Dos & Don’ts: Avoid Remodeling Mistakes in Your Kitchen or Bath
You can easily spend a small fortune to renovate your current family kitchen or bathroom to look like the ones you see on Houzz.com or Pintrest. Or, with the proper planning and a design professional help, you can spend a small fraction of that price. Plus, no one will know your beautifully renovated kitchen (or bath) only looks as if you splurged on luxurious granite and solid wood cabinets. With over 30 years of experience, we’ve seen it all – the good, bad, and ugly. Here are some of the top kitchen and bathroom remodel mistakes you can easily avoid.
DO: Factor installation hours into your budget
Installation for kitchen essentials such as cabinets or flooring can easily cost more than 50 percent of the project’s cost. Set your budget accordingly.
DO: Spend money on quality cabinets
This is one of the most common kitchen remodel mistakes. Don’t confuse cabinet price with performance and put your money where it counts when it comes to cabinets. Well-built hardware and guides are critical since they get the most use. Many brands allow you to upgrade the drawer guides.
DO: Be sure there’s enough light
Baths and kitchens need overall lighting and task lighting around personal grooming areas and food preparation countertops. Lights flanking the medicine cabinet or under upper kitchen cabinets, while frosted shades and obscure glass can cut glare caused by natural light. Lights in showers should be watertight; consider a combined fan/light there.
DO: Make it safe
Water and slick surfaces make bathrooms and kitchen risky places. Floors, shower areas, and tubs should have slip-resistant finishes; add rubber mats or stick-on strips, if needed. Choose rounded countertop edges and corners over sharp ones. Also be sure to mount grab bars in tub and shower areas. For more safety tips, read about universal design.
DON’T: Scrimp on fixtures, drawer hardware, hinges or drawer pulls
There are MANY lower cost alternatives when it comes to the LOOK of luxury in a remodeled kitchen! Which is great news for homeowners with a tight remodel budget. However, consider the items that will get the most use in your kitchen – drawer and cabinet hardware, hinges, and drawer slides are crucial to comfort in your kitchen, also the most annoying when they begin to fail. Leaky faucets, faucet handles that stop mixing your hot and cold water properly or are hard to turn can really make meal prep a hassle not to mention the rust and hard water stains or the higher water bills for those nasty leaks. A leaky kitchen faucet can drip up to 5 gallons a day, 150 gallons – that’s enough water to do 4 loads of laundry or run your dishwasher twice a week for a month!
DON’T: Overcrowd
You know the scenario: The door bangs into the toilet, your knees rub the tub, and the shower door grazes the vanity. Your kids fight at the fridge, your husband bumps the spaghetti sauce trying to pass you while you’re making dessert. The NKBA recommends at least 30 inches of space between the front of any fixture and an opposite fixture or wall. That equates to at least 35 square feet for a bathroom with a tub/shower, toilet, and single-sink vanity.
DO: Ventilate adequately
Bath fans should supply at least 1 cubic foot per minute (cfm) of air for every square foot of space. While one 50-cfm fan should be adequate for a bathroom 50 square feet or less, two fans–one for the shower area, one near the toilet–are better for spaces larger than 100 square feet.
DO: Make a plan
Research remodel professionals in San Diego County, ask for quotes, inquire about their warranties and visit their showrooms! People who do less homework before they began their home-renovation, remodel and improvement projects tend to face more problems. In a past survey, consumer reports reported that of the 2,000 readers who remodeled a kitchen in the three years prior to the survey, nearly 25 percent said they wished they had done more research or chosen a remodeling professional more carefully. The same percentage said the job wasn’t finished on time.
DO: Agree on and stick to a plan from the start
Homeowners who change plans after their job was started tend to be much more likely to suffer significant cost overruns and delays. As with kitchens, get a plan and use the “NKBA Kitchen & Bath Workbook.” Working with a qualified design planner, will ensure that the decisions made are the decisions you will be happy with, so you don’t run the risk of making choices you will want to change during or soon after your remodel is completed.
Learn more about our kitchen and bathroom remodeling services for a worry-free remodeling project.
Remodel Works Designers and Project Managers provide every project a detailed proposal and installation budget, ensuring each and every renovation and remodel is completed not only on time but on budget. Not only do we provide you with this detailed Installation Schedule outlining each remodeling task and technician, but we guarantee the workmanship of every installation for five (5) years from completion of your renovation project.
