Disappointed so far with kitchen remodel plans

[Anonymous]

It sounds like you are being a little naive about this renovation.

We just completed a kitchen renovation and our designer gave me two renderings which I rejected but I was able to sit down with them and revise based on my own vision. They later came back with the perfect design. This collaboration is part of the process. If you think there is no involvement or compromise required than you’ve been watching too much HGTV.

Also, if you want higher quality cabinets you will need to spend the money. Nobody can waive a wand for you OP. Research and really analyze your inspiration pics to determine what specifically you like about them. Be honest about whether something will truly work in your own space. Keep in mind that those features work with the structure of the home and may require a slight variation to work for your home if at all. Always have a Plan B.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is nothing wrong with LVP. They are easy to care for and pretty durable with little effort.

OP, I would reconsider open shelving. We have it now and things that don’t get used daily, get dusty pretty quick. Maybe just do open shelving in a small area.

Yeah but it’s going to look terrible. Worse if OP only puts it in the kitchen, but still bad if it’s on the whole level,

Have you ever seen it in person at a real flooring store ( not hd)? It has come leaps and bounds from the old vinyl flooring of the past. Plus, it is easy to care for. Don’t discount that last point. Who wants to spend time cleaning floors!

Yes, OP here, I agree. I honestly can't tell the difference. For business, I was recently visiting a beautiful old building with a grand ballroom, and between the manager and myself we just couldn't figure out if they were real hardwood or LVP. I mean, we were jumping on them, touching them, trying to see if the pattern repeated (we didn't want to give them a "scratch test"). They did in fact turn out to be LVP.

LOL. So not true. I've had very nice Coretec and, while it's great for basements, it's obviously not wood. Indeed, it only takes a half second to spot LVP vs wood floors in listing photos. And in person, it takes no time to tell the difference between wood and LVP.

Newer LVP is much better, and Coretec is not that great compared to products like Karndean. I would not consider Coretec and agree it looks bad, but there are much better products available now.

[Anonymous]

Is the rest of the house hardwood?

[Anonymous]

Use high quality rta cabinets, showroom cabinets are scam where they make money

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is the rest of the house hardwood?

We currently have a patchwork of every kind of floor you can imagine, in an open concept no less. It's an old home, so water is an issue and there is already damage to existing hardwood. We want to pull all the old floors up and replace them with one really hardy flooring. We are using a high quality LVP and haters can hate, but I like how it looks and am going to love the durability.

[Anonymous]

Not OP but also someone contemplating a kitchen renovation in the next year or two. The costs are shocking to me. What is the difference between Ikea/Home Depot/Lowes cabinets and the "better" luxury ones? Do you really get what you pay for? I like the idea of quality but is it really that much of a difference to justify spending so much more?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not OP but also someone contemplating a kitchen renovation in the next year or two. The costs are shocking to me. What is the difference between Ikea/Home Depot/Lowes cabinets and the "better" luxury ones? Do you really get what you pay for? I like the idea of quality but is it really that much of a difference to justify spending so much more?

Durability of the finish and hardware. It just depends on what you want and what makes sense for the style of your home. If you live in a home with higher end finishes in the bathrooms or nice built-ins elsewhere I don’t think it matters as much. If you want a showpiece kitchen you will pay.

I have custom cabinets - FIL is a cabinetmaker - but had he not been I’d go with idea and upgraded fronts.

[Anonymous]

*Ikea

[Anonymous]

I love my IKEA kitchen. We worked with our trusted contractor who’d done other projects for us. I designed the kitchen myself with the IKEA software, had my friend who’s an architect look over the plans, read a million pages of the Gardenweb kitchen forum, totally readjusted my design, and then had the kitchen people at IKEA help me out with the order. It was a ton of work and I wish I’d made a couple of decisions differently (cabinets to the ceiling! No one mentioned this. And maybe custom door/drawer fronts) but I ended up getting a great kitchen for a reasonable price. And it was fun.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So two things: most people you've consulted have no idea how kitchens work. They just give you a template from the shelf. Designing kitchens that work is a trade in itself and it has nothing to do with selling cabinets.

That was the first thing.

The second thing is I wonder if you've set yourself up for disappointment by telling them you're not moving anything. If you aren't, then exactly what is your remodel about? Prettier cabinets and counters? You definitely don't need a designer for that, but as you said, this is the only remodel of your life so doesn't it make sense to use this chance to get a kitchen that works for you? is your current kitchen perfect in every way except everything is broken? I mean are your stove, sink, oven, fridge in the perfect place? Are your cabinets laid out perfectly except they are broken? What I'm saying is - are you maybe missing an opportunity here?

This is what I would do (and in fact have done twice). Make a plan of your current kitchen as accurately as you can, and post it on houzz' kitchen forum asking for help for the kitchen layout. You'd have more and better advice than you can buy. Don't rush the layout development phase. It's the only part that matters. Once you have the layout in place, the rest is just finishes.

Parting thoughts: IKEA cabinets are actually quite good, present tons of interesting design opportunities (via custom fronts you can get from a dozen companies) and have unrivaled cost/value ratio. Don't knock them. I mean don't use IKEA if you don't want to, but it's wrong to say IKEA and mean "dumb, design-less solution".

If you listen to anyone on this thread, please listen to this PP, she nailed it. The layout is THE most important thing in kitchens, and those designers over on HOUZZ are aces at spotting problems in designs.

[Anonymous]

so, many cabinet shops have in-house designers, but the quality you are going to get is truly variable. I had my desired kitchen design fully laid out (including lots of Houzz/gardenweb) research, and used that design as a starting point for discussions with cabinetmakers. If they didn't listen to me/what i wanted at all, then we stopped talking to them.

in terms of practical construction-- if you are going to use a very heavy countertop (like, a 3" concrete, or super heavy slab), you might need the strength of a full plywood cabinet. if you aren't looking at a countertop material that is heavier than what ikea sells, then the ikea cabinets are totally fine. the MDF is super regular, being engineered. (high-end german cabinets like poggenpohl are *also* MDF, but with fancier doors and finishes.) ikea is using blum hardware for hinges and drawers, which is what you get in the mid and high end european lines as well. i actually like several of the door finishes for ikea right now, but there are tons of firms that will do custom doors for ikea bases.

for my kitchen, we ended up going with a custom cabinetmaker using my cabinet design for the main kitchen cabinets (we used poured-in-place concrete for the counters), and i assembled ikea for the pantry and laundry room and wetbar. (the kitchen cabinet maker bid about $6k for about $800 in ikea cabinets for the wetbar...not happening)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is the rest of the house hardwood?

We currently have a patchwork of every kind of floor you can imagine, in an open concept no less. It's an old home, so water is an issue and there is already damage to existing hardwood. We want to pull all the old floors up and replace them with one really hardy flooring. We are using a high quality LVP and haters can hate, but I like how it looks and am going to love the durability.

You’re free to do whatever you want, but spending money to lower the value of your home on resale is always a questionable move.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So two things: most people you've consulted have no idea how kitchens work. They just give you a template from the shelf. Designing kitchens that work is a trade in itself and it has nothing to do with selling cabinets.

That was the first thing.

The second thing is I wonder if you've set yourself up for disappointment by telling them you're not moving anything. If you aren't, then exactly what is your remodel about? Prettier cabinets and counters? You definitely don't need a designer for that, but as you said, this is the only remodel of your life so doesn't it make sense to use this chance to get a kitchen that works for you? is your current kitchen perfect in every way except everything is broken? I mean are your stove, sink, oven, fridge in the perfect place? Are your cabinets laid out perfectly except they are broken? What I'm saying is - are you maybe missing an opportunity here?

This is what I would do (and in fact have done twice). Make a plan of your current kitchen as accurately as you can, and post it on houzz' kitchen forum asking for help for the kitchen layout. You'd have more and better advice than you can buy. Don't rush the layout development phase. It's the only part that matters. Once you have the layout in place, the rest is just finishes.

Parting thoughts: IKEA cabinets are actually quite good, present tons of interesting design opportunities (via custom fronts you can get from a dozen companies) and have unrivaled cost/value ratio. Don't knock them. I mean don't use IKEA if you don't want to, but it's wrong to say IKEA and mean "dumb, design-less solution".

If you listen to anyone on this thread, please listen to this PP, she nailed it. The layout is THE most important thing in kitchens, and those designers over on HOUZZ are aces at spotting problems in designs.

OP here - I'm a little confused by the whole process, because we already have a general layout, meaning where the appliances are and just in general where cabinets will be. We aren't planning to change much in those terms - we like the way the house is designed already. It's just a matter of needing completely new cabinets, floor, appliances, sink, everything. The place I'm stuck on is the aesthetic details. For example, the contractor provided a drawing with a range hood over the stove, but it's half the height of the surrounding cabinets and looks weird. He also put in solid cabinets on both sides of a window, and I hate the way that blocks the light and wanted a bit of open shelving there - but I don't know where the shelves should start and stop and how to keep it symmetrical along the wall with the stove on the same wall, where to start the large pantry cabinets and not overwhelm the space, and so on. That's probably the biggest issue - just figuring out how many upper cabinets and where to place them exactly, what kind of molding or trim to use, what height to make them, and how many full length cabinets. And of course, the finishes. The house has a lot of unique features and a very intentional design as far as the geometry of the rooms, and I don't want to ruin the look by throwing something off. So the little drawing that the contractor's designer sent me was kind of useless - they just stuck cabinets in a cad program to fill up the space. I could do that myself in ikea (I did).

I guess I need a kitchen designer, but I don't know how to find one who is affordable. I'm considering using a design/build company, but they all want you to buy cabinets through them and the prices are just over the top (like 20K for cabinets you can get on RTA or Ikea for 10K). Would love to find an independent designer that would not cost more than 5K, but does that even exist?

[Anonymous]

You can look on Etsy for someone cheap but again, you get what you pay for and you need to be involved in decisions. To be honest, you sound difficult. You have to be involved in every little decision and a kitchen designer won’t change that. You are being very naive about the level of involvement with renovations.

[Anonymous]

We have LVP on kitchen/family room/breakfast room/dining room level - 7 sliding glass doors out to backyard and pool, 3 kids, 2 dogs. It looks fine. We will replace when we no longer have kids and dogs with us but right now with all of the water and mud tracked in all day, I can guarantee you that real wood floors would look much worse.