Kitchen Showrooms in NYC: What to Bring and What to Ask

A showroom is worth the trip for one reason: it lets you put your hands on what you would otherwise order from a picture. A door style, a painted finish, the way a drawer closes and the way a counter meets a cabinet cannot be judged on a screen. New York has no shortage of kitchen showrooms, and an hour in one goes much further if you arrive prepared. This is how we suggest using a visit, to ours or to anyone’s.

Before you go

• Measure the room: every wall, the ceiling height, and the size and position of each window, door, radiator and pipe. In an older building measure the ceiling in more than one place, because it is seldom level.
• Photograph each wall, the floor and the ceiling, corners and boxed-in areas included.
• Bring a floor plan if you have one, and the sizes or model numbers of the appliances you want.
• Bring samples of whatever is staying: a floorboard, a tile, the paint color of the next room. New cabinets have to sit beside them.
• Collect pictures of kitchens you like. A cabinet maker reads pictures faster than words.
• In a co-op or condo, ask the managing agent for the alteration agreement first, so you know what the building allows before you fall for a layout.

What to look at

Open everything. Pull each drawer to its full length and let it close on its own. Then look past the door at the box behind it: what it is made of, how the shelves are held, how the edges are finished. The door is what you see every day, and the box is what carries the weight.

Notice how the doors sit. Inset doors close flush inside a frame, overlay doors cover it, and frameless cabinets have no face frame at all. Each gives a different look and a slightly different amount of room inside. Shaker, slab and beaded doors are worth seeing side by side, because the differences are small on paper and plain in person.

Ask to carry a finish sample to a window, since showroom lighting flatters everything. If you want wood, ask to see the species itself with and without stain. Oak, cherry, maple and walnut take color differently, and the wood has to be chosen for the finish you want.

What to ask

• Which parts are made to order, and which come only in fixed sizes?
• Who measures the room for the final order, and who is responsible if a cabinet does not fit?
• How long is it from order to delivery, and where do the cabinets wait until the room is ready?
• Who installs them: the firm that sold them or someone else?
• How are deliveries handled in a building with a service elevator and set hours?
• What is done where a wall or a ceiling is out of true?

How a display relates to your kitchen

A display is built in a square room with a level floor, which few New York kitchens are. Treat it as an example of how a firm builds and finishes, not as a kitchen to be bought off the floor. The colors and patterns on show can usually be changed to suit you, and a cabinet made to order is sized to your room, not to the display. What you are choosing is a way of building, a door and a finish.

It also helps to visit twice. Go once early, to settle taste and budget, and once after the room has been measured, to settle the order itself with the person who will build it.

Our showroom

We custom-make kitchen cabinets to order and show our cabinet work in our own kitchen showroom in Manhattan. It is seen by appointment, so that someone who knows how the cabinets are built can walk you through them. Bring the list above. The details are on our page about the cabinet showroom and custom cabinets in NYC, finished rooms are in the kitchen gallery, and how a whole job runs is under kitchen renovation in NYC. If the boxes you are shown are melamine, our article on melamine cabinets explains what that means.

Questions people ask