LG Surfacing now Greenguard Certified

LG Solid Source LLC. (LGSS), the North American sales and marketing arm for LG HI-MACS^® Acrylic Solid Surface, LG HI-MACS Volcanics Collection^®, LG HI-MACS Eden Collection^®, and LG Viatera^® Natural Quartz recently announced that these products are now GREENGUARD Indoor Air Quality Certified^® for low- chemical emissions with and without LG Adhesive.

“The GREENGUARD certification is a testament to our ongoing commitment to provide environmentally-sensitive products that meet the demands of everyone from the designer to the installer. It also complements well our very popular LG Eden product line which has been independently certified by SCS certification to having at least 12 percent post-industrial recycled materials,” says Mike Tasch, product manager.

September 3, 2007June 20, 2017

Design Idea for Small Kitchens

If you don’t like your kitchen you are not going to want to spend time in it.
So what do you do when your number one complaint is that the kitchen feels enclosed?

Here are two pictures that show how to open up a small galley-style kitchen. Continue reading “Design Idea for Small Kitchens”

August 6, 2007

HGTV Kitchens Abysmal

I decided I had to watch the HGTV Design Star Sunday night since they were making over two kitchens. The results were not good. The HGTV website tries to gloss over how bad the rooms are by taking photos from a distance and showcasing other areas like the Dining Room that were more the designers’ fortes.

The kitchen below was not finished. The designers did not allocate their budget or resources well. They chose to do a black ceramic tile countertop but they did not purchase enough material and did not even grout the tile they had down. No amount of accessories is going to fix this room – although they tried. The judges commented that they liked the old kitchen better. I’m not sure what the home owners thought, their reactions were not revealed. Other comments on the HGTV site are just as scathing citing the lack of lighting and bad material choices.

The “winning” kitchen was not much better. A heavy crackle finish was applied to the upper cabinets leaving the lower cabinets with only new hardware. The time spent faux painting the backsplash should have been devoted to finishing the cabinets. While the homeowners were pleased with their results, the judges commented that they should have had better.

Their is truth in hiring a Kitchen Designer to get the best results.

July 19, 2007

Full Height Marble Splash

With tile so popular these days I rarely get requests for full height backsplashes so I was thrilled to see a picture posted by Materialicious of a German kitchen featuring white marble running not just up the side of a tall cabinet but across the top too.

Most Americans don’t like how easily marble can stain and tend to favor granite or quartz countertops. If you want to recreate this look with either material you can substitute strips on top of the cabinet to cut the cost and weight.

CaesarStone and Corian Samples