NKBA’s free webinar series looks at cabinetry and remodeling in July.
By Dianne M. Pogoda
Cabinetry is often the most striking and expensive part of a kitchen remodel, and sets the tone for the style of the kitchen. Cabinets must be beautiful, functional and stand up to everyday use, so it’s no surprise that designers and remodelers pour a lot of effort into selecting and installing the right products for their clients. And all of this is connected to large-scale remodeling and how it’s changing to meet today’s evolving lifestyles.
July’s webinar series is devoted to cabinetry and remodeling, and generously sponsored by Hettich, the Kirchlengern, Germany-based maker of fittings like drawer-box systems, slides, hinges, sliding and folding door systems and other intelligent technology for cabinetry and furniture. Each month, NKBA offers free 60-minute webinars, each of which features a presentation by an expert in the specific subject matter, delivered via a virtual platform. The sessions offer certified participants 0.1 CEU per event — it’s an easy way for designers to collect the CEUs needed to maintain NKBA certification. Participants must engage in 80 percent of the live sessions to receive CEU credit; registration closes two hours prior to start times. All webinars begin at 12 noon, Eastern Time. To register, click here, and select “Learn more.”
Starting things off on July 8, learn about “Large-Scale Functionality in Small-Scale Environments: Supportive Home Design for a Centered Lifestyle” with David Shove-Brown, principal and co-founder of Washington D.C.-based architecture and interiors firm //3877.
This seminar will explore what wellness means in 2021, how it has changed, and the importance of maximizing one’s living space through strategic interior design and space planning.
The pandemic has changed people’s priorities and altered their lifestyles and the way they take care of themselves and their families. Shove-Brown says it shown a light on the toll that an unbalanced work/life routine can have on mental health, and given new perspective home spending, home improvement and the importance of creating a supportive, thoughtful home environment and the value of luxury touchpoints.
He will walk viewers through top considerations when starting a renovation, explore upgraded solutions to support new lifestyles and life concerns, and how wellness fits in.
To register for this session, click here.
Next, on July 15, Richard Landon, CMKBD, owner of his namesake design firm, discusses “Breaking Free from Boxy Fetters.” Landon says kitchen design is often constrained by the usual approaches to layout and standard cabinetry for far too long. This webinar explores how to break away from the restraints of what designer and client are accustomed to seeing and consider as indisputably good design. He’ll illustrate what the latest in brain research reveals about how the typical kitchen harms us in covert ways; Explore some simple changes to make to cabinet configurations to better fit today’s lifestyles and how to work with vendors who will customize cabinets. (Hint: CAD/CAM makes it easy.) He’ll encourage designers to unleash more inspiration, functionality and aesthetic options in their projects. Finally, he’ll examine some caveats in breaking free of restrictive cabinet “standards” and offer tips to reassure clients that everything will work out fine.
To register for this session, click here.
Join Keith Troska, a business development manager for Loox Illumination, and Jeff Ratkus, senior development engineer, lighting solutions, for Häfele America Co., on July 21 for “Multi-White Illumination — It’s the Latest Expectation.” Illumination has been available in cabinets for years, from fluorescent, halogen and incandescent, to the newest and most versatile LED solutions. The market is shifting once more, as it fine-tunes LED offerings with the addition of Multi-White or “Tunable Kelvin,” which is becoming the standard for kitchen cabinets.
Troska and Ratkus will discuss what Multi-White illumination is and why the market is moving in that direction, provide details on its advantages, and explore whether designers should consider this lighting for upcoming projects. They’ll also discuss potential health and well-being benefits of using Multi-White, and the transformational nature of the system.
To register for this session, click here.
Finally, on July 28, Karen Smith, brand communication coordinator at Blum Inc., talks to designers and remodelers about “Thinking Inside the Box.” Since the pandemic has inspired so much remodeling, this webinar will look within the actual cabinets to discover how interior hardware makes them function more efficiently and helps them last longer. Smith will discuss how functional hardware enhances design, she’ll illustrate planning layouts for flexibility for Living in Place projects, and explore the personalization capabilities of cabinetry for each client.
To register for this session, click here.
