Small Kitchen Remodel

Archive for the ‘Kitchen Remodel’ Category

Homeowners considering new kitchen counters have a number of choices available. Butcher block, ceramic tile, solid surface and natural stone are all viable options. Add in the need to choose color and edge options and the selection process can be almost overwhelming. One option is now emerging as a superior choice: quartz. Quartz provides a number of benefits that cannot be found in any other single material. It is scratch and stain resistant, requires virtually no maintenance and the design and color choices are almost endless.

Quartz kitchen countertops are made with one of the most abundant natural materials on the globe: quartz. The manufacturing of quartz kitchen counters involves mixing raw quartz with small amounts of pigment and adhesive. This mixture is then poured into molds where it is pressed, cured and polished to yield a tough, non-porous surface. Because the surface is non-porous it does not have to be sealed like other natural stone surfaces like granite or marble. This is a huge advantage and saves time and worry when using the countertop in everyday use.

More than ever, companies offering high quality kitchen design are turning to quartz because of its almost unlimited design options. Since the pigment can be controlled with quartz, color can be matched to existing kitchen style or the quartz countertop can be manufactured to resemble a more natural stone look.

Quartz countertops can also be edged in many different styles. Simple round over edging can give a kitchen a more down-home, country style, or if ogee or more elaborate edging is used, an elegant, modern style can be achieved. In either case, the variety of edging available for quartz countertops is also another advantage over other surfaces like tile, where generally only a bull nose edge is used.

Designers, contractors and homeowners are choosing quartz countertops for their kitchen remodels. The near maintenance free surface offers a myriad of design and color options and will upgrade the look of any home.
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There are few things that will increase the value and salability of your house like a brand-new kitchen model. Buyers look for kitchens that are updated and attractive, with contemporary styles and neutral color schemes. If your kitchen is old, with worn out appliances and tired-looking cabinets, not to mention if the flooring, wall colors and styling are all reminiscent of an out-of-fashion decade, you may find that it’s a real impediment to your ability to sell your house. In today’s competitive housing market, it’s important to give yourself every advantage possible in drawing the attention of potential buyers.

For this reason, remodeling your vintage kitchen, although expensive, is a very real investment. If you don’t have the money to do it, you might consider taking out a loan to finance the process, knowing that you can get it back in an increased sale price on your house. Before making a decision like that, talk to a real estate agent familiar with your neighborhood. She can advise you on how much money it’s prudent to put into your kitchen, and how much you can expect to get back through a sale.

Once you have decided how much new kitchen it’s wise to buy, start reviewing the various ways to finance it. One option is a home equity loan. You can talk to your mortgage broker about that. If you are not, in fact, planning on selling your home, you could also look into refinancing your house with an additional renovation loan added in. This would allow you to spread out payment for the remodel over the life of your mortgage. Some contractors offer financing plans, if you decide to hire a contractor for the work. The last option is to buy everything using credit cards. Make your decision based on what works best for your needs.

Fairfax kitchen remodeling. There are many reasons why someone would want to their Fairfaxkitchen remodeling because if someone likes their home and wants to stay in it, but is dissatisfied with the kitchen, it makes sense to remodel it to suit their changing tastes or needs and doing so will also increase the value of their home

To begin the Fairfax kitchen remodeling job, it is important to find out what needs to be changed, what needs to be upgraded or what needs to be keep the same. And the best way to figure it out is to take stock of what is in the room now and makes a list of dislikes and likes, do it objectively.

Counters Space

You sure to would love to perceive lots of space when you see organized glassware and dishes and when you notice a lack of clutter but one of the most frequent complaints about existing kitchens is the lack of countertop space. So, you can redesign your counter to extend out in all directions. For small appliances can you mount underneath upper cabinets and this will leave more room for food preparation.

Materials

Most materials for countertops, kitchen cabinets and tiles are now easier to clean; more durable and more a color and design options. Granite is material you can choose for your new countertops and stone or ceramic tile surfaces will give a fresh, stylish look to your kitchen.

Lighting

A kitchen should be inviting and warm so you have to upgrades the lighting fixtures for creating your desired atmosphere. The lighting in a kitchen is one of the biggest factors; these are extremely low cost and a bit more labor intensive. So get those inexpensive hockey puck lights and install them in your kitchen room.

Also consider to track lighting over food preparation areas, focused spotlights over sink and cooking areas, and less intense lighting over any eating areas. It will make a world of difference in your Fairfax kitchen remodeling.

Finally, it is important to understand that a kitchen remodeling project should be handled by one of the Fairfax kitchen remodeling companies. And another important aspect of Fairfax kitchen remodeling project to keep in mind is that permits are often required to make upgrades of certain appliances.

Learn more about kitchen remodeling project on kitchen remodeling designs and kitchen remodel contractor

Kitchen remodel software. The big project, such as kitchen remodeling, that sure takes a lot of money, effort, time and some serious amounts of planning and foresight to ensure things go smoothly, should do it with kitchen remodel software.

There are many tools out there to help you manage the whole process like  kitchen remodel software and there are many types of free kitchen design software available for download online.

Most of the downloadable free kitchen remodel software offer trial versions. A big advantage, with all this new technology, designing your own kitchen is a couple clicks away. Even without a professional background on architecture and designing, this software is here to help you out.

These software packages tell you how to do the interior decoration and place the kitchen accessories. It is also will give you the ability to change colors of the walls, the cabinets and everything else in the kitchen.

More importantly, these kitchen remodel software provide a clear picture for you of the end result. It can also be a surprisingly fun project for you. You can see beforehand how your kitchen will look like when the remodeling will be completed.

Paying for the kitchen remodel software can give you more edge in designing your own kitchen, it will can aid you in the build of this very easily. The thing is because of the extra professional features, the paid software is actually a little harder to use and it will take you more time to study how to use them.

For tips to choose kitchen remodel software, you must always to check out for reviews of the software from personal testimonials and internet review sites from people who have actually used the product before downloading the software. They can also come with brief tutorials to help you out.

You also must check out what the kitchen remodel software provide you with a number of options for 3D views, ‘u’ layouts and whole host of options for different layouts and view for your kitchen so you can get the ideal plan.

By taking advantage of the latest virtual kitchen remodel software you will definitely save your money, time and frustration when designing your next kitchen project.

If you want to look at some examples, you can read kitchen remodel ideas and kitchen remodel San Diego, particularly.

While homeowners may try to plan ahead, hire the right contractor and stay on budget with their kitchen remodel, many don’t have enough remodeling experience to cover all their bases. This lack of know-how can be costly and may derail seemingly solid remodeling plans.

To avoid letting this happen to your remodeling plan, review these common mistakes that many homeowners make during their kitchen remodeling experiences.

Mistake #1: Starting with an Unfocused Remodeling Plan

What feelings are driving your decision to remodel your kitchen? Do you love the countertops, but hate the cabinetry. Does your hardware need updating? Do you need more drawer space? If you start your project before making a list of “needs,” wants,” and “desires,” you run the risk of going well beyond your kitchen remodeling budget. To avoid being one of thousands of homeowners who try to boil the ocean with their remodeling plan and end up over budget and unhappy, learn how to create a meaningful list that will help you stay within your kitchen remodeling budget.

Mistake #2: Not Speaking the Language

Many homeowners try to remodel their kitchens based on pictures and mental images. They focus on the idea of their dream kitchen, but perhaps aren’t able to easily describe their dream in real-terms. It’s helpful to take a crash-course in cabinet terms so that you can spy opportunities, understand the cabinet dealer’s language and sales-speak, and inspect your kitchen plan with fine-tuned detail. You’ll then be able to communicate with dealers and contractors confidently, instead of feeling like they’re speaking in tongues.

To help get you started, we’ve prepared a list of Cabinet Terms You Need to Know: Box Construction,Drawer Guides, Drawer Boxes, Door Hinges, and Door Styles.

Mistake #3: Replacing Instead of Refacing

You may not love your cabinets, but you don’t always need to replace them to improve the look and feel of your kitchen. One mistake homeowners commonly make is assuming they need to start from the beginning, when all they might need is to reface instead of replace their cabinetry.

Refaced cabinets are often an economical choice because, instead of a complete tear-out replacement, the homeowner opts to keep the cabinet box in-tact. Though this option is not feasible for all homeowners, it can be a simpler choice for consumers who need to spruce up a kitchen before selling their house, or a great decision for homeowners who feel that the layout of their cabinets are good, but could use an updated look.

Mistake #4: Choosing the Wrong Dealer

As a homeowner, it’s your right and your choice to size up a dealer and decide if they’re suited to take on your remodeling project. However, homeowners too often are coaxed into picking the wrong dealer and end up unhappy, overcharged and frustrated. To avoid getting yourself into trouble with the wrong dealer, here are ten types of cabinet dealers to avoid.

Now that you have reviewed these common kitchen remodeling mistakes, take a look at your current kitchen situation and decide what is best for you.

Appliances

This blog chronicles my entire kitchen renovation from start to finish. Greentea Design has provided me with their solid wood kitchen cabinets, and I’m taking care of the rest.

If you’d like to be brought up to date, check out the archive in the sidebar for previous posts. I started talking about some of the fun purchases that goes along with a kitchen renovation in my last post….now it’s time for appliances.

My selection of appliances follows a common look and feel with my lighting choices. It’s all about a sleek and industrial look, in stainless steel. And frankly, anything would be better than the appliances that came with the house. The current fridge is a full fridge, with no freezer. ???? The freezer is a large chest freezer located in the basement. I used to have a small and very cheap hood fan (that someone had spray painted white), but it was rusty and dirty and installed too low so I threw it out a couple months after moving in.

When I started thinking about appliances, I knew I had to go with stainless steel. Now, sometimes I think stainless appliances are over-rated, with fingerprints and dents showing up so much more than on black or white ones, but these days they come in brushed stainless, which tends to masks prints. So I’ve slowly grown to love them. Had I redone my kitchen with white cabinets like I had initially planned before this partnership with Greentea began, I may have been tempted to go with white appliances. I like the look of them blended in with the cabinets. But since my cabinets are sort of a teak coloured wood, and I want to keep the space as bright as possible, I decided to go with stainless. Black would have been way too dark, and white I think would have stood out too much against the cabinets. Plus, I really like how the stainless looks in the Chalet Chic kitchen on Greentea’s site. 
I really love the pairing of the Asian style and colour of the cabinets (almost rustic looking) with the sleek look of stainless appliances. I think it’s a nice juxtaposition. (The fridge above is a Liebherr that I saw in a showroom…and sadly it was pricey).

My requirements for appliances were not too complicated. For a stove I wanted a one-piece range with oven. Jo and I had conversations about this – how in Australia most people go with a cooktop and separate oven. Here for some reason you don’t see that too often. I like the look of them separate but I figured it was easier to plan for a range/oven all-in-one. I thought about trying out a gas range. My house heats with gas, so I at least had the basics. Since I have some semi-serious work being done with a window being switched out and a door being sealed up, I figured hooking up a gas range shouldn’t be too much of a hassle. I also really didn’t want a stove with buttons located on the back panel – I much prefer the look of a slide-in range where the buttons are at the front and there is no back panel.

For the fridge, it needed to be no wider than 34”. The narrower the fridge, the less space it would take up in the entrance to my office. I REALLY wanted a bottom freezer. I am in the fridge WAY more than the freezer so I prefer it below the fridge. I also thought it might be a good idea to try a French door style, since my kitchen is so small. That way when I open the fridge doors, they don’t swing out so wide. I also didn’t want a fridge that was very deep, since the fridge would be at the end of the cabinets. The deeper the fridge, the more it would stick out into the space and make the office entrance less open.

I love big range hoods, so I decided to make it a focal point on the stove wall – another reason for my lack of upper cabinets on that wall. I didn’t really have any requirements, besides it being stainless, 30” wide and it had to look cool.

So I began my hunt for appliances at some large appliance stores – Sears Home Store and Corbeil Appliances. My younger sister bought all her appliances at Sears and said they had the best prices, but I wasn’t impressed with their selection. I was buying my sink one day and someone mentioned Universal Appliances, on Bank Street. I ended up purchasing everything I needed there. The salesguy (Tyler – figured I should plug him since he was awesome) was so easy to talk to, very helpful and totally not pushy. They carry some higher end brands such as Wolf, Viking, Miele, Bertazzoni, Liebherr…all of which had incredible but very expensive appliances on display.

The fridge I selected caught my eye because of it’s sleek look – the model I chose has a totally flat front. It’s byFisher & Paykel, a New Zealand-based company.

Buying this fridge was a total no-brainer. It has so many things going for it. It’s counter-deep (27″) – the only brand that offered a counter-deep fridge in the width I required (the french door version was too wide). I chose one with a water dispenser in the door because I don’t drink nearly enough water. And the dispenser is great – it’s almost completely flush with the façade of the door, AND it takes up no space on the inside of the door for the mechanics. I noticed many fridges had a lot of wasted space in the doors due to the dispenser. Another feature that had me sold was the fact that the sides of the fridge were in a silvery-grey finish, not black like a lot of the others. Since the entire left side of the fridge will be exposed, the grey will look so much better. It’s about 31” wide, and 17.6 cu. ft. That seemed a bit small to me but Tyler showed me that the shelves inside the fridge are thin glass instead of bulky plastic (see above). So you actually get more space than a typical 17.6 cu. ft. fridge. It is also apparently energy saving – 535 kWh/yr. (Is that good?) The fridge price = $1700.

Next, the stove. I saw some I really liked, by Kitchenaid and GE Profile, but then I saw a DCS professional gas range by Fisher & Paykel and nearly lost my mind.

I LOVE the industrial look of it, and how simple it is (the buttons on mine will be all black). Tyler went over it’s features, and why it beats the other ranges I was looking at by a mile in how it cooks. (It’s fully gas, oven included). But as good as that all sounded, I was really hung up on how cool it looked. But it was $3000. Then I realized it was only about $500 more than the others I liked. I decided to go for it – at least I could take it too with me when I sell the house. And let me tell you, my mother is SO jealous. The store setup had it with a stainless backsplash with a bar that had 2 handy shelves attached – turned out it was $542 so I think I’m going to try and get one made. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll buy the one at the store. I had wanted a piece of stainless as the stove backsplash anyhow – this one would be the same depth as the little lip on the back of the stove, which looked great when it joined with the range hood. Here is the setup at the store:

Speaking of range hoods, I pretty much just selected one of the cheapest and simplest ones they carried. It’s the Valencia, by AirKing, was $686, and will need to be vented outside.

I also desperately needed a new microwave since I’ve had mine since college and it has turned from white to yellow over the years. I wanted the smallest stainless one I could find, and chose a Panasonic for $150. I’ll probably put it on the counter in the corner next to the fridge or wherever it may be the least noticeable.

So that’s the deal with the appliances. Next up will be the sink, faucet, countertop and backsplash. Some of which I at this point have no clue about. Some assistance may be required.