Planning on Renovating Your Kitchen? Start Here!

Posted on January 8, 2018 by Jeremy Leake

Renovating a kitchen can be a lot of fun. What you don’t want at the end is designer remorse though. In order to help you out we found this article with helpful information on things to keep in mind before starting your kitchen renovation. We hope it helps!

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From the article:

If you sometimes have trouble deciding what to make for dinner, a kitchen renovation can feel paralyzing. But take heart: It doesn???t really matter much which backsplash tiles or faucet you choose. As long as you get the big stuff right, you???ll be thrilled with your new kitchen. These five rules will help you get the best result at the right price.

Keep your outlay in sync with your home.
To avoid overimproving, cap your kitchen renovation budget at 15% of your home???s value, suggests John Bredemeyer, president of Realcorp, a national appraisal firm based in Omaha. (Check your town assessor???s site or a real estate site). For budgeting purposes, figure about 30% on cabinets; 14% on appliances; 10% on countertops; 5% on lighting; 4% on plumbing fixtures; 2% to 3% on paint; 1% to 2% on tiles, and 35% on construction costs, such as windows, flooring, and labor.

For a house worth $250,000, that translates to about $11,000 on cabinets, $5,250 on appliances; $3,750 on countertops, $1,875 on lighting; $1,500 on plumbing fixtures; $1,125 on paint; $750 on tiles; and $12,000 on construction costs.

To cut costs, hold on to what works.
You can slash the price tag for any kitchen renovation by limiting how much of the old kitchen you replace. Keeping original windows can save you $500 to $1,000 per window; keeping the original wood floor hiding underneath all of those layers of linoleum and vinyl could save you $2,000. And simply keeping the plumbing fixtures and appliances in the same locations likely means you can reuse existing plumbing, saving you perhaps $200 to $500.

Stay skin deep if you???re moving anytime soon.
If you expect to put your house on the market within a decade, skip the $60,000 renovation and go for a cosmetic upgrade instead. You can have old cabinets painted for $1,000 to $5,000 or refaced with a new wood veneer and new doors and drawer fronts for some $5,000 to $7,000. A new faucet and fresh cabinet hardware can be yours for under $500, new lighting for $500 to $2,000, depending on how far you take it; even replacing Formica countertops with granite might cost less than $4,000.

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Looking for information on countertop choices? Checkout this article about countertop choices that could be of interest to you.
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Read the entire article here: http://time.com/money/4280926/renovate-kitchen/

Looking to Turn Your Kitchen Into More of a Manly Space? Checkout These Ideas!

Posted on February 23, 2015 by Jeremy Leake

Sometimes it can be difficult to design spaces for both men and women. One of those places is in the kitchen. In order to help you with ideas on designing your kitchen in a more manly way we found this article to help you out. We hope it helps!

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From the article:

The kitchen has always been traditionally seen as the woman’s domain but recent years have seen men reclaiming the space.

The rise of celebrity chefs such as the Hairy Bikers have shown that it’s possible to be manly and a darned good cook at the same time; making a mean lasagne doesn’t mean you automatically forget the offside rule.

With uber-sharp knives, naked flames, and fierce gadgets like the chef’s blow-torch, it almost feels like the kitchen is the natural habitat for a man. Plus, of course, there’s the added advantage of being able to decide what to have for dinner… being dished up a tiny meal that doesn’t even touch the sides is a thing of the past!

But to make a kitchen feel like your own, you need to cast aside the cute accessories and make this a true man cave; here are a few ideas on how to create a kitchen fit for a Gordon Ramsay-style feast.

Accommodate your height
Being a man in a kitchen can sometimes mean the dimensions are all out of whack, particularly if you top 6 feet tall.

Kitchen work-surfaces come in a standard height, which can be just a couple of inches too low for comfort if you’re built on the lanky side. Cupboard doors can present another headache – quite literally, if you forget they’re open and bang your head.

By creating a custom kitchen, you can request non-standard sizes, raising the work-surfaces to make it more comfortable for you to prepare your culinary masterpiece. If you will be sharing the kitchen with your other half or family, bear in mind this could end up being a double-edged sword: if the work surface is too high for anyone else to use easily, you may end up being the chef every night, like it or not!

If you are likely to be in and out of cupboards as you chop, saut??, and bake, constantly opening and closing doors can be annoying. However, the simple open and shut mechanism has been given a modern overhaul and there are now a number of innovative solutions available.

Rather than a side to side motion, there are doors which flip down, giving you an extra work surface as well as removing the chances of you banging your head. Alternatively, you could opt for the rather Bond-esque pocket cupboard doors instead. This look like any ordinary door when closed, but once opened can be slid back into a hidden recess, allowing you unrestricted access to the cupboard without having to constantly duck around it.

A nice collection
Most men appreciate a shiny rack of knives, and the difference between a chef’s quality set and a battered old block can be substantial.

Chopping can be made much easier with the right knife, and with a bit of TLC, a set of good quality chef’s knives can last for many years. You won’t want to plunk them in the dishwasher, though; this can warp the sensitive blade. Instead, simply rinse them in warm, soapy water and sharpen regularly to ensure they continue to deliver maximum performance.

It???s time to invest in some quality knives.
One word of warning: if you leave your knives to soak, don’t forget they are there. Plunging your arms into a bowl of soapy water with chef’s knives lurking at the bottom is likely to result in you losing a finger or two. And that’s not going to make your chopping any easier, even if you do have the best knives around…

A great accompaniment to a set of chef’s knives is a butcher’s block. Reassuringly solid, it’s the perfect place to chop and prepare your ingredients. Whether you are dicing peppers or pounding meat, a butcher’s block will provide a stable surface for you to do your thing.

As an extra little treat, getting the right tenderizer can really help you get a good grip. The Knuckle Pounder looks and feels just like a knuckleduster, allowing you to really give the steak a good going over. Perfect for use at the end of a really tiring day…

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Debating between a closed versus open kitchen layout? Then checkout this article about closed versus open kitchen layout that could be of interest to you.
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Read the entire article here: http://www.goedekers.com/blog/kitchen-man-cave/

Have a Tiny Kitchen? Learn How to Make it Really Useful Here!

Posted on July 17, 2014 by Jeremy Leake

Tiny kitchens are a fact of life in a lot of homes. Very few homes have enough storage in the kitchen. If you have a small kitchen then you’ve come to the right place. This article we’ve found has 10 different ideas on ways to make small kitchens really useful. We hope it helps!

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From the article:

From unfolding apartments to clever remodels to creative rentals, these 10 tiny kitchens show that their owners and designers haven’t just learned to deal with small spaces ??? they’ve embraced them. With solutions including cutting boards on drawers for extra counter space, affordable alternatives to wallpaper and innovative storage, these small kitchens can’t help but inspire.

A Tiny, Makeshift Bakery
Homeowner: Yossy Arefi-Afshar of New York City

Yossy Arefi-Afshar loves to bake, and refuses to let her tiny New York kitchen stop her. Although she’s learned some hard lessons about planning along the way (“I’ll never forget the time I got too ambitious with my menu and ended up doing dishes in the bathtub the next day,” she says), she’s learned to work with what she’s got.

When Arefi-Afshar is working on a big baking project, she simply clears everything off the counters and moves it to another part of the apartment. For some extra surface area, she’ll pull out a drawer or two and place a sheet pan or cutting board on top.

A Food Blogger’s Brooklyn Rental
Homeowner: Cara Eisenpress of Brooklyn, New York

A rental kitchen isn’t just limited in size, it’s limited in style too. Food blogger Cara Eisenpress uses cute art and her prettiest canning experiments to add color and interest to her tiny Brooklyn kitchen.

A huge part of keeping a small kitchen tidy is prioritizing belongings. Not everything could fit in her kitchen at first, so the most used items were kept on hand. On the other side of the kitchen, a wall-mounted wine rack and tall bookshelves take advantage of wall space for storage. A small setup seats four people for a casual meal.