Advice When Considering a Kitchen Design Renovation
Tip #1. Above all, know whom you’re dealing with. Will they give me a lot of references? Get six to eight references from recently completed jobs. Check them out. You may be surprised at what you find.
Tip #2. Get a firm that has its own employees doing the installation. The trend is to use subcontractors. The kitchen company sells you the design, cabinetry, and countertops, maybe even the appliances, but often it then turns you over to a different company to do the installation. That’s great for the renovation company, since it ducks out of responsibility for the installation, but it makes it harder for the customer to end up with a happy kitchen experience.
Tip #3. Spend lots of time on your first appointment. Describe in detail what you want in your kitchen. The contractor should listen hard and take notes. Do you want to remodel the kitchen in order to sell the home soon? Or do you plan to live in it for years? Tell him your family’s habits. How many people in your household? Do they generally eat at the table or on the run? Do you entertain?
The entire discussion should take two or three hours. The contractor should take down every dimension of the room, then return to the office to have the kitchen designed around this family’s likes and dislikes, based on the way they live.
If the contractor doesn’t ask the right questions, he can’t design the kitchen that’s best for that family. The best thing a customer tells us is “This kitchen feels right. It’s exactly what we wanted.”
Ask for an isometric sketch, a perspective drawing, which can be done by hand or with kitchen design software, and walk through it. Make sure your contractor can explain what will be inside every cabinet, how every inch of kitchen space will be used. This cuts down on, even eliminates, surprises.
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