Planning a Kitchen Remodeling You'll Love for Years to Come
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Nowadays, the kitchen is the center of family life, and it's also the place we're most likely to spend times with friends. Remodeling your kitchen to enhance your time with loved ones is a good investment in your happiness and peace of mind. It's also one of the investments most likely to pay off when you sell your home.
Why Remodel and Update your Kitchen?
An updated kitchen can save you time and frustration every day. The schedules of two-career families demand that we be able to cook quickly, and they may also prompt us to do more business entertaining at home. Couples often want to be able to invite friends to have a drink in the kitchen or help with salad prep while a convivial meal is being prepared. New programmable appliances and open floor plans make these goals easier to achieve, and a host of gorgeous earth-friendly materials, ranging from bamboo cabinets, art tile and recycled countertops enable you to have a more beautiful kitchen than ever before.
Parents need a convenient place to feed the kids, to keep an eye on them while cooking, and also to enable the kids to make their own snacks. Safety can also be an issue. A remodeling plan that includes "universal design" features such as multi-height countertops, fold-down steps and mutiple height storage units can enable you to safely invite kids into the kitchen, allow them to help themselves, and begin to join in the cooking. Nicolette Toussaint is specially trained in universal design, and can suggest multiple ways to invite the little ones to work and play in the kitchen.
Energy Savings from Lights, Cooking, and Cooling
In addition, some people also want to reduce their energy bills and lower emissions that drive climate change. In addition to replacing old, inefficient appliances with new “Energy Star” models, eco-conscious homeowners can offset the use of artificial lighting by increasing “daylighting.” Improved window placement, insulated frames, and low-emissions glass can improve the color and quality of interior light while significantly cutting drafts, winter heat loss, and summer overheating
It’s best to start with a plan. I suggest that you start planning for a kitchen remodel not by looking at new appliances – you will get to that! – but by first looking at how you use your kitchen now and how the changes you can anticipate over the next ten years will change your needs.
What’s the Best Size for My Kitchen?
Do you need to enlarge your kitchen, adding on or borrowing space from another room? Maybe, maybe not. The optimum size is based first and foremost on how many people will be cooking, and how many will be visiting the kitchen. Here are some questions to answer:
- Is a one-cook kitchen sufficient?
- Does your family have a main cook and a sous-chef who does the chopping and prep work?
- Do you want a kitchen where multiple family members or friends can join in, helping with salad making, table setting and other dinnertime activities?
- Does your kitchen need a family activity area where children can do homework or color near mom while she’s cooking?
- Do you pay bills or use a computer in the kitchen? If so, you might want to add a small desk or a convertible work area.
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Left: This kitchen is big enough for two cooks - a chef and a helper - but the triangles showing their work patterns indicate that they are going to get in one another's way. Right: I have relocated the counters and appliances to comfortably accommodate both cooks. |  |
Once you've thought about these questions, you're ready to consult with your designer about a remodeling plan. Chances are that your existing kitchen is not well laid-out, or laid out in a way that doesn't fit your current needs, and the time to fix that is before you start installing appliances, cabinets and countertops. Your new kitchen will be a joy if the cooktop/stove, refrigerator and sink are located in convenient work triangle, and if the sides of that triangle add up to less than 20 feet. Your designer can figure out the optimum layout, and also make sure you have sufficent space for storing food, dishes and small appliances.
Now comes the fun part - selecting all those handsome cabinets, counters and appliances! Let Nicolette help.