KFI AM six forty. You're listening to Dean Sharp the house Whisper on demand on the iHeart Radio app. You know what I really need. I need Dean and Tina in my home staring at that problem, helping me figure this specific thing out. Well, you know what that can happen too. You can book an in home design consult with me and the t You just go to house
Whisperer dot Design, house Whisperer dot Design. All right, we are talking all things cabinets, specifically kitchen cabinets today, even though my special in studio guest, John Cordero from the Kitchen Store, they do bathroom cabinets as well, But kitchen cabinets are just they're the thing, right, I mean, they are the thing. They're kind of the center of the cabinet universe when it comes to homes. And there's a whole lot to discuss, and we're gonna return to that
conversation in just a bit. But it's top of the hour, which means it's time to go to the phones, and I think we might have a cabinet question here, John. Anyway, I want to talk to Susan. Hey, Susan, Welcome home.
Thank you. I'm home. Thank you Dean so much. Thank you, Richie, Tea, and John, thank you for being here today with us. I'm in Santa Monica. I have old kitchen cabinets that I get zero enjoyment from. I'd like to know if there's a way to upgrade these old cabinets without spending a small fortune. I'm willing to spend thousands, but just not that many thousands. And I'd like to love my cabinets.
Okay, So can I ask you specifically? You get no joy from them? What are the things about your cabinets that you like the least?
Oh my god, the doors fly open, they don't stay shut at all. The hinges are bronze looking. I'd rather have white. The knobs were not put in per correctly. They're like up high instead of being at eye level. But mainly I guess it's the doors, just they if they fly around, the doors literally fly, there's no you know, they're just old and uh there. And the drawers. The drawers I guess are sort of okay, but I don't.
They don't fly that great, but they're okay okay. Mainly the way the doors hang and the hitches are ugly.
We got you, we got you. I think you're gonna find uh susan for your situation, some really good news here, John. You want to handle it, you want to take it, tackle it. I know what you're gonna say. I know what you're gonna say.
What that maybe go new cabinets, maybe maybe, But you do have another option. So I mean, your cabinets are probably constructed pretty good if you say you're out in Sandea, Monica. So I suggest that I always tell people as either you could reface and then just kind of give your cabinets a whole new look. In your situation, would I recommend if you can get yourself a painter that can paint the inside of your cabinets, you can come see us here at the kitchen store. We could provide you
the doors, brand new hinges. We could give you even new drawer boxes, new runners. You get all the soft closing and everything. You get to choose a different color, different door style. So that might be something that might work for you.
I knew it.
I knew that's what you're gonna say. Now you mentioned refacing. Refacing can be what you suggested, new drawer faces and doors. Okay, but refacing also has another connotation in the cabinet world, right, one that has was very popular in the eighties and nineties and wild, but it's kind of I don't know, it's a thing, and that is like these lambinate materials that get stuck onto, glued onto old cabinet frames and faces.
Yep.
Now you you actually have some experience with that in the past. You did that for a while. I always find that that. I mean, that's going to extend the life of the cabinet for a while, but it's gonna delaminate. It always does.
Yeah, you typically get about five maybe ten years life out of your cabinets after you do that. But eventually you are going to start seeing that word in there on your cabinet boxes.
Yeah.
Your doors, your doors should be good. If you go to a good dealer, they should be able to give you some solid doors.
Right.
So that's why I love this advice because John's not suggesting that you do that laminate refacing, but get a good painter to get in there and repaint and then
get new doorfronts, drawer fronts. And that's what a lot of people don't realize about their cabinets is that you know when you said, Susan, that your hinges are bronze, uh, and that means that they're exposed, that we can see them, and that they have their zero control hinges, meaning that they're just a typically they're like a door hinge in your house. Right, so if the cabinet comes unlatched, you know,
they could swing right open. Whatever. There's no reason on a face frame cabinet like yours that it can't be retrofitted with hidden, fully adjustable soft closing hinges and full drawer glides. You know, maybe your drawers right now are just wood on wood sliding out friction. Right, most drawerboxes can be retro fit with the glides underneath, glides that will allow it to be soft closed. They'll glide right on out, they'll glide right on in. So our guest, Susan,
and you know, tell us if we're wrong. Is that the part of your kitchen. That's why I asked you what you hate about it. I'm guessing that your cabinets don't look crappy. You just hate the way they work. Most of the time. You got doors wall you know, just fling open. You got you know, stuff like that. If you could repaint, put a fresh door and drawer face on that. I mean, that's that's ninety eight percent of the look of the cabinet anyway, and a good
paint shop. And then in the guts, right, just a refresh with with soft clothes hardware. I was just at a console earlier this week, and uh, it was actually a kitchen that was in pretty good shape. It was generally in pretty good shape. It was a kitchen built in the in the late eighties, and uh, and the homeowner was still wondering, is there anything that can be done with this kitchen. I'm like, yeah, you already have
hidden hinges, but none of these are soft clothes. You know how inexpensive it is to just change out a hidden hinge that's not soft clothed to one that is because that soft clothes is the standard. You just throw a rock and hit a soft clothes hinge these days. Right, So those are things that existing kitchens can increment, I mean in major increments, can be improved.
Right.
Yeah, here's a funny thing. The manufacturers for these soft clothes they had it on and off button. So let's say you just hate soft clothing, you want that free swing. There's an on and off button. Funny thing.
You can disengage the soft clothes pretty much. Yeah, you can disengage it. How is that, Susan?
Is that's a.
Fantastic I have one other question. Can I install soft clothes hinges and leave the old doors? But do I have to have new doors?
Chances are that, like Dean said, it's the hinge that's on the outside, so you probably won't be able to do a soft clothes on.
It just because of the way the hinges I see.
Okay, yeah, yeah, okay, But like ten thousand dollars for new doors, all depends on the size of your kitchen, your style.
That you want in the color.
Okay, I'm guessing a smaller kitchen in Santa Monica, Susan, you're not looking at ten thousand dollars of doors. But you know what, here's the thing. The kitchen stores in Culver City. You just got to get up, run down the freeway a few blocks and get over there and start talking to these beautiful designers and they're going to help you figure it out. They will, they will. That's what I love about the kitchen. So I love that about you guys. You guys first and foremost education, just like,
help us figure out what to do next. It's not like anybody is gonna go in there. I've got a strong desire to preserve an existing kitchen, and nobody's gonna like roll their eyes and say, Nope, you just got to buy brand new from us.
You can't figure it out, We'll guide you the right way.
There you go, there you go.
All right.
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from KFI A M six forty. Thanks for joining us on the program. We're talking cabinets today with my special in studio. Just guess John, I was just jumping right ahead to your name, John Cordero from the Kitchen Store. But right now I want to take at least another call or two if I can, and uh, and then we will return to that conversation. Let's talk to let's see dump da dun dun d d d u. Let's talk to Alex. Hey Alex, welcome home.
Yes, good morning, Dean. I'm a huge fan of your show. Thank you so very much for all the information on that you're providing so recently installed solar panels and batteries and so this is my question. I want to replace my water heater to get some space in the garage. I'm looking for electric tanklus water heater. What would you recommend? This is a large house that has the basroom, so any like really powerful thing.
Yeah, well, they're out there, they're out there. I mean you you are. You are fortunate, Alex. Now, I'm not going to recommend one particular brand over another, although I'll tell you that, you know, strike at the heart of major brands. That's what I'm saying, right, Uh, don't don't.
I don't wanna. I don't want you to end up with a you know, a gold Leaf uh electric water heater, because I've never heard of that brand, and no one ever has, right, And what that is is that that's some other brand manufacture a cheaper version of their equipment that a come he has put their own brand label on, and they're selling you as some new brand at a discounted price. Stay away from that, Stay with mainline brands. Stay with a company like Navvian. Okay, literally, Navvian at
the cutting edge of most electric water heaters. So there, I told you. I wasn't going to give you a recommendation, but I'm going to give you one. Check out Navian. Let them be kind of the standard by which you But there are others. There's so many others. There's realm, there's rud there are all sorts of great manufacturers out there. And we just happened to live in the golden age
of tankless water heaters. And over the last few years, because of the trend toward electrification of all homes, okay, all of these companies have responded very seriously, and you can get yourself a serious, really powerful, very nice electric tankless water heater that'll feed the whole house for you and take care of you real well. Gonna suck up some juice, it is, but you've got solar, You got yourself covered, and so you're in a good position to
have that happen. And yeah, tankless is gonna help save you space because of you've got a big tanked water heater taking up space somewhere. The tankless can go wall mount and get off that big reservoir of water, and tankless can also go outside. There just about every version of tankless water heater that has an indoor version has an exterior clad outdoor vented version and they work great too.
I've got one sitting on the back side of my house because I live in such a small house that I didn't want any I didn't want to have to have the water heater inside. So it's mounted on an exterior wall and it puts up with the elements and we've never had a problem with it. So yeah, go for it. You're you're headed in the right direction and you're thinking the right thought.
My brind.
Okay, what would be the minimum galance per minute that they need to get for three bars some halls?
Ah, Now that my friend is a that is a something I can't tell you right here on the air. And the reason is, I'll tell you why. It's not just about three bedroom, three baths, Okay, it's really a lot of it comes down to your preference. Okay, because gallons per minute of tankless water heaters the gallons per minute, and this is really important for everybody to understand how
a tankless water heater is calculated for a house. It's not just like an old tanked water heater where it's like it'd be nice to have one hundred gallons, I'll do one hundred gallon water heater. No, a tankless water heater has to have the production capacity to push a certain amount of hot water out into the house.
Right.
So now other question is, well, how much hot water do we need? How much flow do we need. Some of it has to do with the size of the house.
If you've got ten bathrooms in a house, okay, then you're not going to put a two gallon per minute tankless water heater, because what will happen is one person will be using that, and if another person turns on the hot water somewhere else in the house, then that amount of low flow hot water has to be shared between the two and everybody's water becomes warm, not hot anymore. So the flow to keep piping hot water going to everybody has to do with your choice in a lot
of ways. How many things in your home? How many hot water fixtures do you want to have going full speed all at the same time?
Okay?
Do you want three people to be able to take steaming hot showers at the same time while the laundry is running and the washing machine is using hot water, and while somebody is in the kitchen using hot water at the kitchen sink. Well, the way that you do is you simply add up this shower head has a three and a half gallon per minute flow. That shower head has a two gallon per minute flow. This shower head has a three gallon per minute flow. You add
those up. Then you add how much a gallons per minute the washing machine takes, and how many gallons per minute the sink faucet takes. Add them all up, and if you want them all at once, that's the magic number. Could be eleven gallons per minute, could be fourteen gallons per minute, could be six gallons per minute that you need the flowing into the house. And that, my friend, is how you calculate tankless water heater volume and the kind of tankless water heater to match to your house.
It's really a small house, Okay. The homeowner may want a very large tankless water heater flow because they simply want everybody to be able to use every hot water from every faucet in the house, everywhere, all at the same time. Totally the legit request.
Okay.
A larger house is like, now I live here alone, Okay, so I'm never going to use more than three sources of hot water at the same time. Have a smaller tankless That's the interesting thing about tankless water heaters. But that's how they're measured. You add up the gallons per minute of the actual fixtures that you're using, and that's how you know. All right, everybody, when we return, we're going to jive back into our conversation about kitchen cabinets
with my special in studio guest, John Cordero. You're listening to Dean Sharp the House Whisper. You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from KFI Am six forty. You are Home Dean Sharp the House Whisper. Thanks for joining us on the program today. It is always a oh thanks Lucky. That's our rooster in the background here. It's a little late. Sun's been up for like six hours. Yeah, Lucky and I have a The reason Lucky is named Lucky is that he's still here. That's the reason that
he still exists. He doesn't give us eggs, and he makes a lot of noise. Oh, he is therefore Lucky. What's the perfect name Lucky because we tolerate Lucky. Thank you Lucky?
All right.
Anyway, I'm so glad that you're with us on the program, and what a valuable program we have for you today. We're talking all things cabinetry. It is a subject that eludes so many people. It just seems like such a big, big, big topic, and so I'm trying to break it down with my special in studio guest, my favorite cabinet guy in the world, John Cordero from the Kitchen Store. So we're just sitting here just talking cabinets, trying to make
it as simple for you to understand as possible. We're not gonna be able to do that because it's a huge topic, but we're giving you a sense, giving you a bite size grip on the thing. There are so many aspects that we could go John, before it escapes me and we go off on another tangent. I want to talk to you about what are the kinds of
things when people come into the kitchen store. Okay, your typical person coming in, What are the kinds of things that you tend to see that they've got questions about that they don't understand. Where are they leaning? How? You know, how do you guys help them out? And you know, step by step?
The biggest thing that people walk in their their issues is is uh just planning right. A lot of people come in there they're not sure where to start. That's the biggest question I go, Where do I start? I always tell them you need inspirations, right, I think me and you were talking about get pictures, get anything you could come in there with. When they come to the kitchen store, we try to help them. We have designers on staff that try to help them and guide them, like, look,
this is the nice color you could go with. But it's always about functionality. What's going to work for you? What makes your kitchen? What do you need? What organization stuff do you need. Do you have a mix or do you have blenders? Do you have a whole knife collection?
What do you have?
So we try to organize your kitchen to you. We wanted to flow to you, wanted to work for you. So the biggest problem that I always tell clients is get as much inspiration as you can. Know your colors, what works in your house, and what do you need and what works for you?
Okay? So, and I love that advice because that's exactly why I send so many of our clients your way with exactly that mandate, because I hear the same thing. I hear the same thing when like Dean, how are we going to start addressing the kitchen? Where do we start. I don't even know what to do, and I'm like, all right, first of all, relax, don't panic.
Okay.
Secondly, the fact that you don't know what to do is it's perfectly normal. Okay, It's a perfectly normal situation to be in. Don't worry about that. And most of them are surprised, and I love that you and I were talking about this during the break. Most of them are surprised that. My first piece of advice to them is it's time for you to go get inspired and play. You need to spend some time playing. So I'm telling you, all right now, that's why I want you to go
to the kitchen store. Because a cabinet design showroom like the Kitchen Store, it's not just oh well, I'll see the cabinets that they have out there, and then I guess I'll figure out which cabinet I want. That's not really what it's about. What it's about is is to go there and to start looking through every cabinet everywhere, opening up every drawer, every drawer, what's inside this one? Oh my gosh, I didn't even know you could do that to a cabinet. That kind of stuff, Like I
always tell you here. First of all, design matters most, always, always, always, always always design matters most. And how do you get to that place where you start approaching it from play? Just start playing? You need a sandbox to play in, right, And the kitchen store is that kind of a place. It's a kind of place where you can just come and start just looking around. And why not because windows shopping is free. You don't have to do anything. You don't even have to you know, people ask me like
do I have to bring my kitchen dimensions in? Do I our to what do I have to figure out before I go to the kitchen store? It's like, well, if you want to bring your dimensions in, if you want to bring a floor plan in, great, If you're not ready to do that, who cares. Just come in and start looking at things. And what were we talking about? Of all the things that could go into every kitchen, I've never put everything that could go into a kitchen
into a single kitchen. They're going to be looking around and then something, they're gonna find something and that one thing even if they're like you know, and we were joking during the break because John has experiences all the time, like Okay, You've got kitchens of every style of wood,
of every from contemporary to super traditional. I mean, you guys have the entire spectrum of what cabinets can look like at your disposal, every color imaginable, the wall of doors and colors up on the wall just to see like all the colors that a kitchen could be. And yet most of the time people end up with a white Shaker cabin And there's reasons for that. There are reasons for that. I mean, white is every color, okay, and Shaker a Shaker style door is it's a two
hundred and fifty year old style of door. But because it has a clean line, it can go into a contemporary house as well as you know, a house that's trying to be a period house and everything in between. So yeah, most people end up with white Shaker Cabinet's not because you're pushing him in that direction. But it's like the same like when clients hire us and say, all right, I know you guys, you guys are creative. Take something out of the box. Give me something out
of the box. Out of the box. I want something out of the box. And then we show him something like out of the box and they're like, wow, put it back.
Put it back in the box, put it back in the box.
Okay.
But and there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong if you find out that you're less bold than you thought you were.
Okay.
But they're going to find something as they play some gadget, a gizmo. Uh a. I don't like to call them gizmos because they all have practical function yet an insert a functionality, a configure. They are going to find something, and if they adopt that one thing into their new kitchen forever, that is their kitchen now. It is the kitchen of their dreams. I've had people come in and tell me I want to design my kitchen off of automatic trash can, because I want to when I'm carrying trash,
I don't want to touch my cabinets. We have something there at the kitchen store. So you go up to it, you hit it, bump it with your knee. It opens by itself, easy functionality, exactly exactly. And that's a really good point too. And then we're uh, when we come back, let's talk about some of this specialty stuff, because we're
at that point. I was going to go in another direction, but let's just do that instead, and don't let me forget to talk about why it's important soft clothes, drawer glides, and door hinges, why they actually they're not just a luxury, but they actually preserve the life of the cabinet as well. But what was I going to say? Now I've doubled over myself twice. Oh oh, where to start? Yeah, so you've got client come ins. I want to design my whole kitchen around an automatic trash can. Is that weird?
Is that wrong? Of course it's not. It's you. It's what you need. So when a client asked me, how where do we start in the kitchen, I'm like, I don't know, what do you like? And I have some clients who are like, all I know about my kitchen is I want this kind of floor, all right, Then that's where we start. Or all I know about my kitchen is I want this kind of countertop, all right? Or all I know about my kitchen is I want this one particular kind of cabinet functionality. Then that's where
we start, and then we can just build. It's a circle. The thing, the whole process is circular. It doesn't really matter where you land on the circle to start, because we're we'll end up covering the whole sphere. It's an experience, it is. It really is a journey. It's a beautiful journey. So if you're taking anything away from today's show, anything at all, please, I hope it's this that a new kitchen does not have to be a stressful, intimidating thing, not if you're working.
With the right people.
All right, More with my special in studio guest John Cordero from the Kitchen Store. When we return, you're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from KFI AM six forty Dean Sharp Thow's whisper Welcome Home. I am sitting here just having a blast with one of my favorite favorite industry professionals, John Cordero from the Kitchen Store, one of my favorite places in all of Southern California
when it comes to this business. I have been sending people clients to and through the Kitchen Store for boy, I lost track, lost track. I was thrilled when I came and started doing radio at KFI and I heard there was a chance. Somebody said, have you ever heard of the Kitchen Store they're thinking about I'm like, are you kidding me. That's awesome because professionally, I have utilized you guys for so long. I don't I don't even remember how long. You know when Ken started it all
before I was born. So you know that's.
We should have a promotion for your for your clients. So when they come into the kitchen store and they mention you and they purchase a kitchen from us, I think I'm gonna have something for.
Them all right now. They don't want that, they don't want that. They don't want that, they don't want they don't want any special deals or favors on No one has ever asked us for that. No, that would be awesome. Let's do that immediately. Yeah, all right, all right, what did I say we were going to talk about now?
Oh?
So we talked about your like when somebody comes into the store. You know, we just finished talking about that. I want to touch on this soft clothes, you know, because you and I were talking during the break about you're asking me about design and how there are certain aspects of design that have nothing to do with luxury, custom design and luxury, even though I would say in theory, a custom designed home is the ultimate luxury. Okay, because
it just feels so good and fits so well. But that's not to say that it's a custom designed home has to be made out of luxurious materials, right, A custom designed home that's made out of plastic, Not that homes are, but if it was made out of plastic or paper would be a funner home to live in than a non custom designed home made out of platinum and gold. That's my thing, because to customize a home to the way that you live, and you know so
there are reasons for that. When it comes to cabinetry these days, there are a lot of things about the modern kitchen cabinet that thirty years ago were all in the luxury category, right, like full extension glides and you know door glides where the whole drawer comes out and you can see the whole drawer. Thirty years ago, that was a luxury item that the people in the big house on the hill got, but the regular homeowner, sorry, buddy,
that's going to cost you. Soft closed, soft closed drawer glides and soft closed door hinges used to be considered a luxuried eye. And I think probably a lot of people who are listening right now still think, oh, that's a luxury thing, but it's not really And first of all, it's kind of standard these days. If when I ever, when I when I find a cabinet that has a hidden hinge that isn't soft, I'm like, what's wrong with these people? Who's trying to rip you off? But there's
another reason for them too. It goes beyond the luxury. There's a practicality to it. Explain that.
So when you're upset, your wife doesn't realize slamming the door, Yeah exactly. The main functionality is just it's just the soft closes just so it protects the life of your cabinets. It gives you that soft close. The drawer will last longer. These slides, these hardware that are coming out of different companies are so much better. Drawer boxes went from only being able to hold a little amount of weight.
Now they're rated for like almost one hundred pounds. Yeah exactly. Who puts one hundred pounds and stuff in their drawers for your kitchen? Right?
So the slides, the hinges, they're made to last, and the soft closing just gives you that extra luxury item that you're not really paying for it because it's a standard now.
But so it's important for people to know it's not just the noise that you're gonna make. Okay, it's not. The goal is not to have a whisper quiet kitchen. That's not the point, because you're making enough noise everything else in the kitchen. But a cabinet door, right, maybe it's uh, you know, you know, maybe it's picture frame built,
maybe it's mortise and tendin built. But the frame of that door, if it's a traditional door, uh, you know, it's got glued joints and all of the anytime a cabinet door gets shocked slammed, okay, it starts you could slowly start breaking down the door. And drawers. Drawer faces are not a single piece connected to the box behind them.
They're they're bolted or screwed on to that box. And so when you slam a drawer shut, the drawer face hits the cabinet face and the door the drawer box beyond it wants to keep going right, and so it starts loosening up. And the next thing you know, you got you know, your your drawer face is crooked and uh and a door is sagging because the frame is breaking down all all of that kind of stuff gets preserved when regardless of how fast you close the drawer, that last inch is just a nice easy ah put
on the brakes and it glides in. So the lack of impact of a force impact is actually extending the life of your cabinets, yep, preserving the light. So it's so it shouldn't be seen as a lug. I don't see soft closed hinges as a luxury item anymore than I see shock absorbers on a car as a luxury item. Oh your car has shocks, mind doesn't.
Uh?
Once it was, I mean once, I suppose, and that somebody could call in. Tell me at what point in the history of automobiles did shock absorbers become like, oh, you've got a ritzy car. My my, my axle is built straight to my bud to the body of the car. So yeah, there was a time when it was a I guess technically a fancy thing. Now it's just smart. It's just smart. And drawer glides underneath the drawer as opposed to mount it on the sides. Okay, number one,
the drawer can be full width. Number two. You know, if you mount a drawer glide on the side of a drawer. Well, gravity, right, it's always working against the screws, right, the drawer wants to fall through. But if the glides are on the bottom, they're holding um up from the bottom hundred pound rating. Yep, that's some serious stuff. You don't have to see them anymore. Yeah, you don't have to see them. And they're also surprisingly adjustable. People don't
realize that even drawer glides are adjustable these days. They can adjust up and down and you know, all sorts of stuff. All right, when we return, more from John Kurdero of the Kitchen Store. You're listening to 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