Under your sink, leaky pipes will send drops and glops splashing to the floor, decreasing your Oops! Bar. Liquid from leaky bottles of soap, bleach, and household cleaners can also damage your cabinets and floors. Luckily, the CoreGuard cabinet channels harmful liquids into its grooves until you can catch them with your bucket. The grooves of the CoreGuard Base Cabinet slowly fill up, and then let loose with a “GLOP!” Catch drips and glops in your bucket to score points.  When your bucket is full, you’ll advance to the next level.

When your Oops! Bar is empty, your game ends, and you’ll have a chance to enter your score. A global leaderboard tracks the top 10 scores from around the world, while a local high score list lets you see your personal best score. You can even post your score to your Facebook wall and challenge your friends to beat you!

Ready to get your game on? Stop the GLOP! is accessible via Merillat’s Facebook fan page or on the Merillat website, and can also be downloaded as an application on your iPhone or iPad. Click to play or download the game now, and show those glops who’s boss!

CoreGuard Sink Base

If you haven’t seen our recent blog post on CoreGuard, you may be wondering what exactly it is. The CoreGuard Sink Base is made of a durable material that makes cleaning easier and protects your kitchen investment from bumps and knocks to drips, spills and glops for years to come. Features include:

1. Resists damage – Engineered polymer sides, back and floor resist damage caused by spilled liquids and stains.
2. Protective lip – Overlaps the bottom rail.
3. Easier cleaning – Simple and efficient clean up of under-sink leaks and spills.
4. Keeps things dry – Raised ribs on the cabinet floor help keep stored items dry.
5. Easy access – Wood front butt doors for easier access to cabinet interior. Also available with utility tray option.
6. Faster detection of spills – Floor is slightly inclined to direct flow to front of cabinet for easier detection.
7. Helps protect your kitchen investment.
8. Available exclusively with Merillat Classic® cabinets.

Want to learn more about CoreGuard? Check out our video for more information and to see it in action!

Merillat Classic Spring Valley in Oak Cider

As the hub of the home, the emphasis on design style in today’s kitchen is greater than ever before.  With so much of our time spent in the kitchen, it’s only natural that we’ve begun to gravitate toward cabinetry that looks like furniture, and appliances that are integrated into their surroundings or make a bold design statement of their own.

For those who can afford them, high-style, high-end appliances lend a wonderful aesthetic all their own to the kitchen. From professional six-burner gas stoves to glass-front refrigerators with architectural curves to retro-modern appliances in an array of crazy colors, there are a lot of great options from which to choose.

Integrated appliances are also an option for those who want a more customized look. An integrated appliance is one that has been custom built to fit your space instead of the more conventional method of building your kitchen to accommodate standard dimension appliances. But, this kind of customization doesn’t come cheap – not only is the appliance itself expensive, but maintenance and upkeep are also costly propositions.

Rest assured there are smaller scale and less costly design solutions available.  Several creative solutions for disguising or hiding away your conventional and small appliances are described below.

Merillat Masterpiece Wall Tambour Storage

Appliance Panel Kits

Camouflage paneling that matches your cabinetry is a great way to personalize appliances whose finishes don’t match your taste, or don’t match each other. It also creates a uniform look for your kitchen, creating continuous stretches of attractive surfaces and finishes around the room.

In this photo from the Merillat Classic Spring Valley collection, you can see how paneling helps the dishwasher fit right in with the room’s design. With matching wood species and finish, the paneling creates a consistent, continuous flow around the room. Ask your designer how to best incorporate appliance panel kits into your kitchen design.

Solutions for Small Appliances

When it comes to your smaller appliances, there are a number of ways in which you can keep them out of sight and help reduce clutter. For example, you can tuck a toaster in an appliance garage or a tambour cabinet with a roll-down door, keep a mixer on a shelf that lifts up and into the open when you need it, and keep a microwave on a sturdy, dedicated, integrated shelf. You can also use curtains, screens and other decorative devices to keep smaller items out of sight.  Explore Merillat’s extensive offering of small appliance and other space-saving accessories.

Quick Fixes

Don’t have the time or budget for changes to your appliances or cabinetry? Some simple yet innovative updates can help lend a unique, customized look to your appliances. For example you might elect to paint your appliances a color that complements the rest of your kitchen decor, or swap out standard hardware for custom hardware that better matches other elements in the room. Hardware can also be removed and painted to match other hardware finishes.

We hope you have been inspired by some of these quick ideas on how to create a more integrated kitchen look.  Do you have additional ideas on interesting ways of disguising kitchen appliances? Please share them with us!

Merillat Classic Avenue Maple Chiffon

In April, Merillat debuted an amazing 100,000 new items in its Classic^® product line, the biggest expansion ever for this cabinetry collection.  This launch brings some exciting new styles, colors, storage solutions and organizational accessories for you to choose from.

To see firsthand some of these new options, watch our New Products Video.

New Finishes

Our new creamy white Chiffon finish is available on our maple cabinetry.  You can add depth to Chiffon’s warm look with our new glazes. The Desert glaze adds a brown undertone, while Tuscan contributes a hint of light gray.

The new Amaretto finish brings a warm, natural brownish glow to the naturally refined grain of our cherry cabinetry. Adding the new Java glaze to the Amaretto finish creates a deep, dark brown.

Merillat Classic Tolani Cherry Amaretto

Merillat Classic Tolani Butt Door

New Door Style

For versatility, it’s hard to beat the new Tolani door style. With the right finishes, decorative hardware and accents, this recessed-panel door looks right at home with a wide range of décor from traditional to contemporary. “Its beauty lies in its simplicity, with straight lines and right angles,” said Paul Radoy, manager of design services for Merillat. “It’s the perfect option for homeowners who want a clean, understated look.”

Product Enhancements

Along with these new styles and colors, this product launch includes practical solutions to everyday needs. Our new butt cabinet doors have no central divider, letting you put wider items inside. Bookcases now come in a wider variety of widths, depths and heights. New starter molding and tapered legs add distinctive character to a kitchen without the expense of customization. And pegged deep drawer organizers keep pots and pans under control when you open or close the drawer.

With a vast array of options to choose from, putting together the Merillat kitchen of your dreams has never been easier! And now you have 100,000 more reasons to give Merillat Classic a closer look.

Merillat Classic Avenue in Maple Chiffon

Attendees of the K∙BIS Kitchen & Bath Industry Show in Chicago April 16-18 aren’t going to want to miss the new innovations, functionality and exciting new looks we have on display. Here are just some of the Merillat product introductions and events taking place at K∙BIS:

Cooking Demonstration with Celebrity Chef Curtis Stone
Celebrity Chef Curtis Stone is cooking LIVE today, April 16, from 12:00 noon to 4:00 p.m. in Merillat’s booth #S1217. Curtis will put our kitchen to the test, demonstrating how important a well-designed, functional space really is. In between demos, he’ll be signing autographs and taking photos, so be sure to stop by if you’re at the show!

Over 100,000 New Merillat Classic® SKUs
Get a sneak peek of some of the great new products and product enhancements that will be available on April 27, including our new Chiffon and Amaretto finishes, new Desert, Tuscan and Java glazes, the new Merillat Classic® Tolani door style, decorative accents and lots of storage solutions.

Revolutionary New CoreGuard^™ Sink Base Cabinet on Display
We’ll also be showing off our exclusive new CoreGuard™ water resistant sink base that re-thinks base cabinet construction by specifically addressing issues such as spills and plumbing leaks. Available this fall, CoreGuard makes detection and cleaning of leaks and spills a breeze.

Corner Storage Made Easier with CornerStore^™ Cabinet
Check out cool new storage options like the CornerStore^™, our prototype corner access cabinet. Available December 2010, this product brings more storage and easy accessibility to that notoriously tight corner cabinet area and provides a high capacity alternative to the traditional Lazy Susan.

Plan Your Space with Our Virtual Selection Center
Envision your kitchen before you build with our new interactive planning tool, the Virtual Selection Center, which we’ll be unveiling at the show.

If you’re at the show, come by booth #S1217 and say hello as you browse our latest trends, styles and designs!

Now comes the hardest part of all. Waiting while it happens!

Tearing out the old kitchen and installing a new one can disrupt your home for weeks or even months, depending on the extent of the work, and the people and products involved.

Kimberly and Josh Osburn had a slight advantage in their project. As the winners of Today’s Dream Kitchen Sweepstakes, their kitchen remodel would be featured on Today’s Homeowner with Danny Lipford.  Suffice it to say, knowing lots of cameras and producers would be around has a way of helping to keep everyone on schedule!

But even the smoothest projects can be seem frustratingly slow when it feels like your home has been turned inside out. So it’s important to work with strong partners (like KSI, the Merillat dealer overseeing the Osburn kitchen project) and to go into the process with realistic expectations. Here are some tips to help make the waiting game smoother and more enjoyable.

Ask about lead times upfront.
A new kitchen isn’t a single purchase. It’s an entire process, involving numerous manufacturers, retailers, inspectors and tradespeople. Some products have longer lead times than others—like cabinets. Ask about lead times when you order. Some cabinet manufacturers may require 4-6 weeks for delivery. However, Merillat’s Kitchen-At-A-Time process allows each kitchen featuring Merillat Classic or Essentials cabinetry to be built to order in just 5-6 days.

Be prepared to be flexible.
Plan ahead for how you’ll handle daily kitchen activities from your morning coffee to making meals. Decide which daily essentials you’ll want close at hand, and pack the rest away. (But label the boxes clearly, just in case!) Since eating out can really eat into your budget, find a temporary location for your refrigerator and microwave that lets you manage some meals at home. Stock up on paper goods if you won’t have easy access to a sink.

Expect the unexpected.
Especially in older homes, the tear out process can reveal unanticipated issues that result in delays or other adjustments. If challenges arise, take comfort in the fact that your crew is making sure the job is done right.

Pay it forward.
Before your old cabinets or appliances are destroyed or discarded, ask around. Many charities are able to put them to good use! Other components and materials may be able to be reused or recycled. The Osburns donated their old cabinets to a local chapter of Habitat for Humanity and recycled the glass block removed from the bar. You could make a difference that goes well beyond your own four walls!

Enjoy the ride!
Remember, construction is temporary. So approach it with a sense of adventure. Take pictures. Start a journal or a blog. Documenting the process can help you appreciate progress along the way, and provide a keepsake to look back on—as you enjoy your fabulous new kitchen!