Drop in on us at our Duncan or Nanaimo showroom – we’d be happy to let you try it for yourself, or get started on your kitchen plan with our kitchen planning checklist.

You may recognize Arlene – our sales chief  – who usually occupies the pole-position in the showroom behind the reception desk.  Jay makes an appearance in this photo as well as in our Now Open Saturdays in Nanaimo post because he serves customers in both Nanaimo and Duncan.

Arlene and Jay are standing beside our new island display, the cabinets shown  have raised-panel maple doors that are painted antique-white and then given a glazing of a dark paint. It’s a difficult finish that not many cabinet shops on Vancouver Island can  equal, and it’s key to this popular ‘modern country’ style.

Other cabinets in this island have interiors made from White Mel, Maple Mel, and Birch-Ply, as well as drawers in Metabox, Tandembox, and Dovetail.

Revolution Corner Cabinet

Another great corner-cabinet option we have on display is our Revolution Corner – it offers corner drawers and a rotating lazy-susan style platform – combined. You can see it in the photo at right, but really it should be tried to be properly appreciated.

Drop in on us sometime – you’ll find us at:

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

Whether new construction or a renovation, this is the way we need  the space when we  start. Clear of obstructions, with electrical and plumbing ready and in-place.

________________________________________________________________

Placing and Leveling the kicks is the most important step in the process.  The kicks are the foundation on which the rest of the kitchen rests.

________________________________________________________________

Here all the cases are installed, and the shape of the kitchen is revealed.

________________________________________________________________

Another kitchen to be proud of from Gillingham Cabinets, just waiting for the plastic wrap to be removed. Thanks to Trevor for the great photos!

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

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

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.

Our previous thermostats were simple dial-types that worked just fine, but were sometimes forgotten and left on in the evening or over the weekend.   Some conventional programmable thermostats might have improved things, but we wanted to do a bit better and so found these impressive internet-connected thermostats from a canadian company called Ecobee.

As it turns out, BC Hydro was looking for some small-industrial companies like Gillingham Cabinets to try out these thermostats as a real-world test of how much energy savings they could achieve.  We signed up with them and are currently conducting a 5 month trial through the winter, with a report due to BC Hydro at the end of May.

Why are these thermostats better? Well – with a conventional programmable thermostat, you take a guess at a decent program, and gauge from your monthly bill whether you’ve made any improvement or not.

With these thermostats you can get a much more detailed picture of what’s going on with your heating system.  It records the temperature reading, the set-temperature and when your heating is active, and displays it for you in a web-browser on your computer.  You can fine-tune your program and see how well it worked the next day.  Making program changes is also easier, because it can be done on the large colour screen of the computer and without having to traipse around to each thermostat.   Here is a graph of the heating in our showroom in Duncan from early December.

The dotted red line is the set-temperature, the darker blue line is the indoor temperature, and the red blocks along the bottom indicate when the heating is active.  As a bonus the light blue line through the middle is the relative humidity -which is helpful in our spray-booth -  and the solid black line is the outdoor temperature that it retrieves from the internet and uses in it’s calculations of when to turn on and off.

It’s early in the trial yet, so we’re not sure just how much energy we will save with these new thermostats, but we will let you know in June when we’ve submitted our report to BC Hydro.

For the home version of this thermostat you can even adjust your thermostat from your iPhone before you get home.  I have one and wrote a review about it if you’d like more information on the home version.

Let us know what you think in the comments, or check back in June when we’ll share some of the results from the trial on this blog.  If you stop by our showrooms, Duncan would be happy to give you a demo.

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!

Wood Doors

Our 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 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!

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%!

White Melamine Interiors

White 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.

Maple Melamine Interiors

One attractive upgrade we offer is for the interiors to be made from melamine that is coloured and patterned to look like the wood maple.  It’s a richer colour that is still light enough to reflect a lot of light inside the cabinets.

It offers the same thickness of core material and the same easy-cleaning durability as our white melamine option, and is made from the same 100% recycled wood-core material.

We charge a bit more for this option as the cost of the raw material is a bit higher and because respecting the grain pattern reduces the number of pieces we can cut from a given sheet of wood, but the warmth of the colour is well worth it to some of our customers.

Birch-Ply Interiors

The most durable cabinets we build are made from birch-plywood.  It’s an attractive, premium choice made from the classic kitchen furniture wood – birch.

Plywood is made up of thin sheets peeled from whole trees and laid on top of each other in alternating directions.  For our customers who want the most solid cases we build – for instance our friends at a local firehall – birch-ply interiors are the most solid choice.

It is light in colour and finished with clear lacquer so it also keeps the interior of your cabinets both bright and easy to clean.

Other Options

Because we are an agile local cabinet shop we can often meet your needs and special requests, such as cabinets built with MDF cores and custom laminates – just ask!

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  Door Style Options: Wood vs Non-wood.

• 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.

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.

2. What does Zero Waste mean to you?

Zero waste is tricky, because no one is perfect.  I think it’s best to aim for zero waste on balance, much like we do when we go camping and aim to leave the campsite better than we found it.

3. Why do you think it is important in the Cowichan?

It’s important anywhere, but reducing waste in the Cowichan valley is especially important because we truck so much of our garbage off-island.  Also, because we produce so much more garbage per capita than the rest of the world, a percentage change here has more impact  per capita than it would elsewhere.

4. Do you think we can achieve it here?

Yes.  If we aim for it on balance, by having a positive impact to offset our inevitable negative impacts, we can achieve zero waste. We can achieve it and more.

5. How do you see that happening?

A tangible example could be planting extra trees to compensate for the fossil fuels that we inevitably consume in our modern world.  More sophisticated ways of having a net-positive impact are required by our modern economy, and we are fortunate to be in a province that is leading in this area.  Policies like the carbon tax, and being part of the Western Climate Initiative that is developing a carbon-trading market, so we need to support green choices by our governments. On a more local level, measuring our carbon footprint as individuals and organizations is a good next step. You can’t manage what you haven’t measured. That’s what we did and we were surprised to find out just how much we could reduce our footprint.

6. Do you have any simple and practical tips or advice for others in the Cowichan?

Start with what you do often, especially things that you can change and never have to think about them again. A small reduction will add-up fast – just like wealthy barber said about saving money.  Remember it goes Reduce, Re-use, and THEN Recycle.

Metabox

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.

Tandembox with Blumotion

Like metabox, these premium drawers are made by European hardware manufacturer Blum. The sides are metal and we cut the bottoms and backs of the drawers to fit your cabinets.  All of our tandembox drawers are soft-closing and full-extension.

Soft-closing means that the drawers and drawer-slides have a sophisticated mechanism that catches the drawer just before it closes to ensure that it shuts gently.  Full-extension means that the drawers open a bit further than a standard drawer so that the entire drawer is outside the cabinet and you can more easily get at items that might have snuck to the back.  Here are some more detailed specifications if you’d like to see them.

Dovetail Drawers

Dovetail Drawers are are our finest drawer type.  Based on a tried-and-true wood woodworking technique that probably pre-dates written history, they are made of solid wood, and in our case we use a traditional kitchen material – birch.

We make the drawer boxes in our shop, and the drawer mechanism that mounts the boxes into the cabinets is the same type of high-quality, soft-closing and full-extension hardware from Blum.  Here’s what the sides look like after they are “doved” and “tailed” and before they are assembled into a finished drawer box.

Roll-out Shelves/Inner Drawers

Roll-out shelves are special type of drawer that is a bit of a cross between a drawer and a shelf.  It is also often called an ‘inner drawer’ because it uses drawer hardware, and is usually inside the cabinet behind a full size door.

The most common place we offer roll-out shelves is in a tall pantry-type cabinet, although we often install them in lower base-cabinets and can even put them in upper wall-cabinets should you so require it.   The photo at right shows a typical installation in a pantry cabinet. We have roll-out shelf versions of all three drawer types – metabox, tandembox, and dovetail.

I hope that clarifies the differences between our three main drawer options – feel free to ask any questions in the comments below, or drop by our showrooms to speak with one of our designers where we will be happy to let you try each of these different drawer types out for yourself!

If you enjoyed this article, you may be interested to read another in our Series on Cabinet Choices, such as the one on Cabinet Interiors: White Melamine, Maple Mel, and Birch-Plywood or on Door Style Options: Wood vs Non-wood.

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.

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:

• Our commitment to being green
• and a PDF version of the same page.
• An explanation of how we were able to reduce our carbon footprint so much
• and a press release that we wrote at the time.

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.

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.

Time & Expense

If you are considering a self-assemble line – have you thought about how long it will take to assemble the cabinets yourself?  It can take a considerable amount of time to put them together on your kitchen floor. We have the benefit of a dedicated facility where we assemble cabinets using real screws – not plastic “knock-down” plugs.

Have you considered how long it will take for repaired items to arrive?  In the unfortunate event that something is damaged before it arrives or while you are putting it together, it can take a very long time to get a replacement part. Our shop is right here on Vancouver Island, so we can replace damaged items fast, and if the damaged occurs during assembly or installation – it’s our responsibility to fix it.

How about the time and expense to install the cabinets yourself?  Our team of professional installers can put in cabinets faster than you can say “what did you do with the instructions honey?” And while we know you are skilled, our people do these installs every day, so they know what “gotchas” to look out for.

Home Depot assesses a “Measure Fee” – we don’t.

They also won’t give you any drawings until you’re financially committed.  Our design consultation process is free of charge, and we do drawings in order to create your quote and email you 3D pictures of what your kitchen will look like.

Greater Selection

Simply put, we offer a much greater selection of wood types, door styles, finish colours, custom-hardware and pull-outs, and counter-top options.  We keep prices low by building most cabinets in standard sizes, but because we’re small and nimble, we can change things up in any way you like. We can even custom match colours should you so wish.

Staff Knowledge

We design a lot of kitchens.  Some design staff  are journeyman/journeywoman cabinetmakers, and all of them have built a great many cabinets with their own hands. We know a lot about kitchens, we know what current fashions are, we know which of the current fashions work well and which don’t, so we keep you current and practical at the same time.

After all – it’s custom built-in furniture for your home – you want doors, drawers, and appliances to fit properly and open without interference don’t you?

Our installers are first rate, and their experience installing our cabinets day in & day out makes all the difference for the final fit & finish of your cabinets.   Ask around – our reputation for great service and for ultimately doing what it takes to make our customers happy is unmatched on Vancouver Island.

What to Do Next

Come in and visit one of our showrooms in Nanaimo or Duncan, have a look at our website – a great many people enjoy our photogallery. Questions? Give us a call:

• Duncan:  (250) 746 4989
• Nanaimo: (250) 729 7000

Or email us at info@gillinghamcabinets.com – Thanks for reading!

Although I can’t say I like the double “zz” in the name, the information accessible on the site and the tools it provides are really fantastic.

The site is a photo sharing site for interior design professionals to showcase their work.  It is indexed by city, by room type, and by style, so for instance in the picture at left – I picked “Kitchen” and  “Vancouver” in the menus and very quickly get some great looking photos to help me with ideas for a new design.   It’s a great way to get a sense for what’s possible, and what elements I might like to use in a particular design.  If you take the trouble to create an account on the site (this is mine) you can even save the pictures you like to an “ideabook” so you can look at them again later, or email a link to share with others.   Here is an ideabook about bamboo cabinets:   magazine clipping for the 21st century!

You can bring up a live version of the picture above using this link:

http://www.houzz.com/photos/kitchen/vancouver

Also – if you’ve got an iPad, Houzz.com offers a free app for browsing all of the photos from the site, as well as your ideabooks, and wow the pictures look stunning on an iPad.

In general the articles will be about kitchen cabinets and bathroom vanities, and are intended to help our clients through their building and renovating projects here on Vancouver Island.   The idea is to share our experiences with our customers and potential customers – to tell our story if you will – and with any luck start conversations that will help grow our community.

Our first articles will be on a great website called Houzz.com as well as some thoughts about how we stack up against Home Depot and some of the other big box stores. You may be surprised to find that we can beat them on price, as well as have more knowledgeable staff, greater selection , better service, and faster turn-around to complete your installation.

We won’t post on our blog every day, more when we feel the need to write something up in more detail, but at a minimum we anticipate posting at least once a month.  Most of the writing on gillinghamcabinets.com and facebook and twitter has been by me – Duncan Wilcock – but I hope that the blog will be a place where our other staff will write as well.  Arlene certainly has  one blog post planned already, and I hope that some of our other staff will get a chance to post when time allows. You’ll see the name of the person who wrote it at the top of each post, next to the date the entry was posted on.  

Power user tip: if you click on the author’s name, it will show you a page with all posts by written by that person. For instance, here are the author pages for Arlene and Duncan.

We’ve also taken the trouble to implement comments through facebook, so please feel free to comment on the articles. We’d be happy to hear from you if you do get a chance to write a comment, and we will do our best to answer your comments in a timely and helpful way.

Again, we’ll continue to post regularly (weekly) on Facebook and Twitter, and will link to new articles here when we post them.  We hope you enjoy our writings and feel encouraged to join in the conversation with your comments.