Cabinets 2025 with Special Guest John Cordero from the Kitchen Store | Hour 1

Spring is here, Remodeling season is here. It is time. Yes, it is to talk about cabinets, a massive, massive subject, and we're going to do it all the justice we can today for the next three hours, we're talking about cabinets, specifically kitchen cabinets, but cabinets in general. And to do it, not only do you have me, but undoubtedly the one person in Southern California who knows more about cabinets than

I do, and that is not easy to find. By the way, John Cordero from the Kitchen Store is with me in studio. He is the coolest guy and he is a brilliant, brilliant the cabinet maker and the operator of the kitchen store. John, Welcome home, my friend. Good morning. Really, hello you, I'm good. I'm good. Are you ready to rock and roll on cabinets today?

by the way, standing by. Uh. The number to reach me eight three three two Ask Dean A three three. The numeral to ask Dean A three three to ask Dean. It makes sense right to ask Dean. That's why you're calling to ask Dean A three three to ask Dean. Uh, what are we serving up for you? As always, follow us on social media. We only do the good kind of social media, uplifting, informative, inspiring social media. We're on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook x, all the usual suspects. Home with Dean is

the handle for them all. And if your home is in need of some personal house whisper attention, you can always book an in home design consult with me and the tea. Just go to house Whisperer dot design, house Whisperer dot Design. All right, let me introduce our awesome team Elmer is on the board. Good morning, Elmer, Good morning Dean. Hey he's going, bro, how's it happening. Oh it's good. I'm hydrated and I'm awake. I was gonna ask you, did you get the water? Did you get

the water that you needed? Did you get the water? I'm so all right, Stay hydrated, my friend, Stay hydrated. It's like, you know, seventy two degrees out there. It's easy. It's easy to get the hydrate. No, it's not just drink. Producer Richie, like I said, is standing by. Oh he's already taking calls. There you go. So no, nowhere near Mike. But Richie is with us as always. And my buddy Eileen Gonzalez is at the news desk. Good morning, Dean. How's it going. It's going good. How are you this

fine Sunday morning. I'm obviously not as hydrated as the rest of you guys, but I'm going to work on it. Well, did you get checked with with Elmer? Because he's he he's hydrated. I need to find some water that I'm so picky about water. Tina is here with a picture of water as well. What's with the hydration today? All right?

It's her favorite animal. And I always wonder though, if people to ever take that the wrong way, like, you know, elephant, like you're a tiny little thing. Just just know that Tina is a tiny little thing. She just loves elephants. It's not like, oh, here comes Tina. It's not that I think everybody knows why. It's a great memory. Evans don't forget anything. They don't. Oh believe me, they don't. They don't forget anything good or bad. That's true. All right.

I've got to keep myself, you know, in line around here.

all of Southern California. Uh. And so if again, if you live anywhere anywhere in SoCal and you are planning on getting cabinets and involved with cabinetry, you have got to got to you really should get to the kitchen store because you're gonna learn so many things and uh, and you're gonna have people there, people who care for you, to take you through and help you get where you

need to go. And that's what we're all looking for, right, That's why I am here to help get you through, all right, So let's get into it.

little history of cabinets. Not not from BC no. A relevant history, a relevant, relatively recent history, but one that hopefully people will find interesting and also, you know, illustrative of where we're at. But first of all, John Cordero, the Kitchen Store not only a cabinet dealer, but a custom cabinet maker. You already said you know your dad was a cabinet maker. Still it still is, okay, So you just grew right up in it. So that's a

little bit of your history. I mean, tell tell us what else we need to know about you and about the kitchen Store. Well, let's see the kitchen store, so they could the store.

tell the clients go ahead and play everywhere. Open up all the drawers, open up the doors, slam the doors, slam the drawers. Just you can see, get a good feel what you're going to be purchasing. It's an investment. It's an investment for your house. So that's the beauty of the kitchen store, great showroom, lots of stuff to play with. Me personally, I came up from being an installer, so I knew how it was to put in your kitchen.

I knew the stress the clients would go through. Then I started fabricating, making cabinets, so I went to the cold construction of the cabinets and now I'm in retail.

from Indiana. Okay, But a Hoo's your cabinet, right eighteen nineties. A lot of people don't realize this about to home design, especially here in the States, but it was the only in the early nineteen teens and twenties that the even the concept of the built in cabinet began growing. All Right, So if you've got eighteen nineties house, which is a house is that Tina and I have worked on? You know, you don't have in those homes. You walk into the kitchen.

The kitchen's a room, and the kitchen table it's a table just sitting in the kitchen, free standing stove, maybe a wood stove or a coal stove over there, free standing sink over there, and a larger maybe a pantry room attached to it. That's the kitchen, lined in tile with a big old table in the middle. Okay. Then along comes this company, the Sellar's Furniture Company from Elwood, Indiana.

In the eighteen ninety eight they introduce a piece of free standing furniture like no other piece of furniture anybody has ever seen. It's a Hoosier cabinet. All right. It is a cabinet. It's about four feet wide, it's about twenty two inches deep, it's about six feet tall. It has a retractable extending countertop that slides out, usually a steel porcelain covered countertop that slides out for more workspace available. These have built in flower sifters in the upper portion

of the cabinets they've got. Some of them have tamboor doors. A tamboor door is a rolltop door, right, a kind of door that rolls, made out of slats of wood built in on the inside of the upper doors. Shopping list and measurement conversion charts, bread drawers, specialized bread drawers, specialized spice rack. Okay, this is a Hoosier And if you're still having trouble picturing it, I guarantee you just go right now to your computer, look it up on

your phone. Just just google who's your cabinet, and you'll see exactly what I'm talking about. All right? How popular were these? What kind of an innovation? This was such a useful utility. The seller's company started selling by the hundreds and then thousands, and then other furniture companies, specific the most famous one, the Hoosier Manufacturing Company of Albany, Indiana,

got involved. Multiple millions of these cabinets were sold from the late eighteen nineties until the early ninth and probably about nineteen thirty. And why did they stop being sold in nineteen thirty Because the utility of the Hoosier cabinet standing in the kitchen. People started figuring out. Builders started figuring out, well, heck, we should just start building these features into a kitchen right up against the wall, built in cabinets with even more counter space, more upper space,

more storage space. And essentially you look at a Who's your cabinet, you'll be able to see, oh, yeah, that is the ancestor, that is the progenitor of the modern kitchen cabinet in America, the Hoo's your cabinet. It all goes back to the turn of the twentieth century. From there, lots of exciting adventures happened. We kind of figured out there were all sorts of shapes and sizes. Cabinets were not uniform. They changed from house to house. There was

no standards anywhere. Then we get into the late thirties, the early forties, and World War two hits and after the war, the building boom, the track building boom across the United States begged for some kind of uniformity, and so standards were set up, and I'll talk to you a little bit about that when we come back. How did we arrive at thirty six inches for a standard countertop? Okay, how did we arrive at twenty four inch depths and

twelve inch deep uppers? And the general configuration that you understand is a kitchen cabinet, and the various forms of kitchen cabinets face frame cabinets, which of course were the standard for American cabinets at the beginning, but out of Europe after World War Two came this frameless what we call euro style. Now we call it full access, because frameless means something's missing. I think we'd let go of that marketing thing because it sounds like it's less than

But so now we call them full access cabinets. But they are a kind of cabinet that doesn't have a face frame. And there's a reason for that that has everything to do with World War two as well. We're gonna talk about all of this and then we're gonna get into the anatomy of cabinets so that you understand

it better. We'll run through that today. Plus John is gonna from his vast experience share what you as a homeowner should be looking for, should be wary of what you are likely going to get stuck on, and need to move through everything cabinet related, and we will continue.

Dean Sharp, the house whisper here with you. We're going to be taking calls in just a bit, so now's your chance to get into the queue. The number to reach me eight three three two ask Dean A three three. The numeral to ask Dean. You know what I love about calls. You can ask me anything you want, and I hope that's what you love about calls as well. We're talking kitchen cabinets today with my special in studio guest, John Cordero from the Kitchen Store. We're going to die

back down into that in just a second. But when it comes to calls, you get to set the agenda. Anything anything about your home outside, inside, landscape, hardscape, architecture, you want to talk froofy, architectural theory, totally fine with me. We can talk about it all day long. Do you want me to help you fix your leaky toilet? I can help you with that too, and everything in between those two extremes. All right, the full spectrum, that's what

I'm here for. All right, let's dive back in, John to I promised everybody I was going to talk a little bit more about the history of cabinet, just setting it all up here. So we talked about the Hoosier cabinet being the really the first true American kitchen cabinet. It was a piece of furniture technically and then, but it was such a utilitarian device that builders started building those kinds of cabinets into the kitchen room and really turning it into taking on the shape of what we

understand as the modern kitchen is today. And then another big change came World War two. World War two hit and after the war, post war, there was this massive tracked building boom across the United States. I mean literally millions of homes being built and built in kitchen cabinets

were the thing. They were the thing, and that's when it really really took off, and not just the typical face frame American style cabinet, a cabinet that has, in addition to the box construction, there is a hardwood face frame on the front that the doors and drawers are actually hung off of and operating through. But out of Europe came what we now call the full access cabinet. At the when we were first introduced to it was frameless or euro style cabinetry, and that is a kind

of cabinet that doesn't have a face frame. It has full overlay doors and drawers so that they all touch each other and you never see the frame if it was there anyway. And the reason for that was very simply that Europe was going through a building boom because they were rebuilding, rebuilding a Europe that was bombed out, you know, had completely been devastated by the war. Lumber

shortage is everywhere. And some brilliant person whose name I cannot recall at the time, some brilliant person said, hey, we could save on lumber with cabinetry if we could just redesign the cabinets in a way where we can attach the doors and the drawers directly to the cabinet boxes. Let the doors and the drawers be the whole show up front, and we wouldn't have to build that face frame on the front. We could save a lot of lumber.

And so, because of the lumber crisis, the lumber shortage post World War Two, the frameless, full access eurostyle cabinet was born. And then what about the standards, Well, that was mostly an American thing, the standards of like, well, why exactly is a standard American cabinet thirty six inch

countertop height? Why is it thirty six inches? Okay, Well, it was a study conducted at the University of Illinois in the nineteen forties based on the average height I'm sorry to say of women at the time, because it was like who's going to be in the kitchen. Women, women will be in the kitchen. I know, John, right, it's like right, it's just like that does not that does not work with today's world. But I'm just telling this is the truth. I'm not rewriting history here. Study

University of Illinois, nineteen forties. The average height of women at the time five foot three inches average height of the American woman, and therefore it was concluded that thirty six inches was an optimal countertop height for the average American woman. The current average height of American women, by the way, five foot five But you know American women are growing taller. But the point is this, that doesn't matter anymore. Men are in the kitchen, women are in

the kitchen. Nobody's in the kitchen. Who you know, everybody's in the kitchen. It doesn't matter now what is most important And this is going to lead to another conversation I hope later in the show, but I want everybody to listen to me right now. It is now understood. Like if you ask the American Culinary Institute what is the optimal countertop height, they are not going to tell you thirty six or they're not going to give you

a fixed number. They are going to tell you that the optimal counter height for culinary prep work is a human being standing upright, comfortably, fully upright, bend your elbows at ninety degrees and measure three to four inches below your bent elbow. Three to four inches below a ninety degree bent elbow while you are comfortably standing upright is

your optimal countertop height for spending the day in the kitchen. Okay, which is why, as a designer of homes and kitchens, I have in for many years now encouraged our clients mix it up a little bit. Okay, you can put you could have you can have a kitchen with multiple

countertop heights. Okay, you can have your standard thirty six and we've got standard thirty six inch counters in our kitchen where the sink is and you know where most everybody goes and stuff our island, though in the center where I do most of my cooking and prep work is forty two inches because I'm six three, and that actually is not it's a little bit more than four inches below my elbow. But Tina is not six', three, Okay and so that's a good compromise between the two of.

Us it's a little higher than, normal so That i'm comfortable all. Day it's a little higher than. Normal she's totally comfortable with. It and that's where we do all of our prep. Work and, now for the first time in my, life because of this kitchen, ISLAND i can stand in the kitchen all day AND i get that little ache in my back from bending over that little few degrees that just just kills. You so that's. It and and if you do a lot of, baking do

a lot of, baking then the opposite is. True the optimal countertop HiPE for baking is actually like a regular table height of thirty. Inches and the reason is if you're kneading, dough you want that countertop lower so that you're getting your locked arms leaning over right and you don't have to use your muscles as. Much you can just use your body weight and knead that dough and roll it. Out so you're a, baker you're looking for

thirty inch. Counters everybody universally kind of going for the thirty. Six if you're, taller you want to go for something like forty to forty. Two sky's the. Limit these, days you can have the kitchen cabinets that you, want but that gives you some perspective of where this all comes. From, okay that's funny how you mentioned forty two.

can be made of that people should be very wary. Of, yes and there's one material that they should be demanding almost, always right when it comes to cabinet, boxes and we'll talk about. That don't go. Anywhere you are about to learn everything you need to know about your kitchen. Cabinets it's is it? Time, yeah it's.

The Kitchen. Store we are talking all things kitchen. Cabinetry. Today we've given you a history of, cabinets, including, uh you, know tidbits about countertop heights and things that you can. DO i want to get into the anatomy of a, Cabinet, john h can you break down for everybody kind of what you? Know what is A cabinets are a composite of many different, things, Uh and so just give us an overall an overview of a cabinet box or you, know a cabinet. Unit so typically cabinet.

Carpeting right In, europe when you, move you would disassemble that click clock for and take it with. You you just bring your flooring to the next. House people In europe they they pull their, Toilets they they they pull all of their fixtures and the and move them to the next. Place so it's not it's not like here where we leave everything behind and we go find out what toilets have been purchased for us at the new. House, right and cabinets. Included that was a big part of.

IT i think that's a big thing In.

yeah whatever they use over. There all, Right, so uh so you gave us an outline of the anatomy of a basic, cabinet kind of three basic categories of, cabinets, Right you got base, cabinets which, again like we, said are typically not absolutely but typically twenty four inches, deep thirty six inches, tall thirty six inches with thirty four

and a half inches tall the cabinet. Itself, okay plus we're going to put a subtop on top of that cabinet and another piece of stone or tie or, whatever so the cabinet itself is thirty four and a half inches, tall and then we allow for an inch and a half of countertop material to typically go. There that brings us to thirty six inches in the, finish so twenty four inches, deep various, widths all sorts of. Configurations then

you've got wall cabinets or upper, cabinets. Right the uppers that hang up above those typically twelve inches, deep various widths and, configurations either thirty six more often these days we go for forty two inch tall standard uppers because that accommodates that gives you a full cabinet all the way up to the top of an eight foot. Ceiling.

Uh and then uh and then you've got your full height, cabinets floor two ceiling, cabinets the things that hold the double ovens and the pantries and and all of those are your basic kind of super basic working. Configurations right? Much DID i DID i skip anything? There? NO i think you got everything all?

cabinet carcass box is a safe bet all. Around american manu factors lean that way for their high end, stuff and we've leaned away traditionally from particle board because particle board has been in the past very disappointing in a lot of different. Ways it's been typically the indicator of cheaper. CABINETS bu that may be changing, now, yeah a little bit changing in some. Ways in some, ways in some instances changing particle board may actually step ahead of plywood

in some. APPLICATIONS i know that makes it, confusing but we're just telling you that's the. Truth so we're all going to learn some things this morning when we come, back. Though you know, what Maybe i'll rest my brain here and take a couple of. Calls how's that sound all? Right you are listening To home With Dean, sharp The

House whisper ON. Kfi this has Been home With Dean, Sharp The House Whisper tune into the live broadcast ON KFI am six forty Every saturday morning from six to Eight pacific time and Every sunday morning from nine to Noon pacific, time or anytime on demand on The iHeartRadio app