A kitchen remodel is a chance to have a do-over for your kitchen, a chance to make it look new and different and interesting. It’s a great opportunity, one that you won’t want to take lightly.
However, kitchen remodels can pose serious risks. There are pitfalls and design flaws to be mindful of when you are putting everything together. These 7 tips highlight some of the more common and big-picture things to avoid.
1. Overall Design & Aesthetic Matters
You want an amazing, beautiful kitchen, but will your remodel produce an overall design and aesthetic that you enjoy, one that makes sense for your home?
The key thing we want to avoid here is a kitchen with an identity crisis. If you do a partial remodel of some areas and get them looking ultra-sleek and modern, that could clash with the rest of the kitchen if it still looks and feels like something from thirty years ago.
The other thing to think about here is your kitchen vis-à-vis the rest of your house. If the rest of your house has an old-school feel, how will the ultra-modern kitchen seem?
According to Hestia Home Services, providers of kitchen remodeling in Houston TX, a little guidance from professionals can be precisely what you need to figure out a plan for remodeling that will work well with regard to the entire house.
We’ve talked before about taking the time to plan your project when you do a kitchen remodel, and that is exactly the principle that applies here.
2. Be Sure to Think About Storage
Kitchens need storage. This much is a given: you need a place to put dishes, groceries, etc.
One of the biggest mistakes people sometimes make at the planning stage, however, is not allowing enough room for storage.
Here, you want to think about using the available space. For example, try installing cabinets up to the ceiling if at all possible: this will provide you with more storage, and it will avoid leaving a gap that will be very prone to collecting dust.
3. Don’t Touch the Plumbing
For more serious kitchen remodels, people sometimes like the idea of moving the water and gas lines. If at all humanly possible, try to avoid the temptation to do this, as it is a very great deal of time, effort, and may pose quite serious risks as well.
If it has a pipe, keep it where it is. Follow this rule, and your remodel will be cheaper, take less time, and pose significantly less risk of things going wrong.
4. Let There Be Light
Kitchens need light, and one of the big mistakes people make in kitchen remodels is simply not designing them to have sufficient illumination—in particular, designing them to only have overhead illumination.
When you work in a kitchen, you need illumination not only above you, but also in front of you. This is particularly important when you are slicing vegetables and doing other tasks that require clear vision and concentration to remain safe.
5. Don’t Ditch Your Cabinets Unless You Have To
If you’re doing a very large-scale remodel, you may think of your cabinets as one more thing to be replaced.
This is usually a mistake, as replacing cabinets is typically very, very expensive.
Here’s a good rule to remember: renovate, rather than replace, your cabinets.
You’d be surprised what a good cleaning, light sanding, and professional spray painting can achieve. With that and with some new handles, your cabinets may look factory-new.
6. Floor Plan Matters
Your floor plan is important, particularly maintaining the triangular pattern described by the refrigerator, the stove/oven, and the sink.
This triangular pattern, when done right, will optimize work flow when you are in the kitchen. It will make it easy to take things out of the fridge, prepare ingredients on the counter by the sink, and put them in a pan or pot on the stove, for example.
Make sure you have a triangular pattern that keeps everything reasonably close and generally works for you, and you’ll find the kitchen much more enjoyable for it.
7. Match Your Appliances
If your appliances don’t match, this can derail the rest of your remodel project. If you get this part of the picture wrong, the whole thing will suffer.
Mismatched appliances look bad and amateurish, and will give the strong impression that whoever designed the kitchen did so without much forethought.
Fortunately there’s a very simple and easy fix: buy all of your appliances from the same brand. This one expedient will make it easy to buy appliances that look like they fit together, and that will help you tie the whole kitchen together.
Conclusion
A remodel is your chance to give your kitchen a makeover. There are pitfalls, but the 7 tips we’ve discussed here should help you avoid some of the more common and potentially ruinous ones.
Best of luck, and enjoy your new kitchen.
Article Submitted By Community Writer
