NOVEMBER DESIGN TIP

KITCHEN DESIGN PITFALLS

The number one mistake you can make, once you've decided to have a new kitchen installed, is to have a new kitchen installed. Just kidding. But it is true that if you don't carefully and methodically think through every design decision, the ghosts of kitchens gone wrong could haunt you for many years to come. The more effort you put into the project, in planning terms, the more your chances for a happy ending. If you just leave it to others to tell you what you should want, disaster awaits. Here's how to avoid some of the major kitchen design pitfalls.

1. Financial Shock: The biggest potential bugaboo is financial. Very few people who embark on a new kitchen don't suffer from the initial sticker shock of having the project quoted. There are a plethora of kitchen options and price points available to today's homeowner. If you don't know what you want, you're already in trouble: The road to financial disaster is paved with ignorance.

How do you close your knowledge gap in a hurry? The main difference between you and a kitchen designer is experience with the product. The solution: immerse yourself in the wonderful world of kitchen design. The most efficient way to be sure your pocket is not being picked is, naturally, to shop and compare prices. And don't forget books, periodicals, kitchen stores and home centers, friends who've survived a kitchen project, websites like this one — they're all great sources of information.

But here's the key: You must be a participant in the design, not an onlooker. Once you have a working knowledge of this multi-bazillion dollar business, and a sense of the vocabulary that is used, your anxiety will lessen and you'll be better equipped with the design and financial smarts to take the plunge.

2. Style Setbacks: Here's a cautionary tale. Imagine walking through a beautiful 18th-Century Georgian- furnished home, dark mahogany finishes abounding, then turning the corner and waltzing into a light and airy Tuscan kitchen. Well, it probably sounded like a good idea; after all, we all know Tuscany is all the rage these days. But from a style point of view: Whoops!

Don't forget that the kitchen is indeed a part, a very large part, of the interior design of the home. To avoid a complete disconnect, it's wise to marry your kitchen design in terms of style and coloration to the rest of the home. At times, the kitchen is the first consideration; the rest of the home follows, as in new construction. At other times, the challenge is matching the style of a remodeled kitchen with an already completed interior. If you have a New England style cottage, the kitchen should reflect both the architecture and attempts should be made to in include the home's coloration, "flow" it into the kitchen, as it were, as well.

3. Function for All: As the kitchen is primarily thought of as a purely functional space for the cook, sometimes the impact of the flow of the room on others is forgotten. As you pore over where to put your dishwasher drawers and the pot filler, try to consider the people coming and going (as they always do in a kitchen, as that is where the food is at; people don't visit the attic often: no food).

Consider the overall traffic flow of the space as a part of the kitchen's function, not just the cook's traffic flow. During this phase of the design you need to think like an industrial engineer (IE), who designs large manufacturing plants and measures out the exact paces an employee must take from place to place. The good IE will determine the most facile way to move parts and people from one end of the plant to another, saving time and money for the employer. Surprise: YOU are now the IE in your own home. The kitchen designer does not live there, you do.

As you plan the kitchen, it's important to figure out how much wasted space or wasted effort/walking there is, and to rework the room's design to eliminate as much as of this as possible. For example, check how far you have to walk with groceries from the garage to the pantry. You may discover that the pantry is on the wrong side of the kitchen. Over the years having things with important functions in the wrong place could end up wasting days of your life. And, of course, the time is much better spent eating the food you schlepped into the house rather than taking frozen lasagna for long walks.

So now, go forth armed with info and design that kitchen of your dreams. By avoiding these financial, stylistic and functional pitfalls, you'll make sure that your kitchen isn't haunted by the ghosts of past (bad) decisions.

Source: design.hgtv.com

Check back every month for new design tips