Wait, back up a step, or four. I had decided to go at this without professional advice, fully okay with the idea that there could be a lot that goes wrong.
What I hadn't expected was that remodeling a kitchen is not only complicated and time-consuming, but even when you plan on cutting corners for the sake of saving a buck, you can actually wind up costing yourself way more in the end.
Remember, you can’t just take back cabinets and flooring after they're installed. In addition, skimping on important items such as appliances won’t save you money in the long run, and having dead cabinet space that you didn’t plan on having can lead to frustration. So, below are 4 big mistakes that can turn your remodeling project into a disaster.
1. Choosing the wrong contrast colors
Sometimes the colors that you have in mind for your kitchen may not work if you don’t consider everything.
For example; when deciding on colors, you need to take into consideration the lighting both natural and artificial. Because colors under the lights in your kitchen will look different than what the colors did under the florescent lights where you bought the material.
We had even taken this into consideration, bringing home swatches and samples to view under our kitchen lighting. What we hadn't expected was to change out our lighting part way through the remodel. We had decided to raise the roof on our kitchen after realizing that the cabinets we wanted would feel cramped with the low hanging ceiling. As a result, we changed out the flourescent bulbs for pocket bulbs, completely changing the look of the kitchen and the lighting as well.
In the end, that light grey stone color countertop we had picked out to complement our cream colored cabinets had an unwanted coral pink tint in them that we only noticed once we had a whole section laid.
2. Cluttered and unnecessary cabinets
There isn’t anything worse than a cabinet or drawer that doesn’t live up to its full potential. One such kind of cabinet is the one that you practically have to crawl inside of to get to the pots and pans.
A common drawer problem with cabinets is when you open two drawers and one drawer slams into the other one. Or worse, you could find that when you set the table that the opened refrigerator door is keeping you from opening the silverware drawer.
Mistakes like these are something that you don’t want in your new kitchen. A custom kitchen designer can work out all these little irks and quirks though, making sure that the drawers will open smoothly and that dead cabinet space isn’t an issue. We learned all of this after our remodel was well underway.
We wanted to plug in a fun spice cabinet next to our stove, what we hadn't expected was how this spice cabinet prevented us from opening the pantry door at the same time. It's a slight inconvenience but it makes a mess of the kitchen area when you're want to rush about preparing a fun dish.
3. Not connecting with your designer
We contacted two different kitchen designer companies before deciding to go it on our own. The reason we didn't work with the designers is because we felt like our ideas were not being received by the designers. We'd propose a classic country white cabinet and the designer insisted that we'd regret that decision because they weren't "trending" or "fashionable" any more. It wasn't a good enough answer for us and it made us feel like they were demeaning our opinions.
Sometimes your ideas and the ideas of the kitchen designer will clash. However, it’s the designer’s job to make the good ideas that you have go with your dream kitchen.
Now some kitchen remodeling companies have two designers who work on every project. You have two people to bounce your ideas off then to make what will work, work.
Each designer may have some different ideas to bounce off you too, so this makes the process more of a discussion of what will work best for you in your kitchen. Then if you have an idea that isn’t practical, you have two opinions to let you know that your idea may actually be a potential kitchen mistake.
4. Skimping on appliances
People are tempted to skimp on appliances when remodeling. I get it. But think about it; these are needed things that you will use every day, month and year. You want something that is going to not only hold up, but add some warmth and color to your kitchen.
You also don’t want to spend less upfront and much more down the road on repairs that can come with lower cost appliances.
What we did, that I definitely regret, is that I hadn't realized that our original refrigerator is on the smaller side. When it did come time to actually replace the refrigerator, I had an difficult time finding a newer model that would easily fit in the space of the old one.
It was disappointing and very frustrating at the time but we eventually found one that worked well. It seems like when we were fitting the new cabinetry that we could have taken that factor into consideration and provided for a little wiggle room in size or, we could have replaced the refrigerator during the remodel and the whole headache would have been avoided.
Many kitchen remodeling companies handle top quality appliances at better pricing than you could get somewhere else. So you’ll get better prices as well as beautiful appliances that will complement your redone kitchen décor.