I’ve learned on this project (even moreso than all the house + condo renovations we’ve done in the past) that finding simple, modern things to put into a new home is amazingly difficult.

Finding large format, matte, white tile for the house was crazy to locate even a few that could work!

The cabinets however have proven to be another challenge I didn’t expect. To find something modern, sleek, European style — they are all thermofoil or laminate. Lots of research has gone into us understanding what that means and if that’s something we want + will do OK in Florida, next to the ocean.

From day one, this kind of look was the inspiration for the house. White Quartz. Mix of Glossy White + High Contrast Wood Cabinets. White Large Format Tile.

Now to find this look its either crazy expensive….or seems to be crazy cheap. All wood would be awesome, except to track down the Zebrawood or Macassar Ebony that we LOVE, well that’s not super reasonable and fitting in the budget either.

A few places have them, but its still pretty spendy. So the hunt continues for the perfect cabinets that have that right look + the right price!

Saturday I met with a cabinet company in Daytona who sells Wellborn Cabinets. They do an all wood box ? + they have a new (1 year old) line called Aspire that offers frameless, European style cabinets. They are laminate (no Thermofoil), so we think that’s probably the right choice, but who knows.

With words like “Aspire” and “Luxe” — super budget friendly doesn’t seem in the cards. The cabinet guy promises me the pricing is mid-tier and not going to make me cry when I see the estimate. We’ll see! In the meantime, I’m just waiting on the samples of the doors we like to come in, so we can get a good real-life look at them vs. a catalog. ???

They also offer some super cool textured laminates that look like wood with a bit of a bumpy texture to them and they are super neat too. Hoping he will order some samples of those too!