1 fake kitchen, 2 new designs

Let's talk about kitchen remodeling.

Without adding space, remodeling your kitchen is probably the best way to affect how you and your family use your home.  There are 3 different ways to remodel your kitchen: 

    The Cosmetic Upgrade

• For lack of a better cliche, think of this one like putting lipstick on a pig.  You're probably swapping out your counter top, installing a new back splash, and repainting.  Other than that, your kitchen pretty much stays as-is.  The total construction time for a cosmetic upgrade is 1-2 weeks.  For the sake of this blog post, I'll be ignoring this option.
  

    The Pull and Replace

• With a pull and replace remodel, we are literally pulling everything out and replacing it with something new.  We are gutting your kitchen and starting from scratch.  However, we're not moving walls, and we're not moving appliances.  The total construction time for a pull and replace kitchen remodel is 4-8 weeks.
  

    The Whatever-You-Can-Dream-Up

• The world is your oyster.  Want to open up your kitchen to an adjacent space?  Done.  Want to move the location of a door and make your windows bigger?  No problem.  Want to rearrange your appliances?  Great.  This option is a lot of fun because it allows for the most flexibility.  It is also the most time consuming and generally the most expensive.  As with everything in life though, you get what you pay for (this post is just chock full of cliches so far...I wonder how many more I can cram in here).  The total construction time for a custom kitchen remodel is 6-12 weeks (or longer depending on how far out-of-the-box we get).

Now that we understand how we can remodel a kitchen, let's see what pull and replace and custom remodels look like.  As luck would have it, I just so happen to have a fake kitchen I came up with specifically for this post (there's 2 more cliches...we're up to 5 if you're keeping count at home).  This fake kitchen is a 9x14 galley style with builder-grade oak cabinets, a linoleum floor, formica counter tops, and tan appliances....because at the end of the day (that's 6), a kitchen just isn't a kitchen without tan appliances....this is 1980's design in all it's glory (7).

Ok, so we're behind the 8 ball and starting with our backs against the wall (8 and 9).  There really isn't anything salvageable in this fake kitchen, which is why I'm skipping the cosmetic upgrade.  In the gallery below, I've set up a series of renderings.  There are 5 different camera angles.  Each angle has 3 renderings associated with it - the existing kitchen, the pull and replace design, and then the custom open-concept.  Now that we're all on the same page (that's 10, I'm done), let's check this kitchen out:

Let's break down what changed in each design:

    Pull and Replace

• Gutting this fake kitchen was an all hands on deck (bonus cliche!!) endeavor. Everything from the old kitchen came out - including the bulkheads.  I (virtually) installed new porcelain tile flooring, new custom cabinets, new counter tops and back splashes, new appliances, and a new window and door. I did cheat by moving the range a little bit to the left, but I really liked the balance of having it off-center with the larger pantry cabinet to the right, so I put in a formal request to myself, and luckily it was approved.

   
    Whatever-You-Can-Dream-Up

• This version included all of the changes from the pull and replace kitchen.  However, I also opened up the kitchen to the adjacent dining room, made the window over the sink bigger, swapped out the old exterior door for a window, installed new extra-wide sliding doors in the dining room, and installed wood flooring in the kitchen and then stained the dining room floor to match.  The addition of the island also introduced seating that wasn't available before...a great spot for your friends to gather with cocktails or for your kids to do their homework.  That was a lot of work...my mouse-clicking finger is exhausted.

There you have it.  One generic fake kitchen with 2 different remodeling options.  I hope that this exercise has shown you that no matter what your kitchen looks like now, it can become something amazing.  If you're interested in seeing exactly how amazing your kitchen could be, check out my services page and follow the link to my bio at Case.

Bye for now,
TJ