Your kitchen is probably one of the rooms in your home that you use the most. It’s likely also one of the spaces that guests are most likely to see when they visit. For these reasons, your kitchen doesn’t just need to be practical. It has to look great too! What’s one of the best ways to give your kitchen a facelift while ensuring it meets your family’s needs? Do a kitchen renovation.
Depending on the scale of your kitchen renovation, you may need to buy new appliances, change your cabinets, or install new plumbing. As a result, renovating a kitchen can be one of the more expensive home renovation projects you take on. Fortunately, you can minimize costs by planning ahead and avoiding pricey changes down the road. What do you need to consider if you’re thinking of renovating your kitchen? Here are the 5 key items most people forget when planning a kitchen renovation:
1. Making sure you have enough light
When you’re having fun choosing new cabinets or appliances, it can be easy to forget about lighting. But remember that your kitchen is the room in your home where it’s most important to ensure that you have adequate lighting. After all, it’s where you chop veggies with sharp knives and cook food on hot stoves.
To prevent injuries and accidents, you’ll need sufficient lighting for your ceiling, counters, and focal points. Whereas ceiling lights illuminate your kitchen as a whole, counter lights help you see the work you do on your counters and focal points make it easier to cook at the stove or eat on your island.
2. Choosing a backsplash
Lighting isn’t the only element of a kitchen renovation that many people forget about. Backsplashes tend to get left out of the fun too. It’s true that you can often add a backsplash after you finish the main part of your renovation. But if you consider it during the planning process, you can match it to the rest of your kitchen. And more importantly, you can factor it into your budget. For this reason, considering your backsplash in advance can give your kitchen a more cohesive look and help you avoid going over budget.
3. Making space for your garbage bin
Creating a dedicated hidden garbage bin compartment can be a great way to give your kitchen a clean, modern look. But it’s a lot easier to hide your garbage bin in a cabinet if you create a space for it in your kitchen renovation plan. Sure, you may be able to find a decent spot for it retroactively. However, if you want to make sure it’s accessible and easy to empty, you’ll want to include it in your overall design when planning your kitchen renovation.
4. Maximizing storage
When planning your kitchen renovation and thinking about space, you may focus primarily on maximizing the amount of open space in your kitchen. After all, the more open space you have, the more you’ll be able to move around easily in your kitchen and squeeze in that spacious breakfast table you’ve had your eyes on.
But remember that in a kitchen, there’s something that’s just as important as open space: room for storage. You need a place to put all of your utensils, everyday dinnerware, casserole dishes, and small appliances. So instead of focusing just on maximizing open space, plan to optimize storage too.
5. Placing the dishwasher and sink close to each other
It may not seem like a big deal to have your dishwasher a few steps away from your sink. But when you’re constantly mopping up drops of water and grease on your floors, you’ll understand why it’s ideal to have your dishwasher and sink placed side by side.
When your dishwasher and sink are close together, you don’t have to worry about getting your floors dirty while rinsing dishes in your sink and transferring them to the dishwasher. It’s also much easier to connect the plumbing when your dishwasher and sink are next to each other.
Plan carefully for your kitchen renovation
When you decide to renovate your kitchen, it can be tempting to skimp on the planning and jump right into remodelling one of your most used spaces. But if you don’t take the time to plan carefully in advance, you can end up making costly errors. To stay on track and within your budget, be sure to consider the 5 key items identified above. Make your renovation a success by learning from mistakes made by other homeowners.
Need a general contractor you can trust to help you with your kitchen renovation? That’s what we do.
Schedule a complimentary consultation.