Fall in love with your kitchen again
People love their kitchens. They love the experimentation of new dishes, the excitement they feel when they nail a complex recipe, and the memories they make while cooking up a delicious favorite.
Stepping into the kitchen is often enough to lift the spirits. Wrapping your hand around your favorite spoon and pulling out your favorite pot out of the cupboard lets you know something magical is about to happen. It’s a familiar space where we cook with more than ingredients – we cook with emotion. It’s truly the heart of the house. But sometimes we move into a home where the kitchen isn’t all that great, or we start to fall out of love with the design as the years go by. If that’s happening, it sounds like a remodel is in the future!
Is it time?
The excitement of something new often overrides our judgment and our more discerning nature. Elements we may normally pick up as something we don’t like gets pushed aside in our wonder, but they will present themselves soon enough.
For instance, the tile counter you were once in love with may turn to loathing every time you have to clean it. If you’re experiencing any of the following, it’s time to put plans in motion.
Where did all the space go? The kitchen often becomes a haven for gadgets and gizmos that only have one use, but we loved them at the time we bought them. This isn’t the space we’re talking about. Those items are easy to get rid of, but being limited on space where you can comfortably work, where people can visit, or where there’s not enough storage for items essential to kitchen life is a problem.
This is especially true if there’s more than one person in the home who loves to cook. Space is a necessity for each cook to minimize frustration. Expanding your kitchen could include separate workspaces as well as essential room for you to breathe.
It’s not very timeless. Fads come and go, and they often leave their mark in a dated kitchen. Many people are discovering that timeless kitchens, with elements that don’t go out of style, are preferred to what’s popular at the time. It leads to less headache later and may reduce the need to renovate your kitchen in the future.
Old appliances are costing more than they’re worth. We get it, you loved that stove when you bought it, but it’s getting old. Older appliances are not energy efficient and can end up costing you more in energy bills than they’re worth. Replacing them helps reduce cost and introduces newer elements to the kitchen that will improve efficiency.
You can’t stand to step inside the kitchen. This isn’t as common as the other points, but it happens. The kitchen may have taken a lot of abuse over the years, and it’s starting to show its age. The counters may be nicked and cracked, making it hard to clean as well as do fun things like spread out cookie dough. Renovating will help you remember the love you have for cooking and provide you with a better space.
How do you make it easier?
Don’t get excited yet, the kitchen isn’t remodeled. We will be blunt; a kitchen remodel is a stressful time on your household. You will be without a kitchen for the amount of time it takes to complete the remodel, and you will have contractors in and out of your home for the duration.
Some contractors recommend buying materials ahead of time or hanging a tarp to keep the rest of your home clean. At Tandem Contracting, we handle that for our clients to take the burden off them. Still, you may find it useful to convert a space into a makeshift kitchen to help keep your home running until you can start working in your newly remodeled kitchen.
Consider your budget as well and plan for unforeseen expenses that may arise. For instance, you gathered all the tile beforehand, but did you account for broken pieces or that you may have miscalculated?
Remodeling a kitchen may be stressful, but once it’s done, the process is totally worth it. You will get to enjoy new appliances, stretch your culinary muscle in a bigger space, and enjoy more time cooking with loved ones in a kitchen you no longer loathe.
When it’s time to change your kitchen, you’ll know, and when you know, we will be here to help you along the way. Our clients love that we communicate honestly with them from start to finish and that we respect their homes as if they were our own. You want a new kitchen, and a new kitchen you will love is precisely what we will deliver.
