The kitchen is called the heart of the home for a reason; this room is the epicenter of family life. Not only will you cook and possibly eat your daily meals in your kitchen, but you will also celebrate holidays, entertain guests, and spend quality time with family and friends. For all these reasons, the design and style of your kitchen is of the utmost importance. This is why most home owners place kitchen renovating at the top of their home renovations to do list.
What is most important to understand is that a kitchen renovation is seldom a DIY (Do-It-Yourself) Project.
A DIY kitchen renovation could take several weeks or months to complete and as Murphy’s Law states, “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.” That holds true with most kitchen renovations.
You can go through the pain of demolition, the stress of choosing materials, the labor of installing products—and then end up hiring professionals to fix the mistakes. Or, just as bad, the final results may be less than satisfactory.
Because of the time, talent and investment required to complete a kitchen renovation, most homeowners are best off hiring professionals.
You will need a seasoned Company with proper credentials, licensing, insurance and, of course, ideas and resources. This includes access to reliable and cost effective labour pool and materials.
Once you have decided you want to renovate your kitchen, you will need to research design ideas and personalize them to your space and individual tastes keeping in mind functionality and safety.
More than any room in the house, the kitchen needs to be practical and functional. You will need to think about how you use your current kitchen to identify your priorities for the remodeled space. What works and what doesn't? Give considerable thought to the layout and assess what will work best for your household.
Your measurements must be absolutely accurate, and all the cabinets must be plumb and level — a single centimeter out of place with the first cabinet means serious problems when you get to the fourth or fifth one.
You will most likely spend hours online, browsing websites as well as visiting numerous retailers to choose paint colours, cabinetry style and colour, cabinetry hardware, countertop material and colour, ceramics floor and backsplash tiles, vinyl plank, trims, sink and faucet etc. Your options and price points are endless.
After all new materials arrive and have been inspected, it is time to demolish your current kitchen. If you’re handling the demo yourself, have a plan for how to dispose of the waste.
Before you complete the cabinet installation, you first must contend with the rough-in utility work to prepare for the furnishings. This might require alterations made to the supply lines or drain plumbing of the kitchen sink, all depending on the design of your new kitchen. Appliance placement (dishwasher connections etc.)
The kitchen renovation is as much about the electrical work as it is about the cabinets. With appliances, outlets, switches and lighting throughout the kitchen, you need to make sure that your electrical work is up to code. You should also check to see if you should upgrade your circuit breaker box to 200 amps. This work needs to be completed before the drywall and flooring are installed to have access to wiring for inspection and placing outlets, fixture boxes and switches.
Once the old cabinets have been removed, you may find the walls behind them are damaged and in need of some repair. These walls will need to be repaired before the new cabinetry can be installed.
Have you ever considered what the true cost of DIY painting? First, you need to gather your supplies: paint, primer, brushes, rollers, tarp, tape, ladder and cleaning supplies. Next, you need to schedule at least a full weekend to remove items from the wall, push furniture to the middle of the room, cover everything with the tarp, tape the trim, wash and prime the walls, and only then can you start the painting.
The problem with the floor is getting the subfloor level and flat. This is fundamental to the entire project. If the floor is uneven it will lead to uneven cabinetry, backsplash and countertop.
Remember that installing kitchen cabinets requires a great deal of effort and strength. You will definitely need more than one person to make it happen, as simply lifting the cabinets can be tough; someone will have to hold them in place while another person fastens them to the wall. Installation of kitchen cabinets is usually not a solitary kind of job!
A surprise issue you may encounter with the cabinets: missing wall studs when mounting to a wall. In an older home, or a home that had been renovated in the past, carpenters can sometimes get creative with their framing. This can delay your progress as you search for solid blocking in which to screw the cabinets.
The walls behind the cabinets may not be flush, panels might waver unevenly. When you slide a straight countertop against an uneven wall, it will show gaps along the seam. One option is to scribe the countertop to the shape of the wall.
Tile backsplashes are very popular but are best left to a professional. A professional Tile Setter will already own a water saw and all of the hand tools required to attempt this task. They are skilled at cutting around outlets, spacing out tiles evenly as well as applying them so they stay flat against the wall.
After all the tedious steps you have taken throughout this process, ending with the appliance installation seems like a break! These pieces are heavy, expensive, and require electrical and perhaps gas hook ups. You may need to bring back your electrician for a few more hours to complete the installation of your appliances.
