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KITCHEN: Renovate with a 5 Step Design Process

There are just too many ideas. Choices are endless. Kitchens are complex. They are working spaces not just rooms to collapse into and enjoy the ambiance and I think that is the reason why so many people have quite a challenge when it comes to kitchens. Renovate and it opens up a ton of issues both esthetic and functional.

STEP1: The LAYOUT!

So the first key thing to do is get a scale drawing as the working template for your ideas. Kitchen cabinets, whether you plan to figure out how to build kitchen cabinets yourself or get them made for you, are constrained by the space you have to work with, so you need to know that first.

We’re not looking for a piece of fine art work but rather just a basic layout with measurements along the wall that lets you know approximately how much space you have. It’s critical to add in measurements for windows, as that will control upper cabinet positioning. And don’t forget the door out to the barbeque, can’t put any cabinets in front of that.

Electrical & gas plug-ins, water and drain lines and exhaust fan lines are also important to note. This is not to say that you can’t change these features in your kitchen. Renovate and you usually have no choice, but you want to plan for this now, knowing the extra costs it will imply. You may find kitchen remodeling ideas that could avoid this altogether and save you a few bucks.

Kitchen Design Programs:

For the techie bunch reading this, if you really do want to produce professional looking schematics, try using one of the many kitchen design programs. Software is most often 3d so really helps to visualize your ideas.

Note though, that the cheap kitchen design programs always seem to have glitches and the great, more expensive ones are more for businesses both in price and their level of sophistication. You’d have to commit a year to the software learning process and then never get your kitchen renovated! So if you really are a computer nerd and dying for an excuse to play with this type of software, go for it. It’s a great opportunity. For those of you with less demanding needs, try using a simpler free program like Sketchup™ for basic 2D layout. You'll find the skills learned will be used in more woodworking down the road so the learning will never be lost.

Just recognize that using kitchen design software does suck up a lot more time then basic pencil and paper and not really necessary unless you really want those 3d modeling capabilities that some of the kitchen design programs promise. You need to REALLY love playing with your computer to make that investment in time. So if you decide to go that way be sure to factor in a few extra weeks for some serious learning time to acquire the necessary skills.

Note that there are a few big manufacturers like IKEA that do have online tools to help as well. And in the next section we'll look at how you can use the internet to help with forming your kitchen remodeling ideas once you have your basic layout and dimensions captured in one form or the other.

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More Information

Kitchen Renovation Ideas: from the 5 step design process, to picking appliances and to ultimately addressing the question of how do you build kitchen cabinets.