Wondering How To Design A Kitchen?
If you've been looking for information about kitchen renovation, you've probably found as many opinions regarding how to design a kitchen as you've found remodeled kitchens. Well, on this site I'll be adding my two cents to the discussion. Having done my own small kitchen remodeling a couple of years ago, I've had the opportunity to compare the results of the research I did before starting my actual kitchen remodeling experience. If you've been reading architecture magazines or watching those designer shows on TV, you may be dreaming of ripping out some walls and totally redoing your kitchen, making it twice its current size and including professional appliances, all the latest gee-whiz bells and whistles, and top of the line cabinetry. But is that really going to suit your lifestyle (not to mention your pocketbook)? First of all, moving the sink, stove and refrigerator to new locations can be extremely expensive, depending on your particular situation. Keeping those appliances in the same approximate location can free up a lot of money for other improvements.
Also, while those humongous kitchen designs may look good on TV or in magazine spreads, think about how it would be to work in them. If your kitchen normally has four or five people jostling for space while preparing meals, then having a lot of elbow room is a good thing, and a more spacious kitchen may well be in order. But if only one person usually prepares the food in your kitchen, then taking five or six extra steps from the stove to the sink, and five or six more to the fridge, can get real old after awhile. I can think of less expensive ways to get some exercise than building a kitchen twice the size I need :-) It may be that the layout of your current kitchen will function just fine if you were to replace all the appliances and cabinets. If your cabinets are still sound but just ugly, you may even be able to just replace the cabinet doors, a process known as "kitchen cabinet resurfacing". You'd be surprised what such a refurbishing can do to a tired old kitchen. After new cabinet doors, new countertops, a new sink, all new appliances and new floors, you just may not recognize your old kitchen. You can also replace some or all of your cabinets with more functional ones, switching doors for drawers or installing some newly developed innovations, like those that can make corner cabinets more useful, give you a long tall pantry drawer, or a myriad of other recent inventions. The next thing you might want to consider when thinking about kitchendesign is that more complicated renovations will entail the kitchen being under construction for a more extended time frame, which means you'll be eating takeout or cooking microwave dinners for a longer period of time. Remember, the more work that has to be done, the more things that can go wrong. If you've never lived through a remodeling job, you might not realize how one little snafu can snowball as it affects other parts of the work. While some of this will probably be unavoidable, complexity always increases the opportunity for Murphy's law to rear its ugly head. Finally, when designing your new kitchen, think about how much of the work you can do yourself. Even if you're not the handyman type, you may be able to do all or much of the demolition work. This might save you a bunch of money if you're up for some manual labor. Of course, you don't want to get in over your head by ripping out the kitchen sink plumbing without turning off the water or some similar snafu, so make sure you get an honest appraisal from your contractor as to whether or the work is within your cababilities - and make sure you have read the complete instructions before beginning any particular project. You can also find how-to tutorials for just about any diy remodeling task on the Internet. While on the subject of doing it yourself, one advantage to keeping your remodel to a simple refurbishing where the appliances keep their present locations is that, if you are at all handy, you may be able to complete the entire project yourself, whereas if moving of plumbing, electrical, etc is called for by the new plans, it may be beyong the scope of your skills. And realistically, you need to balance the cost savings from doing the work yourself against the fact that a professional can work five or six eight hour days per week, while you're probably limited to nights and weekends. Meaning a longer period of time ordering pizza.... If you've landed on this page, you're obviously in the process of researching the possiblility of a kitchen remodel. My best advice to you would be to continue the process, do your homework, and get opinions from all sides before deciding what makes the most sense for your pocketbook and the way you live. Your real estate agent, the people in the magazines and on HGTV, your contractor, and me can all give you their tips, but in the end, you're going to be the one cooking in your new kitchen, and if you'll thrive with black kitchen cabinets, purple walls and three sinks, well, so be it! |
