Remodeling Your Kitchen? Here’s a Tip

Do the winter doldrums, cramped up inside your home, have you yearning for a newly remodeled kitchen? As you shopped for holiday gifts this year, did you spend more time drooling over kitchen accoutrements than the items you had pre-designated on your gift-giving list? Then, maybe it’s time Santa brought you a kitchen remodel.

Remodeling your kitchen doesn’t have to be the scary proposition it’s made out to be. With a little preplanning, in fact, your dream kitchen could be just that: a dream come true. Just in time for post-holiday makeovers, the “Albany Times Union” recently ran an article titled “Kitchen remodeling tips.” Therein, the newspaper listed several pieces of kitchen remodeling advice, straight from the mouths of some leading kitchen designers. What did those experts suggest?

1. Devise a kitchen remodeling budget. To optimize the resale value of your home, multiply its overall value by 10 to 15% suggests one kitchen remodel expert. So if, for example, your home is worth $250,000, your remodeling budget should fall somewhere between $25,000 and $37,500.

2. Call in some kitchen remodeling help. No matter how handy you might be, plumbing, electrical and construction issues are going to creep up. If you can’t afford to hire experts for the entire project, at least splurge on them during the kitchen remodel design phase.

3. Don’t be a kitchen remodeling scrooge. If ever the adage “You get what you pay for” rang true, it’s during a home remodel project. The money you save at the outset will come back to bite you over the long haul when you have to shell out more money to replace or fix the shoddy work.

4. Make your kitchen remodeling investments sensible ones. It’s okay to splurge on certain aspects of your remodel projects, but make sure those expensive purchases provide you with long-term return on your investment. Kitchen flooring and cabinets are ideal kitchen remodeling splurges.

5. Don’t overlook the lighting. Inadequate lighting, in fact, may be the rationale behind your kitchen remodeling desires. Don’t make the same mistake twice by investing in a remodeled kitchen only to discover it’s a dark and dreary prison.

6. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking your kitchen remodel will be permanent. In this day and age, when change is moving at fast forward pace, that space-age design you love today may be an eyesore a year or two from now. When remodeling your kitchen, try to steer clear of built-in components that may be impossible to replace with a same size fixture.

7. Get back to kitchen remodeling basics. You have to keep in mind that functionality reigns over form. While a pretty remodeled kitchen looks nice, it’s not going to do you much good if you can’t store your kitchen gadgets and gizmos in it, cook in it or gather for meals in it.

8. Conduct a space reality check before remodeling your kitchen. “You may want an island for extra storage, but if the overall space isn’t large enough, an island may just be in the way,” one of the newspapers kitchen remodeling experts pointed out.