Perhaps nowhere else in your home does the successful blending of form and function result in as much payback and long-term satisfaction as in your kitchen. But kitchens are arguably the most complex room in your home when it comes to planning. Help from a professional is required for a successful design, but let’s not forget that your role in the planning process is also critical. Here are four tips for planning your kitchen remodel so that you and your designer can develop the best possible kitchen for you and your family.
1. Define how your new kitchen will be used and who will use it. (Consider now and over the life of your kitchen.) With this list you are helping map out how the kitchen must function. List things such as:
- How many people live in the house and what are their ages (now and during the life of the kitchen)?
- What do you typically use your kitchen for? (Only cooking, cooking and eating, or cooking, homework and as “family central”?)
- Typically how many people use the kitchen at the same time, and are they all cooking or doing different things at the same time? (An efficient kitchen layout for one person cooking can get pretty crowded if two or more people are in the kitchen and especially if more than one person is cooking.)
- Will you do much entertaining that will require food preparation or staging in the kitchen? If so what is your typical size event? (4 people, 20 people, 100 people?)
- How much refrigerator and freezer space do you need? Maybe a wine cooler/refrigerator?
- How big and what type of range top/stove and oven (or ovens) do you want?
- Do you need more than one sink? Or a pot-filler faucet at the stove?
- How much counter space do you need and what type of counter top is best?
- How much and what type of storage?
- Include any other special requirements for the kitchen.
2. Determine what you can afford or what you want to spend on the remodel.
3. Look online or in magazines for ideas to help you communicate your design preferences and the look you have in mind for your kitchen. A website like Houzz can often provide you with all the reference and inspiration you will need. You can even create an online ideabook with the images you have collected.
4. List your priorities for the project. What are the most important things you want? What are things that would be really nice to have? What are the things you could live without if you had to?
With the above things done you are now well prepared to sit down with one of our designers to move into the design process for your new kitchen. A process that because of your preplanning, will be more successful and provide you even greater satisfaction than you had hoped.
