The kitchen is the heart of many homes and the center of most activities. This place brings your loved ones together. Kitchen renovation is a challenging and expensive thing to do. It will be unfortunate if you make mistakes while renovating the kitchen. These are common mistakes to avoid suggested by Kitchen & Stone in renovating your kitchen:
Not planning around kitchen triangle
The kitchen triangle refers to the layout of the refrigerator, sink, and stovetop in relation to each other. The ‘work triangle’ theory, states that these three main work areas should form a triangle. This should be adopted, because, having these areas too close will cause people to trip in the kitchen, and having them too far apart will make food preparation too tiring for you.
Leaving insufficient countertop space
You may think that you do not need the countertop space. However, most activities in the kitchen require a countertop space. Small kitchen appliances may take up that space, leaving us stranded when we need that space. It is advisable to leave sufficient countertop space when renovating your kitchen.
Poor lighting
We often underestimate how much lighting we need in the kitchen. There are a lot of work areas in the kitchen, and therefore having one general light for the whole kitchen will not be enough. Add lighting directly to your work areas.
Not considering kitchen ventilation
No matter how beautiful your kitchen is, foodstuffs that we use in preparing certain dishes, such as fresh meat or fish, can make your kitchen smell bad. This smell can even extend to the living rooms and bedrooms. A budget for good ventilation will not only make your kitchen smell fresh at all times.
Putting style or trend before practicality
Yes, renovating your kitchen is indeed a large investment, and you do not do it often. Hence you would want to go all the way to make it suit your taste. But renovating your kitchen solely based on trend or style may not be the best decision. Because trends fade quickly. Instead, design your kitchen for practicality and add some trendy features.
Not consulting professionals
Sometimes, you might feel like renovating the kitchen yourself, and only calling in professionals for bigger jobs, such as electrical and plumbing, but, know that the kitchen is one of the complicated places in the home. This can cost you more money, time, and patience than you think and the results may not be satisfying.
Shopping for the appliance last
This is a common mistake that we make, in renovating our kitchen. It is much easier to choose cabinets to fit appliances than the other way round. Especially, with built-in appliances, your contractor will need the measurements to fix it, it might not fit well if you wait and buy it last.
Not having enough electrical outlets
You have to think about which appliances will be staying on top of the counter, and the ones that will be in the cabinet or elsewhere. If you need an outlet for your dishwasher, coffee machine, juicer, rice cooker etc. you must plan for all. Even add a spare because your kitchen appliance may add up over time.