Love Your Kitchen Part 1

Love Your Kitchen Episode 1

Nathan Pfahler:

Hello and welcome to our next episode of Love Your Indie Home. Today we are meeting with Curt Wible of the Kitchen Right. In fact, we are in his Carmel showroom. Curt, thanks for having us. We appreciate it. It's nice to see you.

Curt Wible:

It's my pleasure, Nathan.

Nathan Pfahler:

Thank you. Curt, how long have you been in the kitchen business?

Curt Wible:

Oh, we've been in the kitchen business since 2001, is when we opened up.

Nathan Pfahler:

Okay. Awesome.

Curt Wible:

We've been doing it for, what, 13 years now.

Nathan Pfahler:

Okay, great. I'd say you have a pretty good feel for what people are wanting in their kitchen remodels and new kitchen scenarios.

Curt Wible:

We do. Yes, although it does change over time.

Nathan Pfahler:

Yes, yes. Well, a lot of what we're talking about in these segments is how you can love your home more. If you've currently got a kitchen that's just fine, but maybe you're tired of the way the drawers roll or there's some more functionality you want to your kitchen. What are some of those things that a homeowner could add that's not outrageously expensive?

Curt Wible:

Right. There are a variety of things that you can add to an existing kitchen really without changing the footprint, without doing hard things. Examples are our tray dividers, so everybody has cookie trays. Everybody has them falling all over in their cabinets.

Nathan Pfahler:

Sure. Yeah.

Curt Wible:

There are ways to put tray dividers in place to get more organization for those.

Nathan Pfahler:

Okay.

Curt Wible:

The second one that we do a lot of is hiding your wastebasket.

Nathan Pfahler:

Yes.

Curt Wible:

A lot of people have the wastebasket sitting at the end of their cabinets, at the end of an island. There are pullouts that you can do. You can do it in a way that has two waste baskets, so we actually have one for trash and you have one for the recycles.

Nathan Pfahler:

Oh, that'd be great.

Curt Wible:

To help being green and all of those sorts of things. There are cutlery dividers.

Nathan Pfahler:

Okay.

Curt Wible:

Everybody has that drawer with spatulas, and knives scattered. You can bring some order to that chaos. Then there's rollouts.

Nathan Pfahler:

Okay.

Curt Wible:

We all have the cabinets where you have to reach in the back and try to find something.

Nathan Pfahler:

Yes.

Curt Wible:

There are rollout trays that you can use to put into an existing cabinet and pull it out, make things much more accessible. Those are some very easy things to do without ripping up your kitchen or causing any problem. They're very easy on your budget.

Nathan Pfahler:

I love the kitchen rollout idea because I know when I'm getting into some of my lower cabinets, the upper shelf is way back, too, so you lose some of your storage space.

Curt Wible:

That's correct.

Nathan Pfahler:

Those rollouts are sturdy enough that you could have pots and pans sitting on those as you're [crosstalk 00:02:15].

Curt Wible:

Absolutely. Typically, they will hold 75 pounds.

Nathan Pfahler:

Oh, wow. I could probably put both of my kids on there.

Curt Wible:

That's correct. Yeah.

Nathan Pfahler:

May not want to try that at home. What are some of the latest trends you're seeing as far as countertops are concerned?

Curt Wible:

Countertops, what we're seeing a lot of interest in quartz.

Nathan Pfahler:

Okay.

Curt Wible:

Quartz is very similar to granite.

Nathan Pfahler:

Okay.

Curt Wible:

The way I think about it is it's a manmade granite.

Nathan Pfahler:

Okay.

Curt Wible:

The biggest difference versus granite is it never needs sealed.

Nathan Pfahler:

Okay.

Curt Wible:

Granite you tend to need to seal depending on who you talk to every year, every five years, something. It's not hard to seal it.

Nathan Pfahler:

Right.

Curt Wible:

Quartz does not require that, so that is what people are doing. One of the things that the quartz manufacturers are doing is they're coming out with a number of new colors, really to try to mimic some of the natural movement that is in granite.

Nathan Pfahler:

Okay.

Curt Wible:

It looks like a more natural product. The other one that they have come out with is really like a Carrara marble.

Nathan Pfahler:

Oh, beautiful.

Curt Wible:

One of the challenges with putting Carrara marble in your kitchen is how easy it stains.

Nathan Pfahler:

Yeah.

Curt Wible:

When you do the quartz, you can get that same look, but you're not going to have the staining issue.

Nathan Pfahler:

Okay. Do you by chance have some samples of that quartz?

Curt Wible:

We do. We have a number of samples of Cambria, of silestone. Some are bigger samples, some are little samples. The other thing to help people visualize these ones with movement, there are slab galleries.

Nathan Pfahler:

Oh. Okay.

Curt Wible:

You can go look at a big five foot by 10 foot piece to really understand what it's going to look like.

Nathan Pfahler:

Okay, because I do know, as you had touched on, what a lot of people like about granite is that it's not uniform.

Curt Wible:

Correct.

Nathan Pfahler:

That was something that was a little hard for the quartz manufacturers to replicate because there was more uniform however they make [crosstalk 00:03:52].

Curt Wible:

Correct. Now, the flip side of that is there may be people who like the consistency that you're not going to get in granted.

Nathan Pfahler:

Uniform, yeah.

Curt Wible:

Quartz gives a nice option and some of the other colors where it's going to be a very consistent pattern going on.

Nathan Pfahler:

Okay.