Kitchen Design Ideas

Kitchen-Design-Madison
Photo credit: Andrea Rugg, for Building Design & Construction

You aren’t alone if you hate your kitchen. It is one of the rooms in the house that nearly everyone spends the most time in and many find it inefficient and difficult to use if they didn’t design it themselves. This is why most home remodeling projects start with the kitchen and go from there. In a 2013 survey of their readers, Forbes asked nearly 8,000 readers about their plans to remodel. 49% of those who responded said they were going to completely gut their kitchens! If that’s your plan in the coming year, here are some ideas to consider and some to forget.

Changing the Kitchen

The biggest reasons for changing the kitchen never really change: improve the look and feel, improve function, and improve storage, increase home value. The biggest trend in the past few years has been neutral color kitchens with stainless steel appliances. Interestingly, in half of all kitchen remodels, the homeowners go for a tile backsplash.  Why is white in for the kitchen? It’s about “calmness” in the kitchen. White cabinets and neutral color countertops provide an open feel to the kitchen. We all know that dark colors “shrink” a room.

One of the warnings we have for anyone remodeling their kitchens is to stay away from the DIY concrete countertops that you are seeing on Pinterest especially if you are planning on selling the home. If you are doing the kitchen remodel for yourself and you like the concrete look and can DIY properly, more power to you…just know that homebuyers are shying away from the concrete look in their kitchen.

What about the Kitchen Cabinets/Shelves?Custom-Cabinets

Another trend that looks neat is, the “open shelving” idea. You might not like your kitchen cabinets and might think ripping off the door will create a new look and feel. However, it is a trend that you really need to think about because It will also create a lot of dust issues on those shelves, and your plates, silverware, etc.

We can design kitchen cabinets to suit your style and needs as well as offer a variety of cabinets from several vendors. You are already spending money to completely change the room you do the most work in every day. Don’t do something you’ll hate in a few years because of a current trend.

Now is also the time to consider adding an island in the kitchen. This is not a trend. Islands help create the open feel you’ve been looking for and add more kitchen storage availability based on the plan.

If you are just in the initial planning stages, come by and talk with us. We will sit with you and help develop a full kitchen remodeling plan based on your budget and can also help with custom work as well as installation.