Sharing Sharing Sharing

This blog gives you an idea of what you may be getting into when considering remodeling your kitchen. Such as:

We found it helpful for someone who has never taken the steps to remodel a kitchen. There is a lot involved. If you have an older home, say one of those square pre and post WWII type houses that are about 20' x 25' total footprint, one or two story, odds are, you have a very small kitchen and dining room combination. Limited counter space, most of the floor is taken up by the dining room table, which doubles as counter space when you need it. Thus those of us in our 50's and 60's are thinking back to our grandparents houses right now. There would not be too much you can do to remodel such a kitchen, at least not structurally. Most of us are not going to knock out a wall and expand the room.

So, for a kitchen like that, either painting your cabinet doors, or opting for new cabinet doors, and then converting one or two base cabinets to a roll out door with nice trays on slides, might be as far as you can go. In addition to upgrading your appliances. Time to dump the goldenrod color fridge and stove that looks like a 1950's Sci-Fi movie.

And that could be enough. Cabinet doors from the 40's and 50's were much more simple. Back then, they were for function to hide what was in the cupboard. Consider converting one upper cabinet to an open cabinet, no door faces. Leave the shelves open, put in a plate display, or if you are into wine, a wine rack. One simple change like that to the layout will most certainly provide a more modern look. Combined with new cabinet doors, drawer fronts, and even some decorative knobs and pulls, you will transform your little kitchen. As for creating more cabinet space, options can be limited. Maybe the dining room table could be converted into a breakfast bar, and thus you can add cabinets below it instead of it just being open space for the dog to hide when he tries to sneak food from one of the kids. Adding a breakfast bar will add to the budget. You will have a bank of cabinets, most likely two to three side by side, or shallower cabinets and back to back also. It will give you much more storage space, and depending upon your countertop choice, it could double the cost of your whole project.

Let's roll ahead to many of those 1970's and 1980's homes that the majority of us grew up in. My dad built his own kitchen. He had a hand in building almost the entire house. And our kitchen and dining room were two separate rooms, adjacent to each other and open to each other. Made the space feel incredibly larger, close to triple of what the grandparents had. My dad made these huge pantry cabinets as a border from the kitchen to the living room. So the kitchen was NOT open to the living room like most of today's homes are. These pantry cabinets were eight feet tall and spanned about 8 feet across. Four of them, all approx. two feet wide. Each having at least 6 tall shelves in them. One was designated for the "broom closet." Do they even make broom closets anymore? So the pantry was huge and the kitchen still had the normal amount of cabinets in its U-shape.

That house has been sold over a few times, and I saw pictures on one of the realty sites in the past. Lots of remodeling and repainting happened in that house. Being that it was a larger kitchen, the budget to remodel it was greater. But the changes many of the subsequent owners did make also made the kitchen more enjoyable, and it did add worth to the house. I believe someone took out the hanging bank of cabinets and vent that came out from the wall over the cooktop, and thus opened up the kitchen more to the dining room. More light flowing from room to room makes the rooms feel better. Right? Who likes a dark kitchen, dark dining room, dark anything?

Thus, right now, the majority of kitchens being remodeled, and just my opinion, I have not looked up any numbers, the majority are going to be from the 1970's into the 1990's. People tend to house hop, and for various reasons. An older home is usually easier to afford. It is a starter home either from moving out of your parents home, or after many years of apartment living. And some people want a fixer-upper. They find something charming and they want to improve upon it. Some people get crazy and do start knocking out walls and adding rooms. But for those of us into "coloring", we keep the floorplan and the structure and add our own color. New cabinet doors, new counter tops, cabinet conversions to slide out trash cans and other pull out trays, coverting to a smaller oven or increasing the size for a new fridge. Possibly putting in a pantry. Painting the walls. New floor tile. A ceiling fan. Lots of lights!

At Eclectic-ware, we offer many of the remodeling goods that you will need. We have wood and RTF cabinet doors. The RTF cabinet doors have about 70 color choices, tons of raised panel looks, and refacing materials to go along with them. Lots of options. Wood doors can come finished or unfinished and also offer quite a few selections. All are made to the sizes you request, not off the shelf products. These are custom made. We have cabinet lighting to go under those upper cabinets or inside them to light up your mullion doors. Don't remember any mullion doors in Grandma's or Mom's kitchens. Wasn't popular back then. It is popular now. And cabinet knobs and drawer pulls have expanded into endless creative choices. Modern, traditional, rustic, and even themed hardware. It can get pretty wild. Then hinge and slide choices, kitchen organizing products and other things can transform those older kitchens into something grand.

And the same doors, lights, knobs, and organizing accessories are used in brand new kitchens too. Building a custom home instead of selecting one of five choices in the planned subdivision? We can help with customers building their own home and adding their own unique touches to the kitchens, bathrooms, bedrooms, and living room. Cabinetry is found in most rooms of newer homes. When you pick out a house in a planned subdivision, you do not get too many choices. You are getting something brand new, something bright, and something well equipped. Nothing wrong with that. But when building a custom home, or remodeling one, that is where Eclectic-ware can help you.