KITCHEN REMODELS
Many kitchens from the late 70’s and early 80’s featured these dropped ceilings with fluorescent lights. Aside from the cramped cave effect the dropped ceiling imparts on the area, this kitchen suffered from a misguided layout and a lack of any discernible style as you may see below.
Below are a series of photos showing some of our best work. Over the years, our kitchens have won several prestigious Gold Awards as judged by our peers from around the state as entries were sent out of town for judging using numbers for all contestants. Kip planned, organized, and managed the project so that it came in on time and on budget.
A small galley kitchen from decades in the past with a 7′ ceiling , meets a woman with a DREAM. She had been told the ceiling couldn’t be raised because of the pipes in the ceiling. We raised the pipes, the wiring and installed a duct for the new hood. Opened up the kitchen to the rest of the home with lots of help from great trade partners and a client with a vision. The first three thumbnail photos below show the kitchen BEFORE the renovation. Please click on the images below to make them larger.
Now a family of five can gather work, eat and play together in a family friendly kitchen open the rest of the home.
Remarkably, we had a functional kitchen within a week’s time. You also took great care to minimize “dust” intrusion to the remaining parts of the house.
This is in a charming well built home, in a lovely established neighborhood, near a park. Although the home is classic and had aged gracefully, kitchens, tend of be victims of time and it showed. This next group are the BEFORE kitchen thumbnail photos
It is hard to believe it is the same kitchen. After rearranging a few appliances, this kitchen was graced by a Owner who added a classic style to everything she touched.
The pictures above are of the kitchen AFTER we remodeled it. It was one of the most complex kitchen remodeling projects we have done for several reasons: The main water service, electrical service, gas water heater and air conditioning system were all either relocated or modified when we expanded the 1964 kitchen. The Owner wanted a larger kitchen and another window on a wall, which at that time, was the back of the utility room. We added to the kitchen incorporating a space which previously housed the air handlers, gas water heater and main electrical service panel. The duct work for this home is under the concrete slab and the air handlers were relocated to the attic. They still connect to the duct-work, under the concrete slab, but you can’t see the hidden connection in the back of the new cabinets.
Gold Award Winner
Remodelers Showcase Awards
Kitchen Remodeling Greater Than $75,000
A 1964 era kitchen BEFORE our detailed renovation. Please click on the images below to make them larger.
These are the Before and After pictures of just a few of kitchens we’ve remodeled, many of which we also designed.
The kitchen is the heart of any home and makes a big difference in how you feel about your home and how eager you are to entertain there. An attractive and well designed kitchen makes your everyday better and is a pleasure in which to entertain, whether guests or extended family members. A complete kitchen remodeling job which may include removing and replacing the cabinets, appliances, lighting, flooring and painting should only take a week or two at most, if properly planned*. The planning and design stage along with the time involved to build new cabinets and waiting on shipments of new appliances, lights and other items takes longer than the actual work. We don’t do anything to your existing kitchen until all those elements are built, checked and available. This means the cabinets, lights, appliances and other materials are ready along with our experienced team plus our trade partners in electrical, plumbing, heat/Air, tile, etc.
*Solid surface and granite countertops may take longer than all the other work, depending on your choice of material and availability at the time. To avoid lengthy kitchen interruptions, temporary laminate tops or your old tops may be used between the time the cabinets and the countertops are installed. Then the new tops are installed in one day.
Kitchen Design
A Bakers Dozen Ingredients of an Ideal Kitchen
Rarely does any kitchen have all these attributes, exactly as described. However, you may find you will like your kitchen better, the more of these you are able to incorporate. If you’re remodeling, accept the facts; some of the things noted here won’t be feasible. If you’re building new, you may still find constraints which won’t allow you to do everything; accept it and be happy.
- Natural light. Not just a good idea, it makes you feel good. Mountains of research have proven this repeatedly. If windows are too few or not close enough consider a sun tunnel. Velux makes a quality unit which, if installed properly, will be trouble free and provide a surprising amount of light with minimal solar gain.
- Central location in the home; at the center of the house circulation without being in the traffic patterns.
- Zones for different tasks, preparation areas, clean up and storage areas; adjacent but not on top of each other.
- High quality equipment and finishes are basically more economical because they last longer and work better.
- A place to visit-a table, stools along a bar, a modern island; visitors will be in the kitchen, give them a place or they’ll be in the way, uncomfortable or both.
- Islands should be incorporated sparingly, they consume lots of space; only in a big kitchen do they work well.
- Mix of counter top heights and materials; a place to roll dough, areas to cut and chop, and some heat resistant surfaces. We aren’t all the same height, neither are the folks who might buy the house years from now.
- A view of the garden or plants on the window sill. Even if you have 3 thumbs, and none are green, having growing things around is hard wired in our brains.
- Glass doors to highlight and show things off. Remember to show the glass doors early in the design, so the contractor and electrician incorporate wiring and lights to highlight the glass doors.
- Lots of drawers. Drawers are more convenient than cabinets for almost everything, pots, pans, flatware, kitchen tools, mixers, blender, you name it. I never heard a cook say they had too many drawers; the fewer upper cabinets, the better.
- Seating, similar to visiting, but this may just be for you. Do you park a laptop nearby? This might be the place for it.
- Light and personality: colors and lighting which are on the warm side. Think of this region’s character and use those materials, so it fits you and your surroundings. Too many modern kitchens look like they’re imported from a movie set or a commercial manufacturing plant. You don’t live that west coast magazine photo/lifestyle nor should your kitchen.
- Yes, you love your home, remember at some point in the future its still an investment. Good decisions now will reap rewards later when another family falls in love with it, as theirs.
Finally, remember this, if its not important to you, don’t use the space or invest your money on something just because it’s on this or any other list.
W.M. “Kip” Carpenter CAPS, CGP Tallahassee, Florida March 2010
850-878-0010