Renovation Tips for Your Kitchen

The kitchen is the heart of the home. It is used by everyone, provides nourishment, and sets the tone for the entire house. For such reasons, the kitchen arguably has the largest impact on a home’s resale value. Therefore, it’s no surprise that many people choose to invest a considerable amount of time, money, and energy into renovating their kitchens. If you’re considering embarking on a kitchen renovation to improve the function and aesthetic of your home’s epicenter, there are several factors to consider. Completing a successful kitchen renovation requires proper planning and preparation. Following these renovation tips for your kitchen will ensure that it turns out exactly how you imagined—without breaking the bank or causing extensive headaches along the way.

Craft a budget

When completing a renovation project, it can be easy to start spending more than you intended throughout the process. To avoid overspending, it is essential to create a carefully crafted budget. While establishing your budget, determine which aspects of your kitchen are the most important to you. Perhaps you want more counter space or new cabinets. Whatever your priorities are, make sure to be realistic about how much they will cost and allocate your funds accordingly.

Prioritize ventilation and cooling

When renovating your kitchen, you are likely excited to purchase new cabinets or update your appliances. While such design consideration may be enjoyable to account for, it’s also important to invest in the more practical aspects of a kitchen, such as ventilation and cooling.

The kitchen is one of the most important areas of the home to ventilate. While utilizing a kitchen, smoke, steam, grease particles, and gas fumes can accumulate and decrease air quality. Poor air quality can result in eye, nose, and throat irritation and may lead to more serious health problems, such as respiratory or cardiovascular issues. A quality ventilation system in your kitchen will help remove harmful pollutants and moisture buildup from the air to provide a safer and cleaner kitchen environment. As a bonus, doing so will also prevent any strong odors from lingering for too long.

In addition to ventilation, cooling is also important to consider when renovating your kitchen. When cooking in a kitchen, heat from the stove and oven can quickly cause temperatures in the area to rise, creating an uncomfortable environment. To ensure that your kitchen is a comfortable area, make sure to invest in a quality air conditioning system.

If you don’t have a ducted air conditioning system in your home, there is no need to install an invasive and costly central HVAC system. Instead, you can easily install a ductless mini split right in your kitchen. The ductless wall air conditioners and ventilation systems at Pioneer Mini Split can often be installed in a single day and feature sleek aesthetics that won’t detract from your kitchen’s appearance.

Create a kitchen work triangle

When renovating your kitchen, it’s important to prioritize function as well as aesthetics. To create a kitchen that is efficient and easy to navigate, consider organizing your kitchen to have a work triangle. The work triangle regards the placement of the three busiest areas in a kitchen: the sink, the stove, and the refrigerator. Between these three areas, there should be three imaginary straight lines that form a triangular shape. By adhering to the work triangle kitchen layout, you can ensure that your space is both functional and visually appealing.

Carefully consider storage

Storage is one of the most essential—and overlooked—aspects of any room. Unless you want your kitchen to start looking cluttered and busy, it’s important to have a place to put all of your cooking utensils and tools.

When planning for your renovation, don’t forget to consider storage options such as cabinet expansions or pantry pullouts that will increase your kitchen’s storage efficiency. You don’t want to complete your renovation only to find that you have far less room than you need. Adding on such additional storage options post-renovation is far more inconvenient—not to mention costly.

Optimize counter space

In addition to storage space, counter space is one of the most precious commodities in your kitchen. Without ample counter space, the functionality of one’s kitchen is significantly reduced, as making and preparing food proves difficult without a spacious surface.

To create additional room for your kitchen countertops, consider adding open shelving. This will allow you to keep your frequently used items close and easily accessible without sacrificing workspace.

If you have ample room in your kitchen, a center island is also a great way to increase counter space. Before installing an island, measure your room and ensure that you’ll be able to open your cabinet, stove, oven, and refrigerator doors without them being obstructed by the island. In addition, you should also make sure that traffic flow wouldn’t be significantly reduced. 

Update your existing cabinets

Purchasing new cabinets is often the most expensive aspect of any kitchen remodel. In many cases, new cabinets can take up roughly one-third of the entire remodeling budget. To save money, consider updating your existing cabinets.

If your kitchen cabinet frames are functional, there are many ways you can update or alter their appearance to better suit the aesthetic you want them to have. For example, rather than purchasing entirely new cabinet frames, you could simply invest in new doors and drawer fronts. Doing so can give your cabinets an entirely new look while freeing up a substantial amount of room in your budget for other renovations.

Other ways to update your cabinets is by simply repainting them or re-laminating their fronts and sides. Such renovations are fairly simple to accomplish and relatively inexpensive in comparison to purchasing completely new cabinets.

Don’t neglect smaller details

Smaller details in a kitchen design such as hardware, faucets, and fixtures can make a world of difference in your kitchen’s overall appearance. As such, it’s important not to get too caught up in larger renovations and completely forget to budget for the smaller touches. When choosing the metal and finish of your faucet and hardware, try to stay consistent. Doing so will give your room a cohesive look and really tie the different elements of your kitchen together. On the other hand, mixing metals can often appear disorganized if not done properly.