DALLAS — Cabinetry refurbishing and cabinet maker U.S. Home Systems, Inc. reported a 52% net income increase and 8.3% revenue increase for the first quarter ended March 31, 2012. The home  improvement company offers kitchen cabinet refacing products, bathroom remodeling products, storage organization systems for closets and garages and related accessories.

According to information from USHS, the company posted $42.2 million in revenue, "the highest first quarter revenue in USHS history." It also recorded record new orders of $46.4 million for the first quarter, an increase of 7.4% compared to last year. Net income for the quarter was $853,000.

USHS said increased leverage from  higher revenues resulted in the quarter's operating costs dropping to 11.4% of revenues, from 12.8% in the same quarter last year. The decline reflected increased leverage from higher revenues.

Chairman and CEO Murray Gross said driving demand was USHS' relationship with The Home Depot and the January launch of the Martha Stewart Living kitchen cabinet refacing products. "This line of new refacing products contributed to our record new order input in the quarter. We believe the Martha Stewart Living line of kitchen refacing products will be an exciting extension to our kitchen refacing product portfolio," Gross said in a statement.

The company said it expects revenues in the second quarter 2012 to increase to $46.5 million, compared to $43.8 million in 2011. The company said it is basing part of its projection on the success of its "Replacement Kitchen Remodeling" test pilot program, which the USHS launched in March.

"Under this program, we are re-marketing customers who expressed an interest in kitchen refacing, however did not purchase our refacing products. We believe that these customers may be more interested in replacing their complete kitchen cabinetry rather than installing a refacing product. We believe customers have responded favorably to our product offering during the first month of this pilot, and based on the early success, in April The Home Depot agreed to expand the pilot program to all our Florida markets except Jacksonville. We are very excited about this program," Gross said.