I was listening inattentively as the auctioneer announced the contents of the next auction (ephemera and documents). Then he mentioned that the cabinets in the furniture room would be sold today at 1 p.m.
Then I perked up. I hadn’t seen any cabinets when I walked along the perimeter of the furniture room on my arrival at the auction house. I had glanced at the furniture – which held little interest for me – but my eyes didn’t wander far beyond it.
As the auction got underway, I went looking for the cabinets. This auction house occasionally sells household items – single sinks, light fixtures, etc – but cabinets were a consignment I hadn’t seen before. As I walked past the furniture, the cabinets smacked me in the face.
There were boxes and boxes of them – all new kitchen and bathroom cabinets, about 50 of them. And the auctioneer said that he had even more to sell.
This assembly of cabinets was like a contractor’s or handyman’s dream. The shipping label on one box identified the cabinet as Armstrong Allwood, which I learned in my research was one of its top-tier custom built brands. The cabinets had been delivered to a local kitchen-design company whose name and address was on the shipping label.
I can only assume that these were an over-supply or were products that the company wasn’t able to unload. I found the company’s website and there was no indication that it had gone out of business – which is sometimes the case when large quantities of merchandise are auctioned. Armstrong cabinets are sold through independent companies like this one.
An imprint on the boxes showed that the cabinets were ANSI/KCMA certified, which meant, according to my research, that they met the standards of the Kitchen Cabinet Manufacturers Association, the industry’s trade and advocacy organization. A buyer should apparently look for that marking or ask about the certification when buying cabinets.
When I think of Armstrong, I think of flooring, not cabinets. The company actually sold its cabinet business last year to return its focus to floorings and ceilings, which had been the core of its business since its founding in 1860. It got into the cabinet business in 1998 through an acquisition.
The Allwood cabinets were made of both hardwood and plywood, according to Armstrong and several other retailer websites. As one article noted: “The top-tier Allwood Series features an all-plywood box construction, hardwood plywood sides and bottom panels, six-way adjustable concealed hinges and wood dovetail drawers.”
What’s hardwood plywood? Here’s an answer from a North Carolina company that makes it:
“A panel composed of an assembly of layers or plies of veneer or veneers in combination with lumber core, particleboard core, MDF core, hardboard core, or of a special core material joined with an adhesive. Except for special constructions, the grain of alternate plies is at right angles and the face veneer is a hardwood species.”
Makers of the product even have their own club – the Hardwood Plywood & Veneer Association.
I found a site on the web selling Allwood cabinets that were very similar to the ones at auction, with the names of Hampton, Caruth and Coronet. I could find no price for the Armstrong cabinets online, but on eBay, I found many other cabinets for sell in the thousands of dollars but very few were sold. If you’re going to buy kitchen cabinets, I supposed you’d want to see them and examine them first.
I was not around when the cabinets sold at auction, but I’m sure they went for a lot less than you’d pay at the kitchen design store that consigned them. For most folks, I’d think that kitchen cabinets – no matter how little the price – would be a hard-sell. You’d have to be pretty lucky to walk into an auction house at the same time you needed new cabinets for a kitchen remodel.
I suppose you could buy them and store them in the garage until you got ready to redo the kitchen. Next to the stuff for the hundred other projects that you’ll someday get to.
