Suppose you want to remodel your kitchen. It's every American's dream. It's practically synonymous with patriotism and serves as a pinnacle of personal expression. Sometimes I exaggerate ...
You own your place. Maybe you just moved in, maybe it's been something you've been dreaming about for decades and you finally have the time, energy and money. Maybe you just need to reface some cabinets, maybe you need a total teardown. Maybe you're doing a complete transformation, walls included. Just thinking about it can be overwhelming. Where do you start?
If you already have a strong sense of what you want (including, function, shape and style), make some sketches. Look at them. Draw some basic dimensions, then outline things in your existing space with blue tape to get a real live sense of what it might feel like. Live in that for a week or two to feel it out. There are many mistakes that are trivial to find once something is built, but not obvious at all in a blueprint. My kitchen fails list addresses some of these.
If you have no idea, you need to get yourself to the above state. You can look at kitchen pics on the internet and find a couple that you like for style. You can talk to your friends. You can look at what you don't like about your current kitchen. Just be careful: all kitchen spaces are different and the same layout or concept that works in one place may not work at all in another. You'll need to be creative and be willing to tear down ideas you form as their flaws emerge.
Many components of a kitchen are interchangeable. You don't need to decide exactly which stove you want while designing, just how big it should be (standard sizes are 30 and 36 inches, and some specialty pro stoves are 48" or 60" wide). You don't need to decide which sink you want, just doodle in a rectangle that's about 33" You don't need to decide which fridge you want, just make an opening that's 72" tall and 36" wide (unless you are considering a professional model which are usually 84" tall and come in widths from 36 to 72"; these you need to specifically plan around). You don't need to decide what microwave you want, just if you want it above the stove or not. Simplify your decision matrix, abstract some of these pieces and defer the decision until later.
We were in the first category. I'd planned out kitchens in fine detail several times, but never made it to breaking ground on any of the projects, so we still had lots to learn. We started at Home Depot; we sat down with a designer for an hour. We showed her our sketches and our measurements of the kitchen. Since we're random amateurs, she signed us up to get professional measurements of the space. This makes a lot of sense because if somoene's going to design and build cabinets for you, they'd better fit exactly as expected. Once the measurements were in, the real design work can start.
We had already window-shopped for finishes and found a color and door style we liked in one of the cheaper lines. Once a cabinet maker and line are selected, the process is quite a bit like playing with Legos. You sit with the designer and drop pieces into a CAD program, adding bits of spacer next to appliances for whatever reason I can't remember. Once the design is done, an estimator from their partner contractor (Home Depot does not do the work, they have a local sub install everything) shows up and gives you the bad news.
Bad news? Huh? Yes, it's a lot of money. We knew going in that it's not cheap to redo a kitchen and we'd been given some guidelines that a typical kitchen remodel runs something like 10-15% of the value of the home. However, given the quoted cost of the cabinets ($10k), approximate cost to install them ("30-70 percent of the cabinet cost, usually") and adding in counter tops, appliances, some hardwood refinishing, and other accessories, we thought we might come out to $35k, maybe $40k tops. When we went back to Home Depot to find out our estimate, it came in over $50k.
Turns out there are serious other costs that are not included in that list: electrical, plumbing (especially if you are moving any appliances that use water), drywall repair after said chores, demolition and haul-away of the old cabinets, backsplash install ... it goes on and adds up. We told our designer that we weren't ready to move forward and needed to think about it (and get other quotes).
Additionally, the process was slow and imperfect.
Marisa had signed up for Angie's List, so we looked up remodelers. We picked two highly rated ones at semi-random. We first visited Keystone Kitchens. Their store was staffed by the owner, Chris, and his wife, both of whom were super attentive, assured us that they would have a competitive bid, and offered to come out Wednesday night at 7pm to take measurements. We got such a good vibe from them we didn't even check out the other place.
Chris took our design and suggested some tweaks to it, which we completely agreed with (and now that the kitchen is coming together were clearly great calls): moving the stove so there's ample space on both sides of it, aligning upper and lower cabinets in one section, moving the dishwasher to a better spot. He looked at it as though it were his own, even using the phrase "I'm not entirely happy with this here", as though our design needed to satisfy him too. Clearly he wouldn't override our wishes, but the passion to try and better our design was greatly appreciated. He also told us we'd get custom cabinets made from top-of-the-line materials (yeah yeah, it's plywood, but that's as good as cabinets get), great hardware, etc.
In conclusion, I'd highly recommend working with a smaller company. We ended up paying a little bit more, but the final product is so much better (both in materials and functionally). Involve them in the planning, especially if you aren't sure what you want. Even if you do, you may learn from someone more experienced than you ... so give yourself every chance to make the design better. This absolutely includes working with someone who has the time to devote to your job.
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