Kitchen Design – What to Plan For

Before you begin designing or remodeling your kitchen, there are a few things you need to think about. When it comes to your kitchen design, it’s important to thoroughly assess your own needs and wants (as well as your family’s) before investing your time and money into this important project.

First of all, you need to think about the size of your family. Do you have a large family with many children? Are you single? How many people are going to be actively using the kitchen on a daily basis? This will determine what you need in terms of size and accessibility.

If two or more cooks are going to be using the kitchen at the same time, you may need to add more counter space. It’s also important to leave enough “wiggle room” so that your family isn’t bumping into each other all the time.

Second of all, ask yourself if you or your family have any special needs. You may need to tailor your kitchen design online a certain way depending on factors such as being tall, short, disabled, etc. Assess your family’s needs before making any major changes.

Lastly, entertainment can factor into your kitchen design. Do you do a lot of entertaining? If so, it’s probably a good idea to take down a wall or two to open up the kitchen into the living room. You also may consider adding a bar or a kitchen island (or both!).

A kitchen is a great room to be used as the “social hub” of the home. Of course, you have to design it accordingly.

So now that you’ve assessed your needs and made your plans, how do you go about the actual design and remodeling process? Chances are, your pockets are probably hurting due to the recession. It can be pretty hard to finance anything these days.

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Sink Vanity Cabinet

The fastest way to dress up a bathroom area is to add a brand new sink corner cabinet. What’s particularly nice about a sink corner cabinet is that the cabinet is super in terms of practicality as well; a corner cabinet gives a bathroom a fast pick me up in terms of appearance and adds a space saving feature too. Even if a homeowner is hard pressed for space, a corner vanity can be installed in a bathroom with great ease. Corner vanities are more compact than traditional vanities and their innovativeness is identified in their extraordinary space-saving design.

A sink vanity can be neatly nestled into a bathroom corner and since the vanity is positioned at an angle, the homeowner is offered up far more floor space than one would have if a standard sink vanity cabinet is installed. Homeowners do not have to forego style either since today’s vanity manufacturers are creating vanity cabinets in a range of styles, colors, and sizes. There is literally a plethora of stunning corner cabinets that a homeowner can compare and buy.

Homeowners are more than happy to discover corner cabinets styled out of wood, decorative corner cabinets, traditional corner vanities, and such vanities are often finished off with the most appealing marble or granite tops. Other corner vanities might be topped off with easy maintenance materials, and the colors one can select from are practically limitless.

Some sink vanity cabinet choices include vanities constructed out of cherry finished wood or oak. Homeowners can opt for traditional vanities with cabinet doors or they may want a vanity that contains one or more drawers. Vanities are sometimes pre-decorated with floral designs or ornate wood carvings. Some more contemporary designs come finished off with glass countertops. Whatever choice the homeowner makes, the corner cabinet proves an excellent location for storing toiletries, personal items, linens, and the like.

Making a bathroom a personal space where one can relax is not difficult since there are so many different bathroom upgrades one can make. Of course, the most affordable option a homeowner has is the act of installing brand new cabinetry. A corner vanity is a fast, easy install and can make a bathroom appear brand new immediately after install. In fact, a brand new corner cabinet can become the center or core of a bathroom’s design and may even inspire the homeowner to make additional upgrades. The benefits of upgrading a bathroom are identified in the fact that the homeowner increases his or her comfort level in the home, the home is more personalized, and the value of the home increases too.

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Add Value to Your Home With a Kitchen Remodeling Job

Every year, various Realtor groups poll home improvement stores and other Realtors to come up with a list of home improvements that actually add value to your house. Year after year, the top results are the same. Kitchen remodeling is the home improvement job that adds the most value to your house. In fact, you’ll recover 80-90% of your kitchen remodeling costs in the added value to your house – more if you’re handy enough to do the work yourself. At least as important as the added monetary value of kitchen remodeling is the more subtle benefit – a newly remodeled kitchen is more likely to sell your house than virtually any other home improvement you can make. The kitchen is the heart of the home for most people, and a welcoming, warm and modern kitchen is an overwhelming factor in the decision to buy one house over another. But kitchen remodeling is an awfully broad term, and some kitchen remodels are more valuable than others in a buyer’s eyes. Which kitchen remodeling jobs should you tackle if your primary intent is to make your home more appealing to prospective buyers? The Realtors have the answer for that question as well. In general, the recommendations are for cosmetic changes rather than major changes to structure. The top five kitchen remodeling jobs recommended by Realtors are painting, cabinet re-facing, new countertops, new floors and a modern cook-top range. Painting is the easiest and most affordable kitchen remodeling job on the list – and it’s also the one most likely to be an effective selling tool for your house. Fresh, clean walls in a neutral color are best. Warm neutrals make everyone look and feel their best, and go with just about any décor. Don’t choose an offbeat or unusual color no matter how much you like it. The more distinctive the color, the more likely that prospective buyers will be wondering how hard it will be to paint over. Re-facing your old cabinets to give them a fresh new look is the second most popular and effective kitchen remodeling project. If there’s plenty of cabinet space in your kitchen and the cabinets are structurally sound, putting a new face on them is a far more affordable option than replacing your kitchen cabinets. New countertops can spruce up your kitchen and make it more appealing. Opt for ‘natural’ feeling materials like faux stone or one of the new wood composites. Tiled countertops are another option, but many women are going to be looking at all those little grooves and imagining all the time they’ll have to spend cleaning between the tiles. A new floor can change the entire feel of your old kitchen. There are thousands of options available, but two of your best options are natural wood or a solid color linoleum. A new cook-top range is one of the few appliance purchases that will actually make a difference in selling your house. It’s an instant update kitchen remodeling job that will make your entire kitchen appear more modern. More extensive kitchen remodeling jobs like adding windows or a cooking island are iffy propositions if your main intent is to add value to your house. Stick with kitchen remodeling jobs that are most likely to appeal to the broadest range of buyers.

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