Saturday 22 October, 2011

Materials used in making Wardrobes and Kitchen

In this article we will discuss the different types of materials available in the market today, their detailed description, price range, their pros and cons. This will give you insight in what issues you could face when using a specific material, and how you can avoid those by using an alternate material.

The following is the list of materials used for building or manufacturing Kitchens and Wardrobes.

Particle Board or Chip Board

Particle Board in raw form without Film on top
This is a board made from chips of wood or fiber from bagasey which is a byproduct of production of sugar manufacturing, the left out fiber after removing the juice from  sugarcane. The other raw material for this from various trees like eucalyptus, silver wood etc, they are usually low price woods without much oil. The wood is shredded or acquired in a shredded form and then pressed into a sheet form by adding glue to the mixture to form a board. This comes in various thickness like 9mm to 30 mm. The board is then finished with sheet of white paper on one side which is called blanching and with a printed laminated paper on the other side, this is the side which has wooden grains printed over it and makes it look like natural wood in color. Once the sheet is pasted it is covered with a thin plastic film and sent out to dealers to be sold. This is also called compressed wood.

Price Range for 18 mm : Rs.40 - Rs.60 depending on the brand

Finished Particle Board top film
Benefits of using Particle Board

Very low price : This is probably the lowest priced product for making furniture on earth, so this is the cheapest you can get to make your wardrobes and furniture.

Easy Working  : Your carpenter will love this as it is very easy to cut and does not spoil his blades.

No Finishing needed : The top of this board needs no finishing like spraying, painting or coloring etc. Only the edges are pasted with a self adhesive tape made from plastic which is similar shade to the wooden color. This feature saves the finishing cost.

Drawbacks of using Particle Board

Very bad Screw Holding Capacity : Since the board is made from chips of low cost wood, there are gaps in between the chips and the fibers are too weak to hold a screw, this caused the fitted hardware like the hinges, tower bolts, handles etc to come off easily after using it for a very short time.

Extremely Delicate : This board is extremely delicate and has to be used very carefully. There are chances it will get damaged if not used carefully and start wearing off, causing the furniture/wardrobes to fall apart.

Not Water Resistant : This board is not water resistant and will easily spoil is exposed to water to steam, so this not something you will use in your kitchen.

Edges tear off : The edges which are finished with the plastic tape will start coming off over a period of time or if they get hit by any object.

Short Life Span : Since the board is made from chips and paper, it has a very short life span, maximum of 5 years if used well.

Restriction on Design : You cannot have any design or 3d objects on it as it is a flat board and you cannot afford to damage the top paper or film. There are vendors who will make some designs for you on the doors etc but the cost of adding such designs involves a very expensive process and adds to the cost of the material making it expensive.

I will keep posting more on the materials shortly, do look forward to more in this article and more to come.

I would love to hear back from you with any comments or questions you have. Please feel free to post your comments and questions below.

Tuesday 18 October, 2011

Planning for your Storage Needs in the Available Space

Once you have the list of things in top priority, start by allocating space in your wardrobe or kitchen for these things and then allocate space for everything else. However this is where technical details come in, you will need to know what kind of utility works best for you, Pull out Drawers or fixed shelves, adjustable or removable shelves, Hanging utility or Hanging Pull out utility.

I would recommend taking help of a professional here as they will be more well versed with the size requirements for each utility. You could hire a professional interior designer with experience, however from what I have seen with my past experiences I would recommend using a fresher or a less experienced designer as they would be open to new ideas you have and will offer a fresher approach to each need. They will also treat your project as a special one as this will be a starter for them and will offer more dedicated approach to it. If you hire a experienced professional they will treat this as just another project, it will eventually be done by some fresher they hire with the guidance from them.

You will need to spend some extra time with the inexperienced designer but it will be well worthwhile as you will know more about what happening with your project than just getting standard drawings from a regular designer.

However if you are passionate about working on drawings you could use a software called Coreldraw to make these drawings in real scale sizes in 2d, you can start off by taking the measurement of the wall where the wardrobe is going to be made on and start working on it in corel draw, you can also try and study the drawings of various accessories you plan to use and implement the same in corel.

You can download a trial from the following url.
http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite/us/en/Product/1191272117978#versionTabview=tab1&tabview=tab7

I have also provided the following links, these are sites that use have kitchen and wardrobe utilities which you will need when designing your kitchen and wardrobes. I would suggest browsing through and making note of products that interest you. These references can be discussed later when you have detailed discussions with the designer.

Ebco
http://www.ebco.in
Ebco is a Indian company offering great products, accessories which can be used in Kitchen and Wardrobes. They claim to offer life time warranty on their products but I am not so sure about that.

Hettich
http://www.hettich.com/in_EN/
Hettich is a German company offering hardware with life time warranty. They have a dedicated team of support staff for this.

Hafele
http://www.hafeleindia.com/in/en/
Hafele is a German company too offering hardware similar to hettich and with life time warranty.

You can make a note of the product codes of the products you choose from these website, this is the easiest way of getting details about the product than with just the name.

In the next post we will discuss what kind various raw material options are available in the market and how to choose the best one that fits into your budget. 

Understanding your Storage Needs

How much storage do you really need ?

This is one question, that more than 90% of our customers cannot answer. The wife says we need as much as possible and then the husband responds back by saying do we really need that storage rack, we could avoid that and save some money. Then starts the never ending discussion on who keeps things eternally and never throws out things that are not needed and the real question drowns in a stream of constantly pouring blames on each other.

We have had an incident where there were a couple who have been married for 20 years and were staying in a rented place for over 18 years of their married life. They bought their first house (flat) a three bedroom flat after being married for 18 years, no wonder they were so excited. Apart from them they have 2 teenage daughters who stay with them. We started our discussion on their storage needs and I was surprised to know that he had a collection of over a 1000 books which include novels, magazines, comics and other literature. The next surprising disclosure what that he had not seen those books for over 8 years now, Why ?

That's exactly the question I asked him, why not see them and read them when you love them so much. He told me they never had storage to keep them in open, so they were all packed in a 4-5 cartons over 8 years ago and they have just been moving their 5 rented homes over these years. The boxes just go from house to another and stay in the attic above the bathroom.

He wanted some space for these in the new home. His wife too wanted that but did not want to sacrifice any guest storage space for the books. She wanted a dedicated Pooja area and space for a 10 year old Wardrobe in their third bed room. (I guess they had some kind of attachment to it).

After a full fledged discussion on this issue, they finally decided on what would happen, yes you guessed it right. The books went back to where they were used to stay for so long, in the attic above the bathroom, though this time they knew it was their last destination and they would never have to move out of it again.

Ok, now coming to the topic of this post Understanding your Storage Needs. This is one of the most important aspects of building your new home. You need to know what is the most important thing that needs your storage space, prioritizing your things for storage is very important. You can begin with the Kitchen, the most used space in the house. Start with making a list of things that are most important and you cannot live without in the Kitchen, your favorite pan, your favorite tupperware containers etc  and then make a list of old things that you want to do away with and don't need in the new home. This could be a old large Kadai which was gifted to you many many years ago when you got married but you never use or anything else you feel is obsolete now. This will help you plan the space better and get rid of items that will take up your precious space.

Do this with every room, make a list for each room. Try and put in as much detail as possible for the things you want to keep, this will help in designing the storage and will save you a lot of money which you would end  up spending on unwanted storage. When doing this also think about your future needs and try to understand if the things that are important today will also be so a few months from now.

Once you have this list in place, you can now start working on how best you can fit these most important things into your new storage spaces. 

Why This Blog

I have been thinking about this for about 4 years now. Being into the business of manufacturing of furniture, I have had interactions with numerous customers and have spent several hours discussing how they have been cheated, betrayed, fooled and even robbed of their hard earned money while trying to make their first home. I have spent hours trying to explain and understand how not to build their home and how not to hire the wrong people to do it.

After several such interactions I wanted to start something where I could contribute my little knowledge in trying it to get the right the first time, The First time you build your home.

I will share my experiences over these years that I have had with my customers and friends. I will also share some ideas on how to plan for your needs, choose the right material in your budget and then choose the right people to execute your project. I hope this will help you guys who have not already started on this new journey to build your home at the right budget and right time.

Some of my experiences have been very sad and some are very hilarious. Hope these will make your journey of making your new home a lot of Fun than a terrible nightmare.