Recently we were rehabbing a house and wanted to stay up to date with what style's and colors were ?in? with kitchen cabinets. We already were on a limited budget, however we realized that the perfect kitchen cabinet style could make or break the kitchen. Add in the fact that some cabinet colors or stains just do not work with some kitchens and you realize that an important decision is in your hands. We decided to do some research on what is current, what is popular in different regions and what will be a style and color that will hold up to the ever changing landscape of kitchen designs.

We are based in the Chicago area and even though it is a large city, the style of cabinet we often see reflects a slight country feel. Of course you will always have the modern looking kitchen cabinets, but overall in designs that we saw, the traditional kitchen cabinet was just as popular. When I say modern design, the definition that comes close to my idea is a cabinet that contains straight lines (no arches), plain fronts in some instances, and predominantly darker colors. Note ? the color is not always dark. As for the definition of a traditional cabinet, the color is closer to an oak or natural wood and the cabinet design usually contains an arch or curve in its door design.

At this point we made the decision to go with a traditional design and a light maple color; almost like a honey type of maple cabinet. This cabinet was consistent with the traditional design and had a nice wood finish. Along with this decision came the idea of saving money by choosing an RTA or ready to assemble cabinet. We compared prices on assembled cabinets and RTA kitchen cabinets and the choice was simple. We were going to save about twenty percent by assembling the cabinets ourselves. So choosing RTA kitchen cabinets was the obvious, money saving choice. Note- RTA kitchen cabinets are very simple to assemble, and the finished product is exactly the same as an assembled cabinet that you would be spending extra to buy.

While choosing the RTA kitchen cabinets, we actually came across another nice discovery. We were online researching the styles of cabinets in the Chicago and Midwest area and found that RTA kitchen cabinets could be purchased online for about thirty percent less than retail. (Now our twenty percent savings just jumped up to thirty percent by purchasing the cabinets online). It was a basically a simple Google search for RTA kitchen cabinets, but the savings it produced was well worth the minimal effort. We quickly compared a few of the RTA kitchen cabinet sites and came back to the one with the best prices. We ended up getting a great deal by purchasing the cabinets online, the cabinets were delivered to our door, and the RTA kitchen cabinets had the traditional look that we were trying to achieve.

In fact, we went a step further and named our new look ?traditional urban? and labeled it as such when we marked the property. It was a hit with our realtor and now our kitchen is the showpiece of our rehabbed house.