KITCHEN REMODELING – THE MAGICAL MAKEOVER THAT PUSHES YOUR HOME UPFRONT AMONG NEIGHBORHOOD!
Your kitchen is the hub of activity at home. While other rooms are meant for relaxing and making the home a “paradise” after hectic schedules, it’s the kitchen where your home maker briskly moves around, prepares tasty food daily at least two times, serves the family with healthy dishes, stores materials and gadgets, entertains guests and allows friends for intimate conversations. Do you know by embarking on Kitchen Remodeling – not the entire house for that matter – you can make your neighborhood ladies “talk” about it with awe? Yes – that’s surely possible to make your kitchen “neighbors’ envy – owner’s pride” by acting smart.
If you ask yourself the following questions and find honest and truthful answers before starting work, you can happily accomplish finest kitchen remodeling project without breaking your piggybank:
When is the time for remodeling the kitchen?
What’s going to be the Budget for a small kitchen, midsize kitchen, or large luxurious kitchen?
Importantly are you going to “do it yourself” or hire a kitchen remodeling contractor?
What’s going to be your kitchen style?
What are all the needs for providing Cabinetry, Plumbing, Electrical work and Lighting, Appliances and their brands,Counter tops and Backsplash and lastly the Flooring.
In order to help you arrive at an “informed decision” on these questions, here are some practical, proven and down-to-earth tips:
When is the time for remodeling your kitchen?
The top-most reason is Deterioration. If your kitchen is looking shabby after usage for many years, with outdated appliances, missing or broken cabinet doors, worn-out and damaged countertops as well as cracked floor-tiles, it’s certain your kitchen has lost its usefulness, needing renovation immediately.
Oftentimes kitchen remodeling is resorted to by home owners, for enhancing the marketable value of the property manifold. In an “Open House” a sparkling kitchen lures prospects to buy the house, unmindful of the asking price. This is because the kitchen is a most-useful place daily and if this is not up to the mark, living in that house will be hell.
Apart from the above reasons, there are others like modernizing the kitchen to bring it with up- dated look and style to current trends; increased members in the family; energy saving reasons and reducing power bill; more comforts and amenities than the present; desire to possess a Gourmet Kitchen or dream kitchen, as seen in adverts and brochures. If you’ve one or more of the above reasons, it’s time you think of kitchen remodeling, as guided by experts.
Budget planning for the proposed makeover
Whatever plan you make about kitchen remodeling, ultimately it boils down to the cost involved and your affordability. So first discuss with your family members and visualize your proposed kitchen beforehand, whether it’s enough if you’ve small kitchen, go for a midsize kitchen, or large and luxurious kitchen with a posh look. Statistics go to show, even by a conservative estimate made in 2006 study, an average American spends on a midrange kitchen remodel, not less than $54000 and for an upscale kitchen costing $108000. This is just for your indication and it need not fit squarely for every homeowner.
The point is when planning the budget for the renovation you should be realistic in your estimates and make a determination to use smart ways of saving cost, wherever possible.
You do it yourself or hire a kitchen remodeling contractor?
This is a mile-stone decision on the subject. The project of kitchen remodeling is something you should consider on a larger perspective, with all its nuances and intricacies involved. Inevitably, the work involves abundance of expertise from planning the total kitchen layout to plumbing and flooring to construction work needed, for setting the kitchen equipments perfectly.
Various questions need be answered, if you want to save money by doing it yourself like your level of skills in repairs, reworks, construction and other allied mechanical, electrical or masonry duties. You can’t experiment with augmentation of your skills, in your proposed kitchen. If anything goes wrong, the blame will be squarely on you. Next item is the Time. Do you’ve the time needed to complete the whole project without loose ends, taking vacation from your regular work? If you say you can do it during nights, forget it – you’ll be spent out energy-wise, and pressed wildly by stress.
Of course there are certain predicaments like letting in strangers into your home for hours, keeping a watch over their functionalities, interacting with them during the entire period and clearing the mess after they finished their work every day etc. But these things will be trivial, considering the plusses. It’s your kitchen they are renovating and you’re going to be the ultimate beneficiary.
A professional kitchen remodeling contractor and their crew will work like magic, in each and every activity pertaining to the whole project. Perfection by years of experience is behind. A small example – a professional plumber can change and relay pipelines and fix the Drain-Waste-Vent within minutes. Can you?
So the ideal thing would be to engage a professional, experienced and expert kitchen remodeling contractor, and assist the crew in every way possible for completing the project successfully, the way you wanted it to be. By enlisting their services you transform their experience and expertise to your best advantage. The cost-saving ideas gained by handling assorted projects earlier will become yours for free.
However you can take all the precautions to check the credentials of the contractor you intend to hire beforehand. Supposing you wish to hire a Denver kitchen remodeling contractor in Colorado, you can check whether the service provider company has got Better Business Bureau (BBB) membership and accreditation, which certifies the business based on 16 relevant elements of remodeling service and their trust-worthiness.
You can ask for work examples done before, references from sources in and around your place or recommendations from your friends and relatives etc. prior to making a contract. This will go a long way in deriving mental satisfaction that your kitchen remodeling project is entrusted to safe-hands.
Decide on your Kitchen style
In your own interest, it’s always advisable you’ve an open and free discussion session with the kitchen remodeling contractor. This is the opportunity given to you for pouring out all your thoughts, aspirations, expectations and wishes, with regard to your proposed kitchen style and work in unison with the contractor, in shaping your dream kitchen.
Just for your info there are plenty of kitchen styles like vintage, traditional, contemporary or modern kitchen; farmhouse kitchen; cottage kitchen; transitional kitchen; Mediterranean kitchen; Asian-style kitchen; craftsman kitchen; eclectic kitchen and classic kitchen and a lot more. Your kitchen remodeling contractor will be able to guide you well in this, with pictures or brochures to enable you select your perfect kitchen style needed.
Discuss and choose the equipments and apparatuses in your kitchen:
A kitchen has to accommodate many things to make it lovely and comfortable. Your convenience is on top of everything. So in consultation with your home maker (since womenfolk have the cutting edge in remembering latest and sophisticated equipments, appliances, gadgets and apparatuses seen in others’ homes or in shops) and discussion with the contractor, you can decide on the following:
Cabinetry
There are virtually thousands of kitchen cabinets available in various styles, materials, sizes and finishes. Depending upon your budget (remember half of the remodeling cost will be eaten up by kitchen cabinets made and fixed) you can buy stock cabinets from reliable manufacturers with quality, least expensively. The options will be limited though for sizes.
Semi-custom cabinets can be made to order, according to your wishes with an increased price-tag; and Custom kitchen cabinets made exactly to your specifications and styles for a posh kitchen will eventually cost a fortune. The materials can be chosen in consultation with the contractor, like Laminate, Wood, Metal, or Glass.
Kitchen plumbing
Being a place for regular usage of water, your kitchen needs perfect plumbing work to be carried out, for hassle-free usage of the pipes (both inlet and outlet), sink, dishwasher, a kitchen island attached with sink, and refrigerator etc. Experienced plumbing crew of the contractor can accomplish these tasks with deft hands effortlessly.
Electrical work
Apart from lighting the kitchen with eye-pleasing illumination by suitable fixtures of recessed lighting, chandeliers or decorative hanging or venting etc. and connecting the electrical circuits of apparatuses, the whole electrical work by the contractor involves other things as well. There are health, safety and code issues that are entwined with this work. An expert remodeling contractor can very well take care of them.
Appliances
These are entirely left to your choice, as what brands you wish to buy like LG, GE and Whirlpool etc. depending upon your affordability and usage.
Kitchen Countertops and Backsplash
Here again more than 8500 kitchen countertop models are available. You’ll have wider choice to choose from Formica, Tile, Quartz, Marble, Granite, limestone, metal, wood and cement/concrete. Similarly, in Backsplash you can use your creativity for the design from materials like tile, marble or granite, glass tile etc. Take the guidance of your contractor for aesthetic look.
Kitchen Flooring
This last item of kitchen renovation gets importance by its daily usage more than other floors in home, and additionally by use of liquids and water in kitchen. Safety should always be clubbed with style, in deciding the material used like Porcelain or Ceramic Tile, Marble or Granite, Hardwood, Laminate or Vinyl.
Finally, experienced and accredited professionals like Denver kitchen remodeling contractors Vista Remodeling can accomplish your project and make your kitchen “talk of the neighborhood”. The qualities that attract more homeowners in Colorado towards them are customer-friendliness, budget-consciousness, minimum disruption to daily life, and strictly adhering to schedules to finish the project appreciably in fast turnaround time. Why not make use of all these benefits for your dream kitchen also?