Cast Kitchen Hoods
16 May 2008
“No Limit Mold ‘Em (Five of Five)”
I started this series of articles by saying that the sky’s the limit when it comes to kitchen hood design, and I really believe that. Basically, all you have is a fan and light housed in a metal shroud of some sort and a large pipe to vent it to the outside. Because that pipe is so large, though, it effectively renders any wall cabinet it passes through useless as a storage unit. That being the way of it, I firmly believe the wiser course of action is to forego that particular cabinet and shroud the kitchen hood in something that enhances the kitchen, something dramatic. What? Anything. Absolutely anything.
Believe it or not, all of the kitchen hoods on this page are made of the same material, Glass Fiber Reinforced Gypsum. These particular items are manufactured by RWM-inc. (Round Window Mouldings Inc.), which is a company that operates out of Salt Lake City, Utah, but will ship their product to almost anywhere. RWM has come up with a concept with so many advantages that I hardly know where to begin.
Let’s begin with the composition of the product itself. It’s made of gypsum, which is a plaster that is often used in the manufacture of wallboard, so if left in its natural state, it would be much too soft to be of any use for this purpose. RWM has mixed the raw gypsum with cement and laminated it to layers of long strand, continuous glass fiber matting. The result is astonishingly strong, M72 on the Rockwell Hardness Scale. But even more astonishing than the strength of the finished product (and its comparative lightness when compared to stone products) is its safety (they claim it to be 100% fireproof) and versatility—that above all else, its versatility. It starts by looking like cheap plaster and ends by looking like anything you want it to.
This product has an almost limitless number of finish options, including limestone, metallic, marble, and alabaster. They can even stain and varnish it to make it look like wood. And the price may be the best part of all, as these can be had for $3000 to $6000.
I obviously have an ax to grind here, but I think cutting corners on a kitchen remodel is the worst thing a person can do. For some time now kitchens and entertainment centers have been designed for a population “on the move.” Statistics about multiple home purchases and people who remodel their kitchens every ten years are often bandied about and used to justify the deliberate production of cabinetry that will not last a decade. In truth, though, the most of us purchase one or two homes in a lifetime and commission a “dream kitchen” only once.
Nothing gives “wow” to a home quite as effectively as a well-designed kitchen, and no other aspect of the kitchen lends itself to so many truly awesome designs as the kitchen hood. You’re in the kitchen every day of your life. Why not make it a constant pleasure?
Joseph
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