Published on Aug 10, 2026
Welcome to another Q&A session where I answer questions from y'all on the internet.
Today's question is:
Kolten says material recommendations come down to the situation, particularly how the home will be used. For a forever home, he advises investing in quality, especially on cabinets. He stresses that cabinets take heavy daily wear, opened and used constantly, with everything in the kitchen handled every day, so homeowners staying long term shouldn't cut corners there. The calculus changes for rental properties. He notes that a tenant won't value an expensive fifteen-thousand-dollar cabinet package the way an owner would, and will treat it like a budget package regardless. In that case, he recommends a more economical five-thousand-dollar package, since it will need replacing anyway under hard use. As he puts it, a landlord could effectively get three kitchens for the price of one by matching the material investment to how the space will actually be treated.
It depends on the situation. If it's your forever home, obviously you're going to want to buck up and spend some cash. You've got to spend the money on your cabinets if you're going to be living there forever. Cabinets take a beating whether you like it or not, whether you're admitting it or not, they do. You're opening them every single day, you're using them every day, things are getting touched and moved, everything in the kitchen gets used every day. So don't cheap out on it. If you're renting out a property and you're a landlord, you might have some room there, because a tenant isn't going to appreciate your fifteen-thousand-dollar cabinet package the way you do. They're going to treat it like a five-thousand-dollar cabinet package, so let's get them a five-thousand-dollar cabinet package, because it's going to have to get replaced either way when they treat it harshly. So we could get three kitchens for the price of one if we do that.