August 2008 Z www.ConsumerReports.org 27

CABINET UPGRADESExtreme makeovers, low cost

Replacing cabinets is the costliest part of most kitchen remodels. But you can make your cabinets look better and provide more storage for thousands less by following our three-step plan.

Readers who hired contractors paid an average of $9,100 for new cabinets, with about a quarter of them paying more than $15,000, according to a survey by the Consumer Reports National Research Center. But for roughly a tenth of the cost, you can refinish the cabi-nets, install cabinet organizers, add undercabinet light-ing, and change your kitchen’s look. Sanding, painting, and drilling are the only required skills.

Figure on a couple of weekends to complete the up-grades. The time and money will be well spent because those fixes address some of the most common reasons for remodeling a kitchen. Consider these results from our testing and survey:

A new look equals new life. Seventy percent of read-ers told us that the main reason they remodeled their kitchen was to update its look. Changing cabinets is the surest way to transform the space. If your cabinets are

plumb, square, and sturdy, you don’t have to replace them. Refinish or reface them instead. Cost: $800 to $2,400.

Insufficient storage is common. More than one in five readers wished their kitchens had more storage space. Cabinet organizers—including pull-out shelves and lazy Susans—offer quick, affordable ways to maxi-mize kitchen storage and reduce clutter. We tested 27 organizers and found that the highest-rated ones weren’t the most expensive. Cost: four pull-out shelves, $120; one retractable trash can, $60; one lazy Susan, $40. Total: $220.

Many kitchens are in the dark. Inadequate light-ing, especially all-important task lighting, is a common kitchen problem. We looked at puck and strip-style un-dercabinet lighting with four types of bulbs—fluorescent, halogen, xenon, and LED—and found significant differ-ences in light quality, efficiency, and temperature. Cost: five undercabinet fixtures, $200.

All in all, our testers examined more than 40 cabinet organizers and undercabinet lights. Here’s a closer look.

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Step one Improve your cabinets’ style.If your cabinets are structurally sound, you can improve their appearance dra-matically by refinishing or refacing them. Whichever technique you choose, con-sider replacing the knobs, pulls, and hinges to match the new look.

Refinishing: More work, less money. A fresh coat of paint or stain can make cabinets look new again. It’s inexpensive but messy and time-consuming. Cabinets must be cleaned with a degreasing agent, then rinsed, sanded, primed, and given a top coat or two. For best results, remove the cabinet doors and work on them outdoors or in a well-ventilated room. If the cabinets are coated in lead paint, as was common before 1978, this job is best left to a professional. Unless the cabinets are antiques, the extra work involved and the added cost might not be worth it.

Cost: $50 per door opening and up.

Refacing: More options, more money. This solution involves adding new “skins” to cabinets. It tends to work best on cabi-nets with visible face frames, although you can reface full-overlay cabinets as well. Choices include brightly colored laminates, crisp white thermofoil, and wood veneers. New doors, drawer faces, and ends are also added. Peel-and-stick kits are available at home centers, or you can hire a cabinet refacing pro, who will need a few days to complete an average-sized job. But costs can creep up if you move cabinets or add new ones.

Cost: $150 to $300 per door opening, in-cluding materials and installation.

Face-liFt New white cabinet doors and sides freshen up a dark kitchen.

Your dream kitchen for less

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28 ConsumeR RepoRts Z August 2008 • Exper t • Independent • Nonprofi t

First things first- Match the fixture to your needs and bulb preference.

Strip lights

Best for providing even, diffused light. their long, rectangular housings are typically 12 or 24 inches wide, although other sizes are available. strips are the most common type of task lighting and can be found with any type of bulb. But the housings are sometimes bulky, espe-cially if they have a built-in transformer.

Puck lights

Best for casting pools of light onto the coun-ter, which some people find more aestheti-cally pleasing. the round fixtures, also called disc lights, are available in halogen, LED, and xenon bulbs. But they are the least effective form of task lighting. A battery-powered LED model we tested was dim and had poor light quality.

linear lights

Best for versatility because the flexible cable can follow cabinet curves and turns and its miniature bulbs can be positioned anywhere along the cable. Linear lights come in halogen, LED, and xenon bulbs. But they are only sold at lighting stores or online and tend to be more expensive than the other types.

Undercabinet lighting is sold at home centers, lighting stores, and manufacturers’ Web sites. Home centers tend to have the low prices, but selection is more limited. Plan on one 12-inch un-dercabinet light fixture, or three puck lights, for every four feet of countertop. Install fixtures to-ward the front of your upper cabinets so that they cast task light onto more of the work surface. If your cabinets don’t have a built-in valance to hide the task lighting, either add one (most cabinet companies offer a 2-inch molding) or choose a fixture with a sleek housing that’s not as noticeable.

Corded lighting is easy to install: Just screw the housing to the underside of the cabinet and plug in the cord. But you’ll have to hide that dangling wire. For hard-wired models, you or your electrician will have to tap into a nearby outlet, usually one located along the countertop back-splash. Fixtures are either line-voltage (usually 120 volts) or low-voltage (usu-ally 12 volts). Low-voltage models come

with a transformer that steps down the voltage. Look for one with a built-in transformer. Otherwise the transformer will need to be hidden in a cabinet.

How to cHoose

Check First Things First for the pros and cons of different undercabinet light-ing, then keep these tips in mind:

Select the bulb. Undercabinet fix-tures with fluorescent bulbs are energy efficient, easy to find, and inexpensive. The ones we tested cost $30 or less. But many don’t accurately show reds, or-anges, or purples, and they change the look of food or counters.

Halogen and xenon bulbs deliver bright light that accu-rately renders colors, and they’re dimmable. But both use much more electricity and burn hot, with halogen being the hot-ter of the two types. One halo-gen fixture, the Apollo 1630, reached 440° F in our tests. Hot bulbs can pose a safety risk, cre-ate extra heat, and might cause food stored in the cabinet above to soften and melt.

Light-emitting diodes, the newest choice, were the most energy efficient by far. Their low-profile housings tend to be

relatively discreet. But most of the LEDs we tested still produce narrow beams of light, like a spotlight, rather than the even, wide beams best for task lighting. Plus the new technology can be pricey. Except for the $180 American Lighting 021-0001, the LEDs produced a bluish light which can change the colors of some items underneath it.

Consider the counter material. Choose strip fixtures with a frosted lens to minimize the glare on dark glossy ma-terials, such as black polished quartz or granite. Also avoid puck lights, because even with a diffused lens they cause a “headlight effect” on those counters.

Step two Add task lighting.

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BRight idea Undercabinet fixtures put light where you need it.

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August 2008 Z www.ConsumerReports.org 29

Moveable storage devices make it easier to reach or to use every inch of your cab-inets. Before you head to the home cen-ter or organizing store, examine the contents of your cabinets and counters. Small appliances eat up counter space and make a kitchen feel cluttered. Next, carefully measure cabinet interiors. Many organizers we tested came in various sizes, and the dimensions are usually listed on the box, but fractions of an inch count.

When you get to the store, read the installation directions. Check to see whether they’re clear and if the project is on a par with your skill level. Some instructions left our seasoned testers baffled. While some companies claim a screwdriver is all it takes to install their organizers, we think a power drill is a must for this project. A drill-bit extender, available at hardware stores, is helpful for fastening screws in tight spaces. Here are more specifics for each:

Pull-out sHelves

Those shelves are typically installed in base cabinets, on the bottom of the box itself or on an existing fixed shelf, or in

both places. They create accessible stor-age in cluttered kitchens for consumers’ most-mentioned items, including small appliances (34 percent), papers (28 per-cent), and food items (17 percent). A few points to consider:

Determine the volume. Some shelves are deeper than others, and ones with sloped slides might hold less than ones with straight shelves. Case in point: The Knape & Vogt MU14-W and the Rubbermaid 80340 are both 14 inches wide, but only the straight-sided Rubbermaid could handle a pair of 2-pound coffee containers side by side.

Decide on the construction. Solid-construction shelves contain spills and keep small items from falling through. But open wire shelves make it easier to see items stored on the shelf. Beefy, industrial-looking metal was preferred by some of our staffers, but if you have

white interiors, you might want painted or powder-coated metal.

Look for smooth mechanics. A drawer that slides in and out easily will probably function better over time than one that sticks. We placed a 10-pound weight in each drawer and then used a force gauge to determine resistance.

RetRactable tRasH cans

Trash cans are always installed in base cabinets, preferably under the sink or as close to it as possible. For undersink cabinets, make sure the plumbing won’t be in the way.

Pick a type. Some trash cans slide in and out on tracks that are mounted to the bottom of the cabinet. Others attach to the cabinet door. On-the-door units are pricier and a lot harder to install, requir-ing complicated shimming unless the cabinet is precisely the right size. But they let you use the cabinet handle to ac-cess the trash can, rather than having to reach for the can itself.

Consider the configuration. Some models have multiple bins that hold recyclables in addition to trash. The Rev-A-Shelf 4WCTM-12DM1, for exam-ple, comes with two or four containers. Other models, including the Knape & Vogt PDMTM15-2-35, include a mini bin designed to hold extra trash bags.

Think about durability. Our testers subjected the receptacles to 30,000 rep-etitions (see Inside CR Test Labs). In en-durance tests, ball-bearing assemblies historically do better than those with nylon wheels. So we were surprised

Step three Stretch storage space.

Inside CR test labsgearheads will get a kick out of the contraption that engineer Bob Karpel designed to test shelves, trash cans, and lazy susans. “the trick was convert-ing the rotational movement of a gear motor to the push-pull action you get in the kitchen,” Karpel says. With the use of two motors and a series of crank arms and levers, Karpel’s cre-ation simultaneously subjected all three types of organizers to 30,000 repetitions, or the equiv-alent of five to 10 years of use in a kitchen. to watch a video of Karpel’s machine in action, go to www.ConsumerReports.org /kitchenorganizers.

acceSS the Rev-a-Shelf pull-out shelf and the Knape & Vogt lazy Susan are Quick Picks.

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30 ConsumeR RepoRts Z August 2008 • Exper t • Independent • Nonprofi t

Ratingsc a b i n e t o r g a n i z e r s• availability Most models at stores through December 2008.

Excellent Very Good Fair Poor good

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It’s not just how much kitchen storage space you have, it’s how you organize it that matters. Measure the interior of cab-inets carefully before you buy organizers; precision counts.

the Ratings rank the storage prod-ucts by overall performance. Quick Picks are also good values.

QuICK pICKs

CR Quick Recommendations

Best pull-out shelves:

1 Real Organized $30, CR Best Buy2 Knape & Vogt $503 Rev-a-Shelf $50

All are fine performers. the Real Orga-nized and Knape & Vogt have wire mesh shelves. While the chrome shelf on the Knape & Vogt felt more substantial, there were no performance differences. the Rev-A-shelf has solid wood construction.

Best pull-out trash cans:

11 Simplehuman $60, CR Best Buy13 Whitney design $6015 Simplehuman $60

All are mounted to the bottom of the cab-inet. the simplehuman (11) and Whitney Design have one trash can, and the sim-plehuman (15) has two receptacles.

Best lazy Susans:

23 hafele $40, CR Best Buy24 Knape & Vogt $50

Both have adjustable shelves.

  Brand & model Price Overall score Sizes available Finish(es) Test results

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Pull-out sHelves

1 Real Organized 206406 (Lowe’s) $ 30 92 14” Chrome &Z &Z &X2 Knape & Vogt MU14-W 50 89 11”, 14” White &Z &Z &Z3 Rev-A-Shelf 4W-58-15-5 50 88 15” Wood &Z &Z &Z4 Closet Maid 3160-31 50 86 11”, 15” Chrome &Z &Z &X5 Lynk 133590-1721 Container Store

10035943 55 85 11”, 14”, 17”, 20” Chrome &Z &Z &Z6 Whitney Design C1521-1 60 85 16” Chrome &Z &Z &Z7 Container Store 10035979 55 83 11”, 14”, 17”, 20” White &Z &Z &X8 Simplehuman KT1049 60 71 14”, 20” Chrome &C &Z &Z9 Rubbermaid 80340 30 56 11”, 14” White &V &Z &Z10 elfa 10023167 30 51 17” White &C &C &X Pull-out tRasH cans

11 Simplehuman CW1124 60 85 10” Polished steel &Z &Z &Z

12 Hafele 502.43.520 240 83 13” Grey &Z &Z &X13 Whitney Design C9521 60 78 10” Chrome &Z &X &X14 Rev-A-Shelf RV-18KD-18C-S 130 75 15” Zinc &X &Z &Z15 Simplehuman CW1016 60 75 10” Polished

steel &Z &C &Z16 Rev-A-Shelf 4WCTM-12DM1 125 68 12” Wood &X &X &C17 Rev-A-Shelf RV-12KD-18C-S 90 66 11” Zinc &C &Z &Z18 Knape & Vogt PSW10-1-30-C 85 62 10” Chrome &C &Z &X19 Closet Maid 3185-31 55 59 11” Chrome &X &V &X20 Amerock C9335 28QT-W 110 46 12” White &V &X &X21 Knape & Vogt PDMTM11.5-1-35 120 42 12” Wood &V &X &V22 Knape & Vogt PDMTM15-2-35 150 42 15” Wood &V &X &V laZY susans

23 Hafele 542.12.716 40 83 18”, 20”, 24”, 28”, 32” White &Z &X &C

24 Knape & Vogt PFN20ST-W 50 82 18”, 20”, 24”, 28”, 32”

White/Almond &Z &X &C

25 Knape & Vogt WFS18ST-PLYWD 215 78 18” Wood &Z &X &C26 Rev-A-Shelf 3072-18-11-52 55 71 18”, 24”, 28” White/

Almond &Z &X &C27 Knape & Vogt PFADJ20ST-W 85 59 18”, 20”, 24”,

28”, 32” White/Bisque &X &X &V

Within types, in performance order. Blue key numbers indicate Quick Picks.

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when one sample of the Closetmaid 3185-31, which has a ball-bearing design, ground to a halt after just 2,500 cycles.

laZY susans

Those organizers make the recesses of corner cabinets more accessible.

Guide to the RatingsOverall score is based primarily on ease of use but also includes durability and ease of installation. Ease of use reflects judgements with typical items stored in a kitchen and other convenience factors. Durability is based on observed wear after opening and closing, or rotating each item more than 30,000 times mimicking normal use and years of service. Installation considers clarity of instructions and ease of installation. Sizes available and finishes are supplied by the manufacturer; size of tested model is in bold. Price is approx-imate retail for tested size.

Weigh the difficulties. The simplest lazy Susan is harder to install than most other cabinet organizers we tested. That’s because the center pole has to be perfectly plumb for the unit to rotate smoothly. And if you have stone or com-posite counters, you’ll need to add a

spacing block inside the cabinet to attach the lazy Susan’s top spindle mount.

Realize the storage limitations. Even with their adjustable shelves, lazy Susans can’t fit everything. Our testers had to tilt an average-sized coffeemaker to get it into and out of one unit.

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