Renovating your cabinets means more than simply refinishing them. Renovation is a serious endeavor that enhances your living space while potentially adding value to your home. On average, the budget for a kitchen cabinet renovation could easily be 1 per cent of your home’s market value. An eco-renovation means using materials and installation techniques that are environmentally friendly. Here is a rough guide to renovating your kitchen cabinets and being kind to the environment as well as your bank balance.
One option for eco-renovators is to pay a company to reface their existing cabinets. This calls for all the doors, drawer fronts, hardware and molding to be scrapped and replaced with brand new materials. By keeping your existing cabinet frame, so the logic goes, you are saving all that formaldehyde-laced particle board from the landfill and minimizing your carbon foot print. The main problem is that your cabinet frame may have warped over time and the interior of your ‘new’ refaced cabinets are left untouched. The other problem is the environmental impact of the new doors and whether the wood sourced from sustainable forests. Refacing may not be the best solution for your eco-renovation.
Refacing isn’t the only solution for an eco-renovation of your kitchen cabinets. Brand new cabinets can be environmentally-friendly as well. For a start, you are probably aware that if your existing cabinets are made from particle board, they probably contain a fair bit of formaldehyde and the last thing you want is to introduce this to the environment. It’s wrong to assume that your old cabinets will end up as landfill, though. You can find cabinet suppliers who are willing to dispose of particle board responsibly as it can be recycled into new board at a factory.
If you are saving money with particle board cabinets, you can stipulate that ultra-low formaldehyde-emission board is used. This is not only good for the environment but it will provide you and your family with a safer, greener living environment as well.
Your choice of wood will have a great effect on the environmental impact of your cabinets. Reclaimed wood is the greenest option after particle board but even if you want new wood such as cherry, maple, oak or hickory, you can minimize your carbon footprint by ensuring that the trees were felled, milled and manufactured into cabinets in your own country. The best thing you could check with the supplier is whether the wood was sourced from sustainable forests where felled trees are replaced with new ones.
Once you have chosen the perfect cabinet material, give some thought to the hardware such as the handles, hinges and drawer rails that you choose. Keep one eye on the future and make sure that they are made from easily recyclable materials such as steel. Instead of a stain, glaze or lacquer, you may wish to keep your cabinets unfinished or natural to complete your eco-renovation.