Galaxy Nickel Column Cabinets

The list looks like a single range and is not. Four of these are sized to the wall-cabinet grid — 30, 36, 39 and 42 inches, all with a 12-inch figure in the title — and they are the parts that flank an upper run or a hood surround. One is full height at 96 inches. One is a base, which is the plinth a full-height piece lands on. And one is a custom oversized part, which is the answer when the ceiling does not agree with any of the above.

What the list does not publish is the projection and face width on the 96-inch piece, the base and the custom part. The four short ones carry a 12-inch figure; the rest carry nothing. That is a dimension you need before you can decide whether the thing will clear a hood surround or a door casing, so ask for it — and ask what the base is dimensioned to accept, since a plinth that does not match the column it is under is a visible mistake at ankle height.

The first is the range wall. A chimney hood between two uppers is already a symmetrical composition wanting to be framed — it has a centre, a vertical axis, and it is the thing everybody looks at on the way in. A full-height column each side of the surround takes that from cabinets-with-a-hood to a built feature with edges, and it is the one position where the expense does something the cheaper parts cannot.

The second is terminating a tall run. A pantry or oven stack that stops in the middle of a wall presents a 24-inch-deep slab, and its outside corner is the biggest raw edge in the kitchen. A column there gives the stack a side rather than an end, and because it is deeper than any pilaster it resolves the depth rather than decorating it. This is also the position where it competes hardest with cheaper parts, which is the subject two sections down.

What columns are not for: the middle of a run, an island, a galley wall, or an eight-foot ceiling with 42-inch uppers already running to it. In that last case there is no wall left for the column to be seen against, and a full-height vertical squeezed between a run and a ceiling reads as a stripe rather than as architecture.

A column reads well when it terminates at both ends and badly when it does not. At the top it wants to die into crown, a soffit or the ceiling itself. At the bottom it wants a plinth — which is what GN CLM-BASE at $299.00 exists for, and why a full-height column is really a $923.00 decision rather than a $624.00 one. One that stops on a toe kick, or short of the ceiling with a raw top edge showing, looks cut off, and no moulding afterwards fixes the proportion.

The proportion is worth a moment. Ninety-six inches by roughly a foot of face is about eight to one — slender, classical, and why the full-height piece looks right on a tall run. The short ones are nearer three to one, which is not a column proportion at all; it is a pier, and it reads as heavy applied trim. Not an argument against them, but it does mean they belong tight against something — a hood surround, a run of uppers — rather than standing where they will be read on their own.

Ceiling height decides which family you are in. Under nine feet, with uppers to the ceiling, the short parts against the hood surround are usually the right scale and the full-height one has nowhere to be. Nine feet and above, with a soffit gap or a tall run ending in open wall, the 96-inch piece is what the wall is asking for. If the ceiling is somewhere the list does not reach, GN CUSTOM CLM-OS at $1,088.75 is the honest answer and it is priced like one. Ceiling and run heights are in the wall and tall cabinet guide.

Columns are bought in twos, so price them in twos and then put the number somewhere it can be judged.

The second row is the number to sit with. Eighteen hundred and forty-six dollars is more than half the price of the whole ten-by-ten package on this finish, which is $3,500.00 for seven wall cabinets, four bases, a dishwasher panel, two toe kicks and six finished ends. That is not an argument against columns — plenty of kitchens are worth architecture and this is how you buy it. It is an argument for deciding early, because a decorative line at that scale competes with real cabinets.

It also explains why the short parts exist. A pair of GN CLM-3612 flanking a hood surround is $481.00 and does a large share of the visual work, because the hood is at eye level and the top of a full-height column is not. If the range wall is the reason you want columns, start with the short pair and see whether the wall still wants more. What the rest of a kitchen costs is in how much Fabuwood cabinets cost.

For the tall-run position specifically, there is a clean ladder, and most kitchens should stop before the top of it.

• To finish an exposed side and nothing more, a tall end skin at $169.00. It is not a vertical element; it is a finished face, which is all a great many tall runs actually needed.
• For a vertical line at the edge of the run, a 96-inch overlay filler, GN OLF396, at $230.75 — faced like a door, standing proud, with a shadow on each side. The cheapest way to make the end of a tall run read as deliberate.
• For an ornamented vertical, a 96-inch tall pantry pilaster at $464.75 — $159.25 less than the column, and being flat-backed it takes less floor. It reads from the front and one side, which on a run against a wall is all anyone sees.

Buy the column when the element has to be read from more than one side, or when it is framing something rather than ending something. That is the whole test. Ending a run is a finishing problem and the cheap parts solve it; framing a wall is a composition problem, and the column is the only part here that solves it.

One colour note, and it is a real one rather than a restatement. Every other part in this group sits flat against a cabinet, so it is lit the way the cabinet is lit. A full-height column stands clear, which means it catches light on two or three faces at once — and the face turned toward a window will read appreciably lighter than the face turned away from it. On a white kitchen that spread is narrow. On a mid-tone it is wide enough that the same column can look like two different colours from opposite sides of the room.

That is not a defect — it is how the eye knows the thing is three-dimensional, and it is what gives a free-standing element its weight. But it does mean a column should be judged in the room rather than on a sample, ideally at the time of day the kitchen is most used. More on that in finding the right gray and the Fabuwood colour range.

Then the ordinary business. Confirm the projection and face width, confirm what the base accepts, order in pairs, and order with the cabinets — a full-height plane of colour is the least forgiving place in the kitchen for a batch difference. The rest of the trim is on the decorative accessories page, the tall boxes these frame are under tall cabinets, the upper runs under wall cabinets, and everything else on the collection page.