Galaxy Horizon Corner Base Cabinets

Fabuwood is plain about stains in its own spec book. The finishing process is complex, the wood takes it differently from piece to piece, and the book says the resulting variations in colour "are considered normal". The warranty goes one step further: replacement cabinets "may not match display samples and/or existing cabinets". Neither sentence is a warning about bad product. It is the nature of a finish that lets the grain through, and it is the reason stained kitchens are ordered as one batch wherever possible.

Across a straight run, a small step in tone between two orders is easy to live with, because something usually interrupts the eye: a range, a dishwasher, a window. The corner has no such break. The blind box’s door and drawer sit at ninety degrees to the first door on the return wall, the two faces a few inches apart, often lit from two different windows. A second-batch door there is compared with a first-batch door every time anyone looks into that corner, which in most kitchens is several times an hour.

So the rule we give anyone phasing a stained kitchen is simple to state: the corner, and everything with a finished face that touches it, goes on the first order. The rest of this page is the working-out.

A blind corner is never one line. Here is every part that can belong to one, sorted by whether it shows the stain. Prices are as displayed on the review date.

Three of those lines cost less than a takeaway dinner, and they are the three people most often leave off a phase-one order because the second wall "is not happening yet". The filler and the toe kick are the parts that physically join the two runs. Order them later and they are the only second-batch pieces in the kitchen, placed in the one spot where both batches are visible at once. Fillers and toe kick are under filler cabinets and toe kick; our guide to end panels, scribe molding and fillers explains what each one does at a corner.

The blind-base carriage is the corner purchase people most often want to defer, and it is the one that can be deferred without a colour question, because nothing on it is stained. It rides behind the door you already own. That makes it the natural "phase two" item for a corner: live with the plain box for a year, find out whether the buried end is a nuisance or simply the place the roasting pan lives, and decide then.

The condition is the box. The carriage is stocked for exactly two of the four sizes — GHZ BPO-BLB42/45 at $1,277.25 and GHZ BPO-BLB48/51 at $1,394.25, each in a left and a right version — so the option to add it later only exists if a 42/45 or a 48/51 is what went in. The smaller boxes, at $614.25 and $685.75, close the option for good. On a wall that can spare the width, the BLB42/45 at $767.00 is therefore $152.75 more than the BLB36/39 and buys two things: six more inches of box, and the right to change your mind about the carriage. The BLB48/51 is the same $767.00 again, which makes it the cheapest inch in the group if the wall is long enough.

Two cautions before relying on a later retrofit. First, the hand is fixed: a left carriage for a left box, a right for a right, so write the hand on the drawing now while everyone remembers which wall the blind end is under. Second, the listing does not say whether the carriage can be fitted into a box that is already installed and under a countertop; ask us to confirm that before planning around it. Sales here are final once ordered, per our return policy, so the cheapest version of "maybe later" is to size the box for the carriage and buy the carriage only when you know. How these carriages work is covered in beam-mounted and pull-out accessories.

If the whole kitchen cannot go on one order, the question is where the seam between the two orders should fall. Some places hide a small tonal step between batches and some put it under a spotlight. Our advice, which is general cabinet sense rather than anything Fabuwood publishes:

• Good: at a tall appliance or a tall cabinet. A refrigerator or a pantry stands between the two batches and stops the eye comparing them.
• Good: at the range. A slide-in range breaks the run completely, and the eye reads the cabinets on each side as two groups.
• Good: island against perimeter. An island ordered later is a separate object in the middle of the room, and Fabuwood itself shows this finish paired with Frost or Cobblestone as a two-tone, so an island in a different finish is a planned look rather than a mismatch.
• Poor: mid-run between two doors, where a second-batch door sits beside a first-batch door in the same plane and the same light.
• Worst: at the corner, for all the reasons above.

The corner therefore belongs to whichever phase has the most of the L in it, and it takes both legs’ filler and toe kick with it. If the second leg then comes a year later, its first cabinet meets the filler you already own, not a door from a different batch.

Buy the $35.00 door sample before the first order, and keep it afterwards in a drawer, not on a windowsill. When the second phase arrives, that sample and the installed corner are your two references, and you want to compare the new doors against both in the same light at the same time of day. This stain moves with the light more than most: one homeowner with this finish reports that it looks "cold or dull" on a cloudy day and "warm" on a sunny one, and a kitchen designer who sells it says it can read warm or cool depending on what surrounds it. Comparing a new door on the porch against the kitchen in your memory proves nothing. Stand it beside the installed door, in the kitchen, and look.

If a small difference turns up, it sits inside what Fabuwood calls normal for a stain, so the useful response is placement rather than a claim: put the new door where the eye meets it least, away from the corner. The sample guide has the full routine for judging a door at home, and the door samples page is where to order one.

Each box is 24″ deep and 34½″ high, one door over a drawer, with the blind end cut left or right at the factory. The second width in each code is how far the box can be drawn off the inside corner, with the filler covering the gap, so the reveal and the filler are decided together. Carcass-only versions sit under loose parts for a job that hangs its own doors, and the rest of the finish is on the Galaxy Horizon collection page.

If you are phasing, tell us when you ask for a free 3D design: a designer replies within one business day, and the full design and quote come back within 24 to 48 hours, split into phase one and phase two with the corner parts on the first list. Contractors running a phased job for a client can do the same through Captivating Pro, our one trade program. Or call (609) 900-3358 and read us the two wall lengths.