Houston Livestyles and Homes

Many boomers grew up with kitchens that were little more than utilitarian facilities for cooking and a quick breakfast, but that was before the walls were ripped down and the open concept arrived. Now kitchens, especially in larger houses, have also become extravagant centers for entertainment: the lusher the cabinetry and electronics the better.

Whether your preference runs to classicism or an aged country look, fabulous cabinetry is an essential ingredient and is often perceived as a statement about taste, class and financial success.

Anyone reading this far has surely perused pricey home publications and drooled over ads showing glorious installations by English cabinetmakers like Clive Christian, Chalon and Smallbone, Kitcheneers to the royals and the really rich.

Well, you can forget the English. This is a case where buying American can get you the same, top-end look in custom kitchens market. An equal serving of such luxury in design, carving, finish and state-of-the-kitchen mechanics is yours for a lot less, says Lindsay Scott, Operations Manager for Osborne Cabinets. Osborne produces and installs the kitchens much faster, each piece created individually as a custom, only-for-you gourmet’s delight.

Osborne Cabinets has been in business 20 years, according to Scott, and has been enhancing its quality in recent years, expanding not long ago with a showroom on Gulfton. What you see will literally blow your mind. How about a nine-foot tall armoire in selected cherry with a French-rubbed finish, hiding a Sub-Zero refrigerator and freezer? Or a 17th century French bombe apothecary chest, magnificently carved, to support your limestone or copper sink? (While we were at the showroom recently we saw that basic boulle design being turned into an island approximately six by ten feet – a custom order, of course).

Maybe you would prefer the massive, turned oak timbers of a wonderfully painted and patinaed Tuscan, English or French farmhouse kitchen? Just ask. You, Osborne and your designer can put together a kitchen unlike anything you or your friends ever saw before.

Old-world artisans (one we know about is from Greece) actually carve these marvels of fine design while master cabinetmakers put the pieces together like any other high quality furniture. Dovetail-constructed drawers in fine woods slide out silently and hold a gazillion pounds easily.

Maybe you’re having trouble with mobility or you just don’t want to search through your cabinets for that special can of peas. Osborne is the exclusive area provider for Kitchen-Triever, which finds it for you on shelves that move at your command like an industrial retrieval system.

That’s just one of the hot items you can find these drop-dead kitchens. How would you like a faucet over the stove so you can add water without hauling buckets? No problem, and would you want that in old copper, aged brass, what? Refrigerators under islands, virtually anything you can think of is Osborne’s specialty. And, of course, the electronics: Viking, Bosch, Sub-Zero, Gaggenau, Thermador, whatever brand you like is their command.

Osborne’s expertise doesn’t end in the kitchen. Their wine rooms, libraries, dressing rooms, virtually any space utilizing cabinetry is fair game for its designers and craftsmen. Possibly the largest house in River Oaks is now being completed with Osborne’s presence visible in a number of rooms. They’ve arrived.