A case of kitchen envy

If I had to do it over (that line could open half my columns), I'd rethink my cabinet hardware. Until this past week, I hadn't given this hardware much thought. I liked my kitchen cabinets, which are only four years old. The drawers glide smoothly like Michelle Kwan, and the door hinges feel sturdy as firemen. But recently, two events conspired to change my affections.

One, I visited my friend's new home, which she and her husband spent three years designing and building. A kitchen diva, Laurie cooks and entertains like an Oscar-party caterer, so I knew her kitchen would be, err, top drawer (sorry).

Two, I received a preview of "The New Yankee Workshop's" nine-week kitchen makeover special, where the plaid-shirted Norm Abram, that carpenter who can build a log cabin out of an abandoned beaver dam, outfits a tired old kitchen with smart new cabinetry. Suddenly, my hardware seemed out of date and wholly inadequate.

Laurie's kitchen is enormous, but my obsession isn't with size, but with drawers. As I helped her prepare a meal, I pulled one open, swoosh. It was fastidiously organized with compartments like a tackle box. I looked it over. There was no drawer orthodontia cluttering the sides, waiting to catch crumbs and grease.

Then I met the invisible hand. With a tap, the drawer slid to an inch of closing, then stopped as if it hit a cotton ball. Just as I was ready to push it again, a vacuumlike force sucked the drawer silently, firmly shut.

Laurie even has a mug-warming drawer under her high-tech coffee maker. I was in love.

I became even more smitten with high-tech kitchen gadgetry when I returned home and previewed "The New Yankee Workshop" kitchen series on PBS. After watching it, I called Abram to uncover a few more secrets and trends:

Design with your stuff in mind. Kitchen designers use several methods to customize kitchens. Using a string test, they tie a string to someone and trace her steps as she cooks. Then they design a cabinet plan that saves footsteps. The heap method involves putting all your kitchen stuff in a pile, and then designing cabinets to accommodate it, which beats making what you have fit given cabinets. Laurie took pictures of her kitchen supplies while they were in the cabinets of her former home, then made sure her new kitchen had a place for everything and more. The owner of the kitchen Abram was remodeling had 14-inch plates; standard upper cabinets are 12-inches deep. "Simple," Abram said. "We made the cabinet deeper.

Don't skimp on the hardware. Typically, hardware comes rated for two kinds of loads: carrying ability and shock capacity. The higher the load the better. Both Laurie and Norm used hardware from Blum.

Trade doors for drawers. Thanks to better hardware, cabinets with fixed shelves are giving way to cabinets with pullout shelves or drawers. Laurie's kitchen has upper cabinets, but for lower storage she has primarily drawers. She will never again rummage in the back of a cabinet for a pot.

Bring dead corners to life. Corner cabinets often become black holes; things go in but never return. New cabinet designs fix that. Drawers have fronts built at a 90-degree angle that pull open to reveal full drawers. Doors open on elbow hinges, revealing shelves that turn like Lazy Susans.

Replace don't retrofit. Putting new hardware on old cabinets is expensive, difficult and usually not worth it. "If you're ready to replace the hardware, you're getting close to the idea of new cabinets," Abram said.