Find Kitchen Remodeling Contractors - Kitchen Remodel & Design

Update Your Kitchen Without Installing New Cabinets

Is it possible to update your kitchen and improve the value of your house without installing brand new cabinets? House flippers and real estate agents will tell you that the kitchen and bathroom are what sell a house; however, installing new cabinets can be costly, especially if you aren’t that handy.

You don’t have to be handy to update and increase the selling value of your home, and you certainly don’t have to install brand new cabinets to increase the beauty of your kitchen. Whether you are planning to sell your home or just looking at updating your space, you can do it simply and easily with some paint and imagination.

The first step is to decide on a color palette for your kitchen. One of the best ways to choose a palette is to go to a fabric store and find a fabric you love. Take colors from the design as your color palette. Purchase enough fabric to make curtains and a table cloth for your kitchen. Take a swatch of fabric with you to the paint store to choose coordinating colors. Or, if you aren’t handy with a sewing machine, head to the store and buy kitchen curtains and a matching tablecloth and use that pattern and colors to choose your palette.

Pick a light color from the fabric that isn’t very prominent. This will bring that shade out of the fabric and really match your decor nicely. Choose a second color from the fabric that is darker and matches well with the lighter shade. Decide which will be your primary color and secondary color. Perhaps you may want to make the darker color the primary color if your kitchen is quite large, and use the light color for accents.

Clean out your cabinets. Get everything out of the cabinets and give them a good scrub with cleaner. Remove the cabinet doors and lightly sand them. Fix any breaks, cracks or holes with putty and sand even and level. When the cabinets are clean and fixed, prime them and the cabinets in and out with primer paint, which is usually white.

Here is where your imagination comes in. You can create a three-dimensional effect on your plain cabinet doors by taping off a 2 or 3 inch border and painting primary color on the inside and secondary color on the outside. You will want to use the lighter shade to paint in the cabinets. Paint the outer side of the cabinets with the primary color you put on the doors if you are creating three-dimensional effects. Otherwise, paint the doors primary and the rest of the cabinets secondary.

You can put more than one border on the doors and alternate the colors, or use a third color as an accent. It would be best to take that accent color, whether bright, light or dark from the fabric you have chosen.

If you are handy with a sewing machine, you can easily make curtains and a tablecloth to match your decor. A tablecloth is a simple square, rectangle or circle that fits your table. Curtains can be as simple as a square with a loop hem at the top to slide over a curtain rod.

You shouldn’t neglect the walls in your kitchen either. Choose your color from your fabric wisely. You probably don’t want to choose a color the same as what you used on your cabinets, or they will blend into the décor too much. Choose an accenting color – for example, if your cabinets are blue, choose a light yellow for your walls. The contrast, as long as it’s not too drastic (primary blue and primary yellow would be a very “loud” kitchen), will be very pleasing to the eye.

Have fun with your cabinets. There is a lot you can do with the doors to make them different and new. Updating the look doesn’t need to be expensive, it just takes some paint, some time and your imagination.

Renovate Or New Build?

Completely renovating a kitchen, especially in an older home, can at times be a daunting task. Considerations for structural integrity have to be maintained, and you are never really sure of what you will run in to when you start knocking out walls. Older homes especially can have unseen problems, such as water damage leading to mold behind walls removed, rotted flooring caused by an unseen or neglected leak and sub-standard wiring can be found. When planning a renovation, city codes and regulations have to be adhered to, often leading to further expense. Remember, when you are finished with your project, you are stuck with it, and there is no turning back. The focus of this article will be on whether to renovate or do a new build. We will discuss considerations, options and typical costs of both renovation and new build.

The Cost Of Renovation

The cost of renovating a kitchen is dependent on a lot of factors. It depends on where you live, the age of your home, and is of course constrained by your budget. There is no absolute figure per square foot for kitchen renovation. However, the ball park figures from research show that you can expect to pay between $125 to $225 per square foot. Freddie Mac determines the cost of reno to be $8,000 and up. If you live in Chicago, plan to pay more than if you live in a small town in Nebraska. If you have serviceable appliances that you like the features of, and are capable of doing a lot of the work yourself, then the cost can be lowered appreciably.

What Needs To be Done

In a renovation, especially if the house was built before 1950, there are specific issues that you may have to deal with. First, you must rent a large container for waste removal, adding to cost. In an interview with a builder for this article, he informed me that not only plumbing and wiring must be upgraded to code, but you may run into asbestos wrapped pipes. If so, a HazMat company is required to deal with asbestos, raising the cost. Although wiring and plumbing only needs to be replaced in the actual room you are working in, wiring must be upgraded from the electrical box to the kitchen. A competent builder will assess the infrastructure by cutting holes in certain areas to inspect for water damage. He will not just begin tearing out walls without doing this first. Lead pipe will need to be removed. Water damage and any sign of mold must be properly dealt with, raising the cost.

The Cost Of New Build

In the mid-Michigan area where I live, new build costs vary. Prices range from $75 to $130 depending on which contractor you talk to. Here is where you need to get the calculator out and make some decisions. You would quickly think the contractor offering to build at $75 per square foot is the best option. Not necessarily so! It is the old saw “you get what you pay for” and is truer in new construction than anywhere else. Builder A charges $75 per square foot, builder B $130. Builder A will work strictly to code and nothing else, so you end up with the bare minimum required by law. Builder B, however, will add extra insulation, run electrical plugs and outlets to your satisfaction, and will work with you on special needs, such as green building. In the long run, builder B is the best bet. You not only get what you want, but get special attention to specific needs.

Licensed Kitchen Contractors

Our Licensed Kitchen Contractors perform every Kitchen Remodeling services in Los Angeles Area:

• Kitchen Additions
• Kitchen Renovation
• Kitchen Design
• Kitchen 3D Design
• Appliance Installation
• Kitchen Remodeling
• Interior walls
• Countertops
• Flooring
• Windows
• Plumbing fixtures
• Lighting fixtures
• Ceilings Sink(s)
• Cabinets
• Tile