitely didn’t buy my new cabinet hinges on my own. I’m more of a décor and organizing type than a gal with a hammer and nail. So trust me, there’s no shame in asking for help.

 

So there you have it, my four best tips on purchasing cabinet hinges. Take some time to browse around the net, check out friends’ kitchen cabinets, and don’t rush things. You don’t want to end up in a grad-school rental apartment situation.

 

Good Luck!