Learning from my mistakes when I tried to remodel my kitchen
Everyone learns a few lessons from their home remodeling experience. I didn’t really call in the experts to remodel my kitchen; I did it for people with some skills. If you’ve never done this before, it may surprise you how quickly it all spirals out of control. You really don’t want to end up having gone through the whole process only to find that things aren’t laid out where they should be and you spent your money on all the wrong things. Maybe you can learn from the mistakes I made. I wish I had known about this when I tried to remodel my kitchen.
Anyone who starts a project to rebuild their kitchen secretly hopes that what they end up with will look like one of those big kitchens they show on TV with four sinks, a big grill, a center island and a deep fryer. And they will dream of this, even if they only have a 10 x 10 kitchen to work with. So your first order of business should be to sit back and take your mind off the big kitchen. You must remember that a kitchen is an element that you need to work every day of your life. That’s it. It is not a space for dreams to come true.
Why plan for things like super-large double ovens and large sinks that don’t fit into a full-size kitchen in any useful way? When these things take up too much space (and too much of your budget), you’ll only find that you have little room (or money) left to work with later. No matter what part of your kitchen you’re thinking about (drawers, cabinets), you need to think about doing something so that everything is functional, not impressive. Function comes first.
Device makers somehow find all sorts of things to put in every unlikely space in your home. If you thought that your bathroom was your only sanctuary away from the electronic madness, they have devised a plasma TV to put it in your bathtub (not next to it). If that’s what they can do to a bathroom, you certainly can’t trust them to leave your kitchen alone. Chances are your kitchen designer or supplier is really pushing you to stack the appliances. What you want to do is resist.
Not only will they quickly drain your budget, they’re also not that useful, except for adding a little wow to your kitchen. For example, if your contractor wants to convince you that pull-out cabinets are the best, he should remember that they are very expensive and really aren’t as easy to stack as they might seem. You probably don’t want a bin that slides out or one that takes up a corner. No matter what happens, they will remain difficult to access and will only take up a lot of space and a large part of your budget.
Countertops can be a tricky thing. These are flagship items and people easily spend a lot on them. Cabinets just aren’t given as much attention, and those will be the ones that fall apart if they’re not done right. Don’t make the mistake I did when I tried to remodel my kitchen. Generous money on high quality cabinets. The countertop, no matter what you get, will always look good and will also last forever.
