Nanaimo Showroom – Now Open Saturday 10am to 4pm

Posted on January 19, 2012 by Duncan Wilcock

Fir and Bamboo Kitchen in Nanaimo with Jay and KellieOur Nanaimo showroom is filled with some of our best work, and it’s now open Saturday to serve you better.

Our kitchen designers Kellie and Jay will be happy to answer your questions and – should you wish – design a kitchen complete with 3D pictures of what your kitchen will look like as part of our free-of-charge quoting process.  Want to know more about how the process works? Here’s a link to an overview of what’s involved when ordering kitchen cabinets from Gillingham Cabinets.

Corner Drawer Unit

Corner Drawer Unit

We think you will be impressed with our Nanaimo Showroom – from our Glazed-Antique finishes that few cabinet companies on Vancouver Island can match, to our classic dark-stained maple.

There are tasteful displays of  non-wood door types like Thermofoil and PVC and the rich wood displays in Cherry, Fir, and a more eco-friendly Bamboo.

Even more worth the visit is the chance to try for yourself our corner drawer units and our exclusive to Vancouver Island revolution-corner unit.

Our Nanaimo showroom:

4131 Mostar Road, Nanaimo, BC
Monday – Friday 8:30am to 5pm
Saturday 10am to 4pm
(250) 729 7000

From Victoria to Ladysmith, you may prefer our Duncan showroom:

2986 Boys Road, Duncan, BC
Monday – Friday
7am to 5pm
(250) 746 4989

 

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Greener Thermostats

Posted on January 4, 2012 by Duncan Wilcock

Ecobee ThermostatI know – you’re wondering what a cabinet blog is doing talking about thermostats.   Well, as part of our commitment to making our cabinets a little bit greener every year, this year we decided to take a look at our heating bills.

Our heating needs are currently responsible for about 20% of our carbon footprint, so cutting that down could have a significant effect on our overall footprint.  In fact, our preliminary tests show a reduction of as much as 50% may be possible. Continue reading →

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Holiday Greetings from Gillingham Cabinets

Posted on December 8, 2011 by Duncan Wilcock

Cowichan Valley Basket SocietyIn lieu of buying gifts and cards for our customers and suppliers this year, we have elected to make a donation to the Cowichan Valley Basket Society. We hope you find this to be an acceptable alternative.

Of course, we also wish to take this opportunity to:

  • Thank all our customers for their business
  • Thank our suppliers for all their hard work, and
  • Wish everyone the best of the holiday season.

Merry Christmas from Gillingham Cabinets!

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Door Style Options: Wood vs Non-wood

Posted on November 17, 2011 by Duncan Wilcock

The choice that has the most effect on the look and feel of your kitchen is the type of material, the colour, and the style of your cabinet doors. To better explain the options we offer, we divide them into two categories: Wood and non-wood finishes.

Wood Doors

Wood Door StylesOur wood cabinet doors offer the rich, authentic feel of real wood in your home. The type or “species” of wood has a big impact on the finish and look of a kitchen, and there is much more information on the wood species should you wish to delve a little deeper on our “Characteristics of Wood” page.

 Non-Wood Doors

Non-Wood Door StylesNon-wood finishes offer a greater selection of colours, construction, and shapes generally at a lower price.  They usually a bit easier to clean and care for.

Door Styles

By “style” of the door we mean the manner in which it is constructed, as well as the the shapes or profiles of the edges and the “rails.” Examples of door styles are ’5 piece construction’, slab, shaker, and glass-mullion.

The material may be a solid wood such as maple, oak, or cherry. It may be a wood veneer, or the wide selection of colours and patterns offered in non-wood materials like PVC, melamine, or laminate.

If you enjoyed this article, you may be interested to read another in our Series on Cabinet Choices, such as the one on Metabox, Tandembox, and Dovetail Drawers or on Cabinet Interiors: White, Maple Melamine, and Birch-plywood. This article previously appeared on our main website, but is reposted here because our cabinet choices series is proving so popular!

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Our Carbon Footprint per Cabinet

Posted on October 31, 2011 by Duncan Wilcock

Carbon Footprint ImageWe’re proud of having cut our carbon footprint in half in the past 3 years, as you will have seen mentioned  elsewhere on our website.  I’ve finished measuring our carbon footprint for this year, and have come up with some numbers that any extra-green-keen customers out there might wish to use to calculate how much carbon-footprint was involved in producing their kitchen.

2008-09 2009-10 2010-11
kg CO2e per Cabinet1 28.2 22.0 18.0
Reduction since 2008-2009 22% 36%

1 – CO2e: Carbon Dioxide Equivalent, the standard measurement of carbon footprint.

So for an average kitchen that has 12 cabinets,  made in 2010-2011 we would have created: 12 x 18 kg = 216kg  of CO2e during the making of that kitchen.

This does not include the carbon-footprint of the wood used in the cabinets. I looked into assessing the carbon footprint of the wood used, but because wood traps/sequesters carbon, it decays over time, and carbon-based energy is also used during the extraction of the wood, it’s a complicated issue. Here are two sources for example.

Arguably you could consider your cabinets to be reducing your carbon footprint by actually storing carbon, but according to the Climate Smart Methodology we follow, what is most important is to measure what we contribute and can control, because that is where we can make direct improvements.  We’re definitely proud of the improvements we’ve been able to make – as we projected with our comprehensive recycling program, our landfill waste has been reduced by over 95%!

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Cabinet Interiors: White, Maple, and Birch-Plywood

Posted on September 8, 2011 by Duncan Wilcock

Another key choice when buying cabinets is what material to select for the interior of your cabinets. At Gillingham Cabinets, our three main options for cabinet case material are White Melamine, Maple Melamine, and Birch-Plywood Interiors.  All of our cabinets are made from low-VOC, CARB-compliant wood sheets to safeguard both the environment and the health of your family.

White Melamine Interiors

White Melamine Particle BoardWhite Melamine is by far our most popular option for several good reasons and is our standard option when quoting cabinet prices.

White is a good choice for the interior of cabinets, because most cabinets don’t have lighting inside them, so white simply makes the insides as bright as possible.  Melamine is a durable, easy to clean, modern material and is applied to a 100% recycled wood-core of particleboard.  It’s widely used in the kitchen cabinet industry and yields sturdy cabinets when constructed properly.  Our standard core thickness is 16mm (5/8 inch) thick, but you may find some manufacturers using flimsier 1/2 inch material. Continue reading →

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Choosing a Kitchen Style – An Exercise

Posted on August 24, 2011 by Arlene

Kitchen Clippings from MagazinesWhen searching for your kitchen style, a good way to begin is by browsing through kitchen and home magazines.  Tear out the pictures of kitchens that you like, spread them out on a table, look closely at themCabinet Clipped Photos Organized and try to answer the following questions for  yourself:

  • What do you like about the cabinets in each photo?
  • Which photos draw you? Is it the clean look of a white kitchen, or are you drawn to the warmer look of wood?
  • Pay attention to the flooring and wall colours.  Notice how the cabinetry looks contrasted with these finishes.

This exercise can help you identify the style that you would like to see in  your home. It will give you a clearer picture that you can share with us – your kitchen design professionals. Of course we want to see them!  Happy Clipping!

 

Pro Tip: If you are web-savy, you may like to try using a great site called Houzz.com to create an “ideabook.”  Here’s a previous post we made about using Houzz for your photo-clipping.

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Zero Hero Interview – Duncan Wilcock

Posted on August 23, 2011 by Duncan Wilcock

We were gratified recently when the Cowichan Valley Regional District recognized us for the recycling program we implemented in 2009 that cut our carbon footprint in half.

Since the previous article I wrote to announce this in early July, the CVRD has also released a video interview with me.  Below is the video, followed by the text of the questions I was given in advance, and the answers I intended to give.  I’m not sure they came out on camera as fluidly as I would have liked, so I wanted to include the full text of them as well.  Feel free to let me know in the comments how you think I did!

VIDEO INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

1. You’ve been identified as someone who is an innovator or a leader in reducing waste. What is it that you are doing?

At Gillingham Cabinets, we now recycle most of our waste – especially our wood off-cuts –  in partnership with Steel Pacific Recycling.  This has cut the weight of garbage we send to the landfill by 90%, and cut our carbon footprint by over 50%. We’ve been doing this since January 2009, and we continue to measure our carbon footprint on a yearly basis. Continue reading →

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Metabox, Tandembox, and Dovetail Drawers

Posted on July 25, 2011 by Duncan Wilcock

One major option to consider when buying cabinets is what type of drawer system you would like. At Gillingham Cabinets, the three most common types of drawers we offer are called Metabox, Tandembox, and Dovetail.  Here is a quick overview of each type:

MetaboxMetabox Drawer

By far our most common, and therefore our ‘standard’ type of drawer is what we call metabox.  This high-quality drawer type consists of metal sides that we purchase from one of our suppliers, with drawer bottoms and backs that are cut to size in our shop.  The name metabox is simply what the hardware manufacturer  – Blum of Austria – calls them.  A picture of a metabox type drawer is at right, or if you prefer – here is a link to more detailed specifications.

As of June 2011, we now offer metabox with a soft-closing option that is much less expensive than other types of soft-close drawers – ask one of our designers about this fantastic cost-saving luxury. Continue reading →

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We Love to do Cabinets on Salt Spring Island!

Posted on July 5, 2011 by Arlene

Are you a resident of Salt Spring Island who has been thinking about kitchen cabinets for your new house, your vintage cottage, or the place where you otherwise hang your hat?

Are you wondering how to go about getting some help with design and layout? Are you unsure of what’s available locally?

Well, our professional design staff sail over to your bucolic island frequently to help residents with their kitchen design dilemmas. We will travel to your home and meet with you to discuss layout, style and budget. And best of all this service is free of charge (of course we hope that you buy your cabinets from us but there are no obligations!).

We have been involved in supplying cabinets for many renovations and new houses on Salt Spring over the years and can offer styles from ultra-modern and sleek to funky-country.

Check out the rest of our website (www.gillinghamcabinets.com) for an overview of our company. Check out our green commitment and the fact that our cabinets are built right here on the Big Island only a short ferry ride away.

We have showrooms conveniently located in Duncan and Nanaimo and if you want a local  reference from Salt Spring to ask about our service or quality just talk to Karen at Ganges Flooring.

So when you’re looking for kitchen cabinets (or any other cabinetry), look west to the friendly small-town folks at Gillingham’s in the Cowichan Valley. We look forward to meeting you and we consider a trip over to Salt Spring an enjoyable cruise to a small island in the Pacific.

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Being a Zero Hero

Posted on July 4, 2011 by Duncan Wilcock

More Information on Green Cabinets at Gillingham’s

With the “Zero Hero” profile the CVRD was kind enough to do on their new website (www.zerowastecowichan.ca)  I thought I would do a quick post to group together links to the green information on our website.  As described in the zero hero profile our primary initiatives are:

  1. A huge reduction  in landfill waste starting in January 2010 – over 90%, resulting in a reduction in our carbon footprint of over 50%.
  2. Switching to CARB compliant, low-emission wood panels in January 2009
  3. Computer Optimization of wood panel cuts, that increases consistency and reduces waste, starting in January 2008.

Links to further information on our website are:

I’d also like to point out that the plenty of the credit for our waste reduction belongs to the owners of Gillingham Cabinets -  Dave & Bob – as well as to the rest of the staff at Gillingham’s who recycle their waste day in & day out.

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Home Depot vs Gillingham Cabinets

Posted on June 20, 2011 by Duncan Wilcock

Home Depot vs Gillingham CabinetsIn a head-to-head quote even for very basic, inexpensive kitchens, we can often match or beat pricing from Home Depot and other big box stores.

Don’t believe us? Now is probably a good time to mention that we don’t charge for design consultations or quotes, and we have convenient showrooms on Boys Road in Duncan and Mostar Road in Nanaimo.

We think you’ll be happier with Gillingham Cabinets than with cabinets from Home Depot or Ikea because you will:

  1. Save Time & Expense
  2. Enjoy Greater Selection
  3. Find More Knowledgeable Staff

And as a bonus for saving time, money, and getting a better kitchen, you can feel better about yourself for buying local. Continue reading →

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