Galaxy Horizon Square Post Cabinets

This page carries two parts. GH SP36, a 36-inch square post, is $425.75. GH SP3X3, a 3-by-3-inch square post, is $344.50. One title gives the height and not the section; the other gives the section and not the height. Ask us for the missing number on each before drawing either, because the post has to finish level with the underside of the counter and look right against the end panel beside it.

A third square part, the 36-inch square pilaster post GH SQP36 at $594.75, sits on the pilaster page because its title calls it a pilaster. It is the more detailed of the three, and it costs $169.00 more than SP36. If the post is standing at the threshold of a formal dining room, that detail may be worth it. If it is standing in a family room beside a sectional, the plainer post usually fits better.

Walk into an open-plan room and note what you see of the kitchen from the far side. It is rarely a door. It is the end of the island, the back of the peninsula, a corner. Those are the faces that carry the kitchen into the living space, and they are the ones people treat as leftovers, finishing them with whatever panel came in the box.

A post at that corner gives the island an edge you can read from twenty feet away. It stops the run from simply ending and makes it finish. That matters most where the kitchen shares a floor with rooms full of furniture, because furniture has legs and edges and the island without a post is the one object in view that has neither. On a peninsula the post sits at the free end; on an island, at one or both of the corners facing the other room. Which corners depends on sightlines, not symmetry: a post nobody sees from the living room is money spent on the cook’s side.

This is where the finish makes a difference you can see. On a painted island, a post is a smooth rectangle in the cabinet colour, and it reads as part of the cabinetry. On a stained island the grain carries up the post, as it would on the leg of a table, and the eye files it with the furniture across the room rather than with the doors behind it. Fabuwood itself describes this stain’s soft taupe tones and delicate woodgrain as suited to French country style, where a kitchen island is meant to look like a piece of furniture.

Detail behaves differently under a stain, too. In the grooves and steps of a profiled part, a stain can gather and read a shade darker than on the flat faces, which sharpens the detail; on a paint the same profile only shows as shadow. That is our general experience of stained trim rather than a Fabuwood statement, and it cuts both ways: one Houzz homeowner who looked at this stain for her island decided against it because she did not like what she saw as uneven tone. If the detailed square pilaster post is on your shortlist, look at a stained profiled part in person before choosing it.

That gives two practical rules. First, pick the post partly by the other room: next to a wood dining table or wood floors, the plainer post keeps the conversation between woods simple; in a room with turned or detailed furniture, the more detailed square pilaster post has something to answer. Second, check how the grain runs. The door stiles on this collection run vertically, and a post whose grain runs the same way reads as one continuous object; ask us to confirm how the posts are made if that matters to you, since the titles do not say.

Fabuwood’s own photographs of this stain show it with marble, black countertops, gold and copper accents, and with wood accents in farmhouse settings. The dining-side view is the place those choices meet. For putting the island, the floor and the counter into one palette, see matching cabinets, countertops, backsplash and flooring.

A post only looks good if the panel beside it holds up to the same view. The back and ends of an island are raw cabinet sides unless something covers them, and from a living room they are more visible than the doors. The parts that do it on this collection: a base end skin, GH SK BASE, at $62.40, which laminates a thin finished face onto the side of a box; and a base end panel, GH BEP, at $149.50, a thicker finished panel that stands on its own. The difference and where each belongs are covered in cabinet skin panels and gables.

Two things are specific to a stain here. The first is that the post, the skins and the doors are separate stained parts, and Fabuwood notes that variation between stained parts is normal. Before they go on, stand the post against the panel it will sit beside and check them in the light the living room actually gets. The second is wear. The far side of an island is where stools are pushed in and feet rest, and on a stain a scuff shows as lighter wood rather than as a chip of colour. Fabuwood does not sell spray cans for its stains; the fix is a touch-up marker or fill stick, so it is worth leaving the stool footrests a few inches clear of the post.

Posts are measured against the counter above them, but in an open plan the clearance that matters is the one to the nearest furniture. A dining chair pushed back from a table needs room to move, and the corner of an island with a 3-inch square post on it is harder to brush past than a flush panel. Keep the walkway between the post and the nearest chair or sofa arm to the same widths you would use between the island and a run of cabinets. The island clearance guide gives those widths, and the kitchen dimensions guide covers counter heights and overhangs.

1. Decide which island corners are seen from the other room and put posts only there.
2. Ask us for the section of SP36 and the height of SP3X3, and check each against the counter.
3. Add the end skins or end panels the far side needs, on the same order as the posts.
4. On delivery, stand each post against its panel in daylight before fixing it.
5. Keep footrests and stool bases clear of the post.

The island cabinets themselves are on the base cabinets page, and every trim part for the collection is on the decorative accessories page. If the island has to look right from two rooms at once, send us the plan through the free 3D design service and ask for a view from the living-room side as well as the kitchen.