Are you considering remodeling your kitchen cabinets or layout in the near future? Depending on what it takes and what you decide to do, redesigning your kitchen can be one of the biggest home improvement projects most homeowners will undertake. I’m not just talking about kitchen DIY where you can make a few additions or replacements to personalize the design with some decorative kitchen tiles, or add convenience items like a kitchen towel dispenser or kitchen cabinet organizers. (Although it’s amazing how easy it can be to give your kitchen cabinets and doors a new look with new pulls and knobs!).

Let’s consider what to include in your kitchen plans…

To make it easier to remember, I’ll group the topics under 3 main headings: Facilities, Space, and Design. We’ll end with some comments on the practicalities of “making it happen.” Thinking through each of these will help ensure that you develop a complete specification, and therefore a comprehensive kitchen remodel cost. Here we go…

Mod cons

What do you need to include in the kitchen? That will depend on what you want from your kitchen.

For example, will your kitchen be used only for preparing and serving food?
So the minimum for most family kitchens would be:

  • Cooking
  • burner
  • sink
  • the fridge
  • gold table tops
  • food storage and cooking ingredients
  • Storage for kitchen utensils such as pots, pans, casseroles, etc.
  • kitchen cutlery storage
  • trash bins

Other common items to remember:

  • dishwasher
  • freezer
  • microwave oven
  • kettle
  • kettle or coffee maker
  • drink dispenser
  • toaster

What about dinner with the family? Does that usually happen in the kitchen?

  • dining table and chairs
  • storage for dining tableware and cutlery

Does your home have a separate laundry or utility room? If not, you will need to plan the space for items such as

  • washer
  • tumble dryer or other means of drying clothes

Space

Once you’ve listed all the essential appliances and convenience items you want in your kitchen, the next step is to check that there’s enough space available for all of them. Also remember: Unless you plan to do a major rebuild job, you’ll need to accept some “assumptions” such as:

  • the position of the sink is limited by the location of the water supply and drainage pipes, and probably the windows
  • same with dishwasher or clothes washer
  • range and hob positions are limited by gas and/or electricity supply connections and controls

You’ll see a repeating theme in the list above, “storage,” for everything from food to cleaning supplies. That’s why kitchen storage cabinets play such an important role in space allocation and cost. In fact, the largest cost component in most kitchen redesign projects is the cost of kitchen cabinets and countertops, especially if you’ve chosen granite countertops.

Without already having good experience designing kitchen cabinets, we recommend that you select a local kitchen contractor, or at least visit a reputable kitchen showroom to get ideas on how best to use the available space and develop practical ideas for possible kitchens. blueprints of the floor.

Design

Along with developing potential floor plans, now is the time to bring your overall kitchen design together. What styles do you prefer, which would complement your home? Something contemporary: crisp clean lines, light and airy, maybe lots of shiny metal? Or would a warmer, natural or stained wood grain be better, say an elegant French kitchen, or perhaps a simpler country-style kitchen?

At this stage, you need to consider all aspects of your kitchen: materials, colors, textures, and styles to ensure you have a cohesive look:

  • household appliances – “white line”, or built-in
  • cupboards
  • countertops
  • floor covering
  • walls
  • Turning on
  • ventilation
  • workflow

Make it happens

The first question to ask yourself (unless money is not an issue) is how much of your existing kitchen (appliances and cabinets) could be repurposed and still allow you to create the kitchen of your dreams?

For example, if your cabinet frames are basically solid and the existing floor design is a good fit for you, then you could avoid spending much more than necessary simply by refinishing kitchen cabinets, floors, and walls, replacing old appliances, and installing contemporary kitchen lamps .

At the other end of the cost (and disruption) scale, you could have a skilled cabinetmaker build kitchen cabinets, fully customized to your design and style preferences, with new appliances integrated throughout, decorative kitchen tile for the floor and a custom image. Kitchen backsplash designs on the walls. There would also be a modern center kitchen island design and of course a stylish family dining area.

For many of us, however, there will be trade-offs we must make to get as close to our ideal kitchen as possible, while staying within the limits of affordability.

If this is your case, you could consider several low-cost approaches to kitchen construction, and especially cabinet installation:

  • Factory built cabinets – can be installed by a kitchen installer (not as qualified as a cabinet builder)
  • Flat Pack or Ready To Assemble (RTA) Cabinets – Can be installed by yourself or by a kitchen installer

    • Resurfacing existing cabinet doors and drawers: A specialized task, but probably less expensive than rebuilding all your kitchen storage cabinets.

But what if you’ve completed the specification of your dream kitchen, developed a practical layout, selected your style preference, and chosen the best value installation approach, and you’re still well over budget?

So you probably only have 3 options:

  • Phases: Divide the project into a series of sub-projects and complete each one as affordable.
  • Finance it: Take out a loan to finance the project
  • Forget it, at least for now… postpone your plans until you can afford it.