Custom Kitchen Design & Manufacturing

A kitchen has three main parts

To choose well, you first need to understand what a kitchen is made of:

• The internal carcass
• The hinges, drawer runners and accessories
• The external doors

Each part has many important details. The most important are below.

1. The internal carcass

It must be made of high-quality plywood (counter), with as few voids inside as possible.

We prefer the best-known types: Mega Wood, El Sharkawy, Good Wood and First Wood, and Woodify's own types, pressed with the latest pressing methods.

To protect the plywood sheet from outside factors, it is pressed on both sides with HPL (Formica), which stops water and chemicals from reaching the wood.

The type of HPL changes both the price and the quality. The best and most expensive types are Indian and Turkish.

Edge banding

Edge banding affects the life of the kitchen and its finish, and it matters as much as the quality of the other materials. It is what differs from one factory to another.

We use edge banding from the Woodify factory, with the best edge-banding quality in the Egyptian market.

This step is what seals the wood completely from outside factors after cutting.

What we refuse

Some companies and factories use chipboard or MDF for the internal carcass to cut the cost. We refuse that completely for work that is meant to last: it does not affect the finish, but it does affect how long the kitchen lasts.

2. Hinges, drawer runners and internal accessories

Today 99% of hinges and runners are soft-close, so that is not a point to negotiate on, and it is not the measure of quality.

The Egyptian market has a great many Chinese brands and very few European ones. Some Chinese products are good, but the gap between European and Chinese hardware is very large.

So we do not recommend Chinese hinges and runners of any kind. Chinese accessories such as the Magic Corner and the Pull Out are acceptable.

The best brands available in the Egyptian market:

• Blum (Austria), at the top
• Hettich (Germany)
• Häfele (Germany)
• Samet (Turkey)
• Danco (Italy)

3. The external doors

For the customer this is the most important part, because kitchens in the Egyptian market are named after the outer material and every other detail is ignored, although the doors are only 25% of the cost of the kitchen.

No single material is the best in every case. The choice depends on the design and the colours.

Doors made from MDF (the middle range)

The best known: Polylac, UV Lac, PVC, PET and HPL.

For glossy colours, from the lowest cost to the highest: PVC, then PET, then UV Lac. The best of all is Polylac.

For wood colours or plain matt colours, HPL is the best of all, and the best HPL is Indian and Turkish.

Doors made from plywood (the high range)

The best-known types: Polyback, made by Good Wood, PET and HPL.

For glossy colours we choose Polyback first, then PET. For matt or wood colours we go for HPL.

Edge banding matters here again: it protects the door from water, steam and grease, and it ensures the quality of the final look and a long life.

Why we build the whole kitchen from plywood, not MDF

MDF is not recommended for the carcass, but it can be used for the doors. We still prefer plywood for the whole kitchen, doors included, for two main reasons that affect its life, its finish and its use:

• Water. MDF is far more likely than plywood to be damaged by water if it reaches it, and it swells. Plywood resists water much better.
• Hinges. The screw that holds the hinge grips weakly in MDF. Customers with MDF doors have repeated problems: the hinge and screws come loose, the door tilts and can fall, and it needs regular maintenance.

From our experience with customers: the first maintenance for a plywood kitchen comes after five years, and for an MDF kitchen after one to two years. By the time a plywood kitchen has its first maintenance, the MDF kitchen has reached the end of its life or needs maintenance on more than half of it. That is not misuse. It is the nature of the material from the start.

The most important thing is to know what you are paying for: do you want the kitchen to stay with you for a long time, or will you use it for two or three years and then move? That tells you which material is best for you. Keep in mind that a plywood kitchen costs about 40% more than an MDF one.