What I found out in doing my research is that there really isn't all that much eco-friendly about eco-friendly materials. We have a store that specializes in it, and I used some of their products, as well as some others of similar ilk, but they are limited in their friendly goodness.

The best way to achieve true eco-friendliness is to obtain materials locally and reuse as much as possible.

Beware of glass terrazzos for kitchen counters. Most of them have a concrete base, and they stain and etch like other concretes. A lot of people have had even worse problems with them. There are some recycled glass in resin. Those are equivalent to "quartz" in the way they're made, so check the environmental bona fides of the maker. Some are very good at controlling the process, though the resins themselves are toxic before they're set. Bioglass is fused recycled glass produced at high pressure. It's a fabulous material, but the carbon footprint is high.

I have zero VOC bamboo cabinet doors, but the sheets are made in China. I've been told that they're farmed rather than habitat destroying, but that comes on trust. I don't wheeze, and don't get headaches, around them so I can affirm that they don't have a lot of VOC's. The boxes are zero VOC plywood, factory finished, but they come from one state, are finished in a second, and constructed in a third, so they're well travelled. The finish on the bamboo was done here, with an ultra low VOC product that comes from elsewhere. The paint is European, but has an exceedingly good environmental rating, other than the shipping. My GC and his painter had used other green paints and were astounded by the Fine Paints of Europe paint, which has almost no smell, and no respiratory reaction at all.

My floors and countertops/backsplash are porcelain tile, which, even considering glazing, mortar and grout, is considered a green material because it's so enduring. The floor tiles were shipped cross country. The others from about 1000 miles away. The backsplash in the laundry room is local maker glass tile with 70% post consumer recycled content. If I'd found them sooner I might have used them in the kitchen. The island top is soapstone from Finland. Not a particularly green choice (except in color) but it's very practical. My eating bar and serving counter are made out of sunflower seed husk board. The husks would otherwise be so much compost, but they're suspended in resin, and shipped from somewhere or other.

The knobs and pulls are artisan made from lead-free pewter and recycled aluminum, and trimmed with recycled glass or natural shell. They're plated, however, and shipped 1000 miles. The rest of the visible hardware is brass, and likely produced in the old fashioned way, and comes from the same area. I don't know anything about the manufacture of the Blum hinges and brackets, but assume they're also standard production and shipped from afar. The cabinet glass is from a local shop, but I don't think it has any recycled content, and I assume it's manufactured elsewhere.

I also don't know where the electrics come from. By California law there's no choice but to have nominally green fixtures, though I have some qualms about some of the contents. And I'm not at all sure that in making less than half of the wattage incandescent I haven't just way upped the wattage to get enough of the right kind of light. I have a combination of fancy fluorescents that have gel sheaths to reduce the color temperature, low wattage halogens, LED undercabinets, and incandescents over the sink. LOTS of lights. Though I have a solar electric station on my roof which does ease the demand on the grid.

My sinks are cast iron, and shipped from the middle of the country. A couple of the faucets too. The one Italian faucet makes up for the shipping thing with its durability. It's supposed to outlast everything. I hope that's true.

Then there are the appliances. The whole point, for me, are the appliances. Five are from Germany (well, Europish, anyway, with manufacturing spread around and bits shipped here and there). Six are from the U.S. (plus my old laundry pair, which are staying, also U.S.). Lots of shipping there. All are high tech. Some are rated for having energy consumption statistics that comply with certain standards, but all of those are very easily manipulated and pretty meaningless.

I think that's just about everything in there. As you can see, a lot have some eco-friendly aspirations, but overall, I don't consider this a green remodel (though the demolition was--everything carefully removed and what could be reused was given to those who would use them, the rest disposed of class by class to keep as much as possible out of the waste stream).

Advice? Acquaint yourself with the materials available and decide how much you like them. A lot of products aimed at the "green" market are very expensive, and when you look too hard at them they're not all that green. So decide which of them you like, and what's worth what to you. And if the most practical thing for your purpose is a slab of stone, and you can't find one to reuse, or some similar dilemma, don't beat yourself up. Be a conscious consumer, and remember that often the less overtly green choice may last three times as long and be the better bet in the long run. Do what you can. And don't let a quest for perfection stress you or guild you into immobility.

Sorry.... That was don't let your eco-friendly aims guilt you into immobility. Bears repeating.

Good tips, plllog, thanks for sharing your experiences.

Then there are the appliances. A friend and I have griped about how appliances aren't built to last anymore. Yes, they are more energy efficient but the focus on energy efficiency has come at the cost of durability. Frankly, failure to take into account the materials used and the energy consumed to make appliances, not to mention the energy used to recycle it at the end of its too short life, is backward thinking. But it's hard to change forward momentum in a disposable society.

I often think of remodeling/renovating as something that just isn't eco-friendly - that eco-friendly renovation is kind of an oxymoron. In some (maybe many) cases we take something that is quite functional (though not esthetically pleasing) and tear it all out and throw it in a landfill and replace it with lovely, bright, shiny new things that took something not exactly eco-friendly to produce.

That said I've remodeled my kitchen like a lot of other people here. It does always kind of bother me though that I tore out something quite functional and threw it away. Tried to "recycle" much of it but during that time of vast prosperity everyone seemed to want their own bright, shiny new stuff - not someone else's used stuff. That may be different now.

Plllog, that is an awesome summary of your choices. I bow to you!

We are in the middle of a reno, including a new kitchen. We were forced into it by a fire, but it was something that needed to happen anyway. The greenest part of our decision post-fire was to keep the existing structure and renovate, instead of demolishing the building and putting up a new house.

We've been trying to keep recycling, local sourcing, etc. in mind, but we haven't made our material selections with that as the primary objective.

We had Habitat for Humanity come and take away all of our old appliances. They'll be back for building materials and light fixtures, etc., once our demo is complete. The tax benefits of this are really tremendous.

We are using marmoleum floors (I like a soft floor in the kitchen, didn't like bamboo or cork look for me). We are having our cabinets site built, but I don't think the lumber distributer is certified yet (although he's working on it - there is sustainably sourced maple out there, it just costs a $$$$$$). We'll use low VOC paint where possible, but I want a non-yellowing stain on the maple and so we'll be using an acrylic there, I think.

We'll select energy star appliances, too. And I want LEDs under the cabinets. We're putting in a tankless hot water system and PECs, but we'll also have a tanked system for the bedrooms because I don't want to feed teenage daughter showers with endless hot water, LOL.

We're reroofing with a radiant barrier, which will hopefully really improve things for the house. And new insulation, too. But that's beyond the scope of the kitchen forum!

I don't have any specific ideas on greenifying a remodel, but I think the "green" movement, while well-intentioned, is often no more than a feel-good idea. I've been in conversations with people looking to be "green" in building a 4,000 sf vacation home. Here's an idea -- make it smaller!

(stepping off soap box now. And pllog, I prefered "guild you into immobility." LOL)

i don't know where you live but there is a wonderful shop in gainesville florida owned by liberty phoenix (joaquin and river's sister) called INDIGO. there is a store blog and they seem very helpful as a source or info resource.

Here is a link that might be useful: my blog/not related so much to this post

I would say the "green" part of our remodel was keeping our existing kitchen cabinets and paneling and painting them.

Gibby, I don't know you if you have a Habitat for Humanity Re-Store near you, but they will take donations of old cabinets and other building materials like doors and sinks, plus furniture that's in good condition.

It really does depend how down and dirty you want to get.

The really truly most eco friendly thing you could do? Leave your kitchen intact, just swap out a couple of appliances, including getting the smallest, most efficient refrigerator you can live with, and donate the old one. Freshen it up a bit with paint, knobs etc. But that's probably not the advice you're looking for!

There is a waste stream associated with making any product. There is water and fuel and trash made producing it, and even in recycling it. So even if it's a nontoxic glue instead of a toxic one, there's still a lot of junk produced to make it, and then to make the cabinet.

As others have pointed out, grinding up a little glass in a resin (plastic) or concrete matrix is still putting a lot of toxic concrete or plastic waste out there. Always think of the big picture. Like that 4,000 sf house idrive pointed out. Putting a hybrid engine in an Escalade is just dumb. Scale everything down.

So what do you do?

Just think about the whole life cycle of the product not just the front end, don't buy all the hype, and do your own research but don't let it all get you down. Making some good choices is better than doing everything the standard way.

I used an unfitted approach that used some pieces of existing furniture I had, like tables instead of islands, an antique kitchen dresser instead of a hutch, a couple of free-standing cabinets with shelves instead of having cabinets build in that hold my food and pans. Some of these I bought second hand (cheap!) and a couple I had built by a local cabinetmaker to fit difficult spaces. These can be easily removed and moved to another spot or another house, and easily repainted.

There is a lot of good material in salvage yards. Cabinets, sinks, lighting, hardware.

I have also heard of people who have gotten materials, including slabs of bowling alley floor and old stone counters, that they have had rehoned and made into counters or island tops. The pieces are distinctive and the prices are usually great. At a good one, the people that work there can often refer you to people who can fix and restore things you buy there -- it's good for business.

So, some people just want to buy low VOC paint, or donate their old fridge. Some people are willing to go without any refrigerator at all. Where you fall within that range depends on you and is a personal decision nobody can judge you on. So there's definitely no how-to guide.

The details are probably attacked best one by one.

Whoops, forgot to mention what we did choose for our green kitchen!

countertops from Vetrazzo who are just across the Bay from us
(saw the thread on recycled glass countertops but hoping we will be okay since that is a different company)

FSC and low-VOC stained cabinets from DeWils who are in Portland, OR

Recycled glass tile for backsplash from Idaho

Cork floors from Georgia I believe

Mythic Paint mixed locally tho originally from Alabama

Now for the imports...

water saving conserving faucets from KWC
stainless steel sinks from Blanco
energy/water conserving DW from Bosch
Induction cooktop from Bosch
Oven/MW combo from Bosch
not rated as Energy star but compared to my previous appliances they are!!
Concorde Wall mount vent from FuturoFuturo

Recycled some of our old lights and are using Fluorescent fixtures for the rest that ended being made in China despite what we had been told

I am making our knobs and some of our backsplash tile from glass that uses recycled glass in their glass

It is encouraging to see other TKO GWers interested in greening their kitchen remodels! Of the few in the FKB, it is hard to tell exactly why some of them are green...

IDrive65... Love your name! I agree with you regarding the size issue. I can't tell you how many times my town has people coming into build their dream house of 4-8k square feet and say it should be approved at the Planning Commission because they are using green products!

BTW, I totally agree with the point that remodelling to start with isn't an eco-friendly choice. My kitchen was truly non-functional, and very poorly designed to begin with. Most of the appliances were at least half dead, and some of the cabinets were rotten. Even the windows were about done for (forgot to mention the windows--those were locally made, renewable/managed wood frames). So a total gut job was called for.

The next step in eco-friendliness is to do it once for all time. There are some people who rip out perfectly good kitchens just for a change of pace. That's not good for the world. My new kitchen will probably outlast the house. It will certainly last the rest of my life. The cabinets and hardware are top quality custom because I expect them to last forever. The tile and stone will last forever. The lightbulbs are supposed to last at least 10 years. In discussing how easy/hard it is to replace them in the fixtures, we agreed that by the time it's necessary, I may well be old enough not to want to bother, and to call out the electrician instead. :-) I can't imagine calling an electrician to change a little ol' fluorescent bulb, but I like the part where they last that long. And the electrician will be able to dispose of them properly...

Most everything I've read agrees with those who said that remodeling isn't eco-friendly, and that buying locally, reusing/recycling/donating, and looking for energy efficient appliances are really the only proven green strategies. I wish I could do better than that and still end up with a nice kitchen.

When I bought hardwood recently for the rest of our addition and bedrooms, I made sure I bought wood that was grown in sustainable forests certified by the FSC. Below is a blurb about FSC.

"The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is a nonprofit group that promotes environmentally responsible forestry practices. Companies can offer peace of mind to consumers by displaying the FSC's stamp of approval, which is awarded by third-party organizations that ensure certain stewardship standards have been met."

When I ordered our cabinets I made sure I got low VOC cabinets with plywood boxes . . . I never buy anything anymore with MDF because of the fumes and because of how the process of making MDF contaminates the environment.

We only buy no voc furniture these days. Our sofa and love seat are made from wool, cotton, natural rubber mixed with a mineral that makes it flame retardant, and wood certified by the FSC. And the company that we bought the sofa and love seat from offers to take them back when we are ready to get rid of them (many years down the road) and they recycle the materials. Our mattresses are made of natural latex, cotton and wool also. No springs (wireless signals supposedly latch onto the metals bed frames and springs and circulate around you all night). Couches and mattresses are notorious for being made with materials that are soaked in nasty chemicals to make them material flame retardant . . . but they off gas for YEARS a toxic soup that is very bad for you. This voc off gasing is implicated in SIDS. Makes sense to me.

Manufacturing upholstered furniture and mattresses sprayed/soaked with chemicals adds to the toxicity of our environment also during the manufacturing process and because this stuff all ends up in our landfills.

I did go with soapstone which I feel is a healthy choice for my family, however, I'm sure mining the soapstone and having it shipped from Brazil isn't very eco friendly and I do feel a bit guilty about the choice as I do about our choice for the floors, travertine. However, I agree at least the floors will be in forever and not a throw away choice, so that's good.

I've been more focused on choosing healthy materials with no off gasing, but haven't really been as focused as I should be on eco friendly I suppose. Remodeling is overwhelming as it is, finding healthy and eco friendly adds to the complexity of making all these choices.

I think it would be very rewarding and interesting to become an architect with an emphasis on green building (solar, geo thermal, masonry heaters, partially underground structures, alternative building products such as hay bales, etc. etc.)

Leave your kitchen intact, just swap out a couple of appliances, including getting the smallest, most efficient refrigerator you can live with, and donate the old one. Freshen it up a bit with paint, knobs etc.

I sorta did that and kept the counters and cabinetry, though it was as much to be frugal as to be eco friendly. No one would take my old refrigerator. Apparently there is an age limit on donation worthy appliances. Especially refrigerators. No one wants those old beasts. I kept the stove I'd gotten after I successfully murdered the Roper stove in 2000 (no one wanted that dead Roper either then obviously).

I used EK low VOC paint. Nice product and no paint smell. Also opted for bamboo (Dragonfly) and linoleum (Marmoleum) for the flooring.

Oh I guess I was lucky then to find a home for our 21 year old refrigerator. It is being used in the kitchen of the special ed department . . . the kids make cookies and birthday cakes as part of their home ec training and they needed a fridge.

I also use low/no voc paints. I refuse to use energy saver bulbs because I think that the mercury is a big problem and I want no part of it. As soon as the price comes down I'll be installing LED bulbs in our cans. One manufacturer makes an LED bulb that can be used in a standard can . . . and more are to follow.

the comments were too too funny...especially the 'feel good' implications. I work in schools and the things I hear from what I would think are educated teachers is unbelievable. Just be reasonable but dont fall victim to these claims that we will save the environment by purchasing this product or that product.Plus I now see kids who are more inflexible and stressed than ever before as their parents have transferred their worries and paranoia to them.. Some greedy businesses are tapping into our guilt that we are the criminals here hurting our environment and being hurt by the environment. for many environmentalist proponents THIS is their new religion, they seem obsessed....boy am I ever off on a tangent here..I just hate to see all these people buying into this stuff. We are becoming 'slaves' to our quests to purchase the right products & by thinking we are safer by being more energy efficient etc, when in actuality we are on the path to losing our personal freedoms:NO RELIGIOUS FREEDOM; NO RIGHT TO OWN YOUR OWN HOME, TO OWN YOUR OWN CHILDREN, TO RUN YOUR OWN BUSINESS OR TO HOLD YOUR OWN BELIEFS. It will mean the loss of the right to educate your child in the way you see fit, at the school you agree with. You will have no right to pass on your family's values or traditions (if they do not agree with the New Age ideas). You will not be allowed to carry arms to protect your family or country. Only the United Nation's "peace keeping forces" will have the right to arms and the nuclear bomb, but of course they are "trust worthy"? You might think this is paranoid on my part, but if you sit back and look at the whole picture, it is obvious that we are on this path to loss of freedoms...so I say save your incandescents and make decisions based on what is good for you and your family & BE RESPECTFUL of others and of course you should do your part to conserve and preserve but pace yourself a bit. This new world order theory isnt working in any country so how could it ever work in the US? No offense lol good news for me! I wont have to read all the screaming at me ABOUT THIS POST AS i PROBABLY WONT BE ABLE TO FIND IT AGAIN. Happy New Year.

Our cabinets are from a company called Glenwood and the boxes are low (no?) VOC. We chose natural cherry because it's from Maine, where we live. The cherry was shipped across the border to Canada for fabrication, though, but still the transportation path was a lot less than if we'd done big box or Ikea cabinets. In retrospect, local cherry and a local cabinetmaker would have been ideal, but at the time we did not think we could afford a local guy (turns they are not really that much more expensive around here). All finishes (on cabinetry and wall paint) are also low VOC. We also used local cherry for our island top, though we finished it with Waterlox which is decidedly not no-VOC!
We also installed a Solatube for natural daylighting.
Other than that, we ended up being a lot less "green" than we'd originally hoped. It was just to expensive, we found!! We're hoping that prices on recycled materials like for countertops will have come down more by the time we do our next renovation.

oopsie it's all about choices. As long as I'm able to still make choices I want to make informed choices that feel right for me and my family. The world may be going to hell in a hand basket, but until it does I choose not to breathe in any more toxic chemical in my own home. My home is my sanctuary from the crazy world. I may not be able to save the planet with my individual choices today, but I still choose to make choices that I feel are healthy. I really dislike the what's the use attitude that some people take on. You've heard it. What's the use in watching what I eat, everything causes cancer anyway. What's the use, the new world order is going to round us up and put us in concentration camps anyway? Right now we still have choices and I'm going to make good ones.

The most eco-friendly things we did were re-using everything that could be re-used. (Our old countertops became pantry shelves.) And aiming for less-trendy, more-durable designs and construction techniques so our new kitchen would still look good in 20 years.

Judydel, right on.

Oopsie, I started out agreeing with your post but lost you completely by the middle. Making informed choices for one isn't costing you world order! Incandescent light bulbs are being phased out - you take this to mean loss of choice and personal freedoms? 40 years ago, there were ONLY incandescent light bulbs but I don't think people were agitating on the street for more options! If we are on a path towards LEDs, look there are already the Phillips, Sylvanias, Crees, EarthTecs and Osrams of the world getting into the business. There will be more. You'll have your choices.

The same with other materials.

I guess I've never understood the counter-argument to someone shouting "Toxic scenario!", to be: "loss of choice", "bad for business", etc. You'd think that logic would dictate that someone who opposes the change would try to prove that in reality the status quo wasn't toxic or damaging or whatever. Defies common sense, IMO.

And idrive: I've been in conversations with people looking to be "green" in building a 4,000 sf vacation home. Here's an idea -- make it smaller!

Totally hear you! Sometimes it makes you wonder if people are hearing themselves speak. No?

I'd just echo what most people have said about re-using and donating what you don't use. Most of our kitchen has come from an architectural salvage place. You'd be surprised at what's available to reuse and might love it.

Good luck!

I told you I was about to rant there. Yes, sorry, I have just been in a bad mood lately about the direction some things are going and I took it out on anyone who dared read my 'rant' you are right. Forgive me all, but it felt kid of good to get it out somewhere...Happy New Year!

From radio wave mattress springs to world order lost in bamboo....gad this was a fun read :oP

I buy locally..from there on out I'm kind of out of the green loop (cuz well most often it's not green as Plllog points out so well). We gave our old kitchen to a dear friend for her mother in law appt. I suppose that was green of me...and I used antique lighting I restored myself with low VOC paint (umm cuz I don't like the smell of the other stuff).

I live in a 100 year old mcmansion...I don't suppose I have much chance to win a green award any time soon if anyone sees my fuel bill :oP

This type of subject always reminds me of a local restaurant here. They're very green, very local, very earthy...gad very trendy :P But the food is also very good. One page of their menu is dedicated to the efforts they make to purchase food within 100 miles of the restaurant cuz they're such wonderful greenies. It continues to share the evils of the oil industry and how the people working in the industry are out to destroy the world...but they're helping save us by making this great effort to purchase local produce and meat.

Lovely....but their wine list is 100 percent french imports DOH do you know that comes over on a boat sparky???? Did ya know that washington and oregon produce fabulous wines???? Sheesh the irony kills me every time I read the lecture! Green is great...just don't go overboard :) You might learn that the corn fed car you drive to work is more toxic than my volkswagon :(

Igloo, thanks for the kind words. You remind me of my mechanic who is very up on the science. He's a distance bicyclist in his off time. And he figures that his ordinary vehicle (not ultra low emission or ultra energy conserving or anything) has a lower carbon footprint taking him twenty miles than if he rides his bike. I don't know the accuracy of this, but it does make one think.

I was R'ingOTFL'ing about the French wines!! I'm particularly fond of Covey Run, and have had some very nice Washington wines.

If you're looking for local artisans, my tile maker and cabinet jeweler ("knob and puller" sounds naughty somehow), are both from your general area. I got a lot of great things from Vintage Hardware and Lighting near you too. They don't have green aspirations that I know of (though I suppose selling antiques is reusing) but they have a lot of both original and repro items that might suit.

Two no-brainers:
Avoid use of exotic woods. Except for bamboo-none are renewable and habitat destruction is widespread and essentially permanent. Check out link for true cost of exotic woods.

Minimize use of most lawn chemicals. Pesticides/herbicides have been linked to non-Hodgkins lymphoma (and liver lymphoma in dogs). Fertilizer runoff decreases water quality of streams, lakes, rivers, and bays to the point of causing fish kills.

Oopsie-If someone wants complete freedom of choice, they should be willing to pay for the real cost of their choice or move to their own planet. As long as they're on this one, their choices can cause a burden to others' health and finances. One person's use of chemicals can pollute someone else's well. One person's use of energy-slurping appliances means that oil/coal fueled power plants puts out that much more toxic fumes for downwind residents or that nuclear plant creates that much more nuclear waste. Which will have to be stored somewhere-but never in a proponent's back yard.

Here is a link that might be useful: Real cost of exotic woods

LOL Plllog :) I'd love to meet your knob and puller heh heh Do you only knock when the red light is on? :oP

I actually am greeted by name at Vintage Hardware heh heh The owner came out to meet me (they want to reproduce my ceiling medallions) last time I was in. He purchased another home we were looking at last year. They're not green :) But they're local and it's important to me to support the communities we live in whenever we can. I'm going to have him over as soon as I finish unpacking so he can go through the house. He has never been here and is dying to get a peek at the brass and the medallions and he's a wealth of period information which I really need.

Are you local? And who's your tile person? I'm not sure what we're doing about tile...we have several original fireplaces that need replacement pieces or have had some made but they're badly done. Someday we'll get around to fixing them as well (mind you the kitchen comes first because I'm tired of cooking on the back porch LOL).

Carbon footprints...those are always buzz words Dh gets a giggle out of. We were up on the slope in ANWAR and this dude was bragging about his carbon footprint being so much smaller than ours because he does not own a car. DH did some calculations for the dork overnight and came back to show him his real carbon footprint in comparison to someone who commutes 30 miles a day. His was way larger...see he wasn't counting the carbon footprint his FLIGHT TO WORK weekly cost :) DOH again...sometimes it's all about perception and being cool, not being green at all.

Avoiding exotic woods and not driving a Hummer to work are two easy and real green steps :) Ride sharing in your Hummer...not so much :P

Earthpal- how do you like your DeWil cabinets? I'm trying to do a low voc kitchen (for both health and eco friendly reasons). DeWils looks like a great option, but I'm having a hard time finding reviews of their cabinets after years of use. They're manufactured in southern Washington state, so they aren't far from me. Our old cabinets are literally decomposing press board, and then termites got to one of the few wood pieces, so we can't keep them.

Hey Katydid, DeWil's is a popular brand of Low-voc cabinets out here on the west coast. I'm having to do a cautionary review at this point. We thoroughly liked our kitchen cabinets which is what my earlier review referred to. We had a few cabinets that were damaged and we promptly addressed that back on that project.

DH and I are in the process of finishing up another remodel where we used the cabinets in our master and guest baths respectively. Overall, the cabinets are good but we had more problems with them this time around that to make a LSS, we are addressing to avoid wasting a lot of resources which the factory wanted to do to fix some problems. I'd say yes go ahead and use them. They're well constructed, stain work is excellent and I don't notice any problems with the kitchen cabinets tho it's been more than five years of being used by adults. ;)

I do recommend using a designer if possible to help make sure that everything fits design wise. I also recommend being very particular on your inspection of the cabinets once they arrive at your home in the process. This is where we fell down on the job as we had lots going on and didn't do that right away. If you are doing a colored stain as we did, take a look at all cabinet doors together to make sure they work together color wise. The other problem we ran into is underneath a drawer the joints between the side pieces and the front pieces stuck out ever so slightly. You might not notice it but your cabinet installer would as our guys spent lots of time working on the spacing of them to avoid the middle drawer catching on the bottom drawer when being used.

Good luck with your project!

Earthpal- thanks so much for the information about Dewils. We have a designer who works with Dewils and is good about making sure everything is right. A friend recommended him for that reason.

We'll look forward to getting the kitchen done!

Does anyone have a resource for non-toxic cabinets?

There is a showroom local to me (in Berkeley, CA) that specializes in "green" home improvement. They offer a couple lines of non-toxic cabinets, one of which can apparently be ordered online. You can probably track down a local vendor for the other.

http://www.ecohomeimprovement.com/