For many families, the kitchen is the heart of their home. This long-treasured belief helps to explain why kitchen renovation so strongly resembles major surgery, in terms of worry, cost and disruption of familiar and comforting routines. A whole web of family activities, beyond cooking and eating, center on and pass through the kitchen. And, like the bathroom, kitchen renovation is distinctive in the wide variety of functional elements to be considered and coordinated. Unlike a living room or bedroom, the cast of skilled craftsmen involved in the project is huge and varied—plumbers, electricians, masons, tile-setters, carpenters, ventilation and heating specialists, and electronics experts all have parts to play in creating a new kitchen that serves all a family’s needs.

Homeowners may ascribe the infrequency with which they update the kitchen to its expense. Redoing a kitchen can be costly. Then again, most long-term decisions are more expensive than short-term ones. The best way to weather the inconvenience of such a large and complex job and feel you have gotten your money’s worth is to put at least as much time into planning the work as you expect will take for its execution. Planning should recognize current family needs but, more important, look ahead to changes in those needs, along with the technological and materials changes that will make your renovation forward-functioning for as long as possible.  When time comes to renovate, it’s common to start planning with the notion “we’ve always wanted. . . .”  Seek out contractors, specialists and vendors who can help you determine if now is the time for “always” or if there are better, newer choices to be made. Kitchen trends for 2018 suggest some exciting new possibilities.

COME LOOK AT MY KITCHEN
Your first decisions must be the biggest ones. If you are changing the shape or size of the kitchen, those plans come first. As the children get older, supper at the breakfast bar gets tired, even though it suits their busy schedules. Kitchen designs for 2018 address the distance between a too-formal dining room  and bar-stools at the kitchen counter with a variety of seating plans, including banquettes, breakfast nooks and family tables with room for company. Adding a dining alcove can maximize your family time together. Expanding kitchen space, however, may require local permits before construction can begin. Start all reconfigurations of kitchen space by consulting your municipal building department.

Another large-scale reconfiguration that is attracting lots of attention is hidden ventilation. The elaborate vent-hoods associated with restaurant kitchens and European country-house kitchens are giving way to simple columnar structures and overhangs that contain necessary machinery to regulate kitchen heat and humidity; this new venting arrangement may also need permitting or inspection.

The third major trend in spatial change is one you can make without permits but, like the other two trends, it may have a strong impact both on how your kitchen looks and how it functions. Forward-looking designers are modifying storage to reflect new ways to cook, entertain and relate to food overall. Open shelves have returned, to display dishes, utensils and even food items. Walls of cupboard doors provide flexible storage while preventing equipment and ingredients from disrupting a peaceful view. Most dramatically, kitchens are acquiring more natural light as designers completely remove upper wall cupboards.

Like the removal of the large, ornate range-hood, removing wall cupboards sends a strong message that time spent in the kitchen has changed. The Huffington Post notes that, in 2011, 28 percent of adults surveyed described themselves as not knowing how to cook, while in 2016, Forbes Magazine reported a study showing millennials spent 40 percent of their food dollars on food prepared and/or eaten outside the home. Numbers of people eating out vary widely, depending on age and region, but in general Americans as a whole spend significantly less time and money on home-cooking than they did even 10 years ago.

A quick view of a cooking show or commercials on a cooking channel solidify these changes even further. Specialized cooking gear, like sous-vide cookers, slow-cookers and steam ovens make specific tasks more efficient than did pots and pans. A kitchen may contain several ovens: conventional; convection; microwave. Smoking, pickling and grilling can all be managed with specialized equipment designed to bring favorite dishes back indoors from the yard. Juicers, single-serve coffee makers, espresso makers and a wide variety of indoor grills and portable cookers serve appetites honed on tastes from tahini to panini. One of the biggest messages of the future kitchen: if you’re going to do it, do it right.

Similar specialization extends to storage and to food itself. Even modest renovations can plan for wine storage, temperature accommodations for a wide variety of fruits and vegetables and correct storage for bulk cereals, spices and other staples. What storage reflects, more than anything else, is changing attitudes toward food itself. Cooking channels may still overflow with recipes that use up leftovers, but in an increasing number of households the healthy-eating message has finally gotten through. A broad spectrum of reasons stimulate home cooks to buy only what they need and treat it as fuel for activity, rather than as recreational fodder. It has dawned on even the hungriest cooks that what is chowed down needs to be run off. Good food needs to be treated with respect (hence, specialized storage) and served only in amounts needed to provide health and energy. This is one reason for the rising popularity of portion-controlled meal-kits. Entertaining can remain lavish, and everyone may have one non-negotiable treat, but new attitudes toward food have shaped kitchen design in permanent ways. Today’s kitchens are still seen as essential places to gather, socialize and enjoy each other’s company, but at many tables, that goal has attained primacy over the food on the plates.

WHAT THE NEW KITCHEN LOOKS LIKE
Good equipment no longer requires an industrial setting. Black and white predominate, with an increasing interest in all-black appliances. Floors and some vertical surfaces rely on rich wood tones to vary the monotone, while counters go in several directions. One wall may display a strong shot of color, which is then echoed in woodwork elsewhere in the room.

Visually, counters play a strong role in carrying both color and light through the room. The automatic choice of granite is fading, as quartz and other engineered surfaces like glass develop wider ranges of color and texture choices. These easy-to-maintain long-lived surfaces establish a visual unity throughout the entire kitchen. Whether highly or subtly polished, reflective counter surfaces work as a continuous ribbon of energy throughout a room. Matte or leather-like textures add further visual interest, and veining can contribute both color and strong new lines to both flat and vertical surfaces. Coordinate task lighting with counter surfaces to create work islands, hospitality zones and a quiet corner for a reflective and restful cup of tea.

Black and white remain a reliable choice for kitchen walls and counters, and both black-and-white and all-white kitchens can be expected to remain popular for several more years. To take the best advantage of new technologies, however, treat yourself to exploring the full range of colors available in engineered quartz counter tops before making a predictable, safe choice. The mineral richness of dark greens or blues or the sandy beiges evoking a feeling of the tropics may turn out to be the choice you want to carry your renovation into the future.

The shape and size of counters is influenced by new trends in cooking technique. Generous dimensions let a cook do basic by-hand prep chores while leaving room for selected specialized equipment, the sous vide for one meal, the juicer and a vegetable shredder/slicer at the next. Slightly deeper, wider counters make this space-sharing easier. Amplify the utility of your counters with additional sinks; a deep one for flower-arranging, perhaps, or a broad one for large amounts of produce.  Extended counters make entertaining easy; consider counters at varying heights to accommodate seated guests as well as those getting drinks or choosing from the buffet.

Once you’ve made the big choices, the seeming mountain of detail between you and a completed renovation will shrink rapidly. Glass-fronted cupboard doors have turned out to require just as much cleaning as some homeowners feared, and buffed nickel fixtures have not gained interesting patina from frequent use. So solid doors and bright brass are back. Stencils, folk-art, patterned papers and most fabrics have drifted happily into other rooms, where they can be enjoyed with far less upkeep. Watchwords for 2018 kitchen renovation are: simplicity, efficiency, respect for materials and hospitable warmth. Picture your renovation as the opportunity to create a working household center that lets family members and friends ease away from the frantic daily pace, nourished by good food, good company and a beautiful place in which to relax and recharge.

The post 2018 Kitchen Renovation Trends appeared first on Granite and Quartz Countertop in Texas and Oklahoma | Allied Stone.

Source

https://www.alliedstoneinc.com/news/2018-kitchen-renovation-trends/

Your home is your castle and especially when it’s your own, it is something that you take immense pride in. People like to keep their homes clean and tidy and welcoming and accommodating to guests. They also like to add detail to their homes by putting pictures on walls, painting feature walls, adding an en-suite bathroom, building a walk-in-wardrobe and so on. However after some time, certain parts of the surroundings can become tired and dated somewhat and this is only natural as trends come and trends go. That might herald the time for changes to be made in terms of home improvements.

See 2017 Hedge Fund Letters.

A home improvement project can be small or large scale and sometimes it’s nice just to take on a small scale project. A small project could be as simple as choosing a wall for a selection of art or framed pictures; there would still be a lot of thought and effort required in choosing the layout, choosing the materials, choosing the actual art and/or photographs but the end result would be a beautiful addition to the property. A larger scale project could be something that requires renovation or extension of the home. This of course will likely require a substantial budget, good research and thoughtful planning.

It’s also absolutely imperative that people source and research only reputable contractors like builders, plasterers, plumbers and so on to complete the work; this is not only important in terms of quality of work but also quotations and pricing in this type of work can really vary. Sometimes sourcing reliable and trustworthy suppliers like these is easier said than done.

The first port of call people should make is to do some research online. Check out prospective contractors’ websites, read their reviews and testimonials and look at galleries of their work. However don’t simply trust the company’s own website, go to independent sources online like Google Reviews or the company’s Facebook page and look for comments from real customers and get a real feel for their level of service and care with their work; one could even go as far as asking a reviewer a specific question on a certain aspect of the work completed to get a real picture. On their website, the contractor has the ability to curate what they want you, as the prospective customer to see so it’s important to have your eyes fully open.

However either way, beginning your research online will help to get a good grounding of who is available and assist you in whittling down a list of prospective contractors. Then secondly, people should ask their friends and family for recommendations of people they have worked with in the past and who they are happy to recommend or who they would encourage you to stay away from working with too. They might also have some interesting and relevant pieces of advice as you undertake the work.

This infographic from the guys at Senator Windows includes some recommendations for apps that you can download to your phone or tablet and use for the home improvement project that you’re working on. They have broken it down into the various stages so for example, there are apps for the research phase of the project, apps for when you’re at the colour selection stage and so on. Check out the full details below.

Source

https://www.valuewalk.com/2018/03/apps-home-improvement-project-infographic/

This modern farmhouse kitchen renovation on a budget is crazy to me, and I’m absolutely in love. It’s like you just started dating a new kitchen and you’re getting all the butterflies in your stomach every time you see the new kitchen. Whatever that means.

Y’all! We have been working on our kitchen for almost two months! You know how long that feels like when you have little kids? An eternity! I shared the open shelving reveal last week, you can see them here… or just scroll down.

Shall we take a peak at the before pictures of our wonderful kitchen?

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It’s really hard to believe this is even the same space! Ain’t she a beaut? Yeah, not hardly. There were many things wrong with this dark and gloomy kitchen, including an oven the size of a child’s Easy Bake Oven. All the appliances (minus the dishwasher) were from 1978 and still in working condition (good grief, ugly appliances shouldn’t be lasting that long). But we really wanted to brighten and update the space, so we ended up replacing all of them. Not going to lie, there are still a few things that need to be done. A little caulk here and there,  some trim, but I just couldn’t help but show her off. 

How we updated the kitchen on a limited budget!

Let me just tell you, this project took twice as long as we expected and cost twice the amount we wanted to spend. Of course, there were setbacks and things that popped up that we weren’t anticipating, but that’s okay, because the results are still amazing on a pretty small budget. The average kitchen renovation costs between $22,000 and $52,000! We spent less than $7,000 with appliances included. We still need to purchase some bar stools for the peninsula, but they are not in the budget right now, so we will save up.

Paint!

We painted the shiplap and walls my favorite white. We also painted the cabinets a beautiful, dark, steel blue. Friends kept telling me it was going to be such a horrible job, but really, it wasn’t that bad. I was also hyped up on caffeine when I did it, sooo there’s that. Sanded, primed, and painted the cabinets with two coats of the blue. I purchased an awesome and cheap paint sprayer (similar to this one) and sprayed all the doors and used a foam roller on all the bases to get a super smooth finish. The new look was completed with new door hardware (these beautiful iron hardware). If you saw on stories, I hung the doors by myself during nap time. I balanced them with my foot as I screwed them in. You should use a second person, though…it won’t take as long that way.

We removed some of the upper cabinets because they weren’t all the same height, and we replaced them with open shelves. The other upper cabinets had glass fronts, and I wanted to hide some of our not-so-pretty kitchen things. So, we took out the glass and replaced it with some thin wood. Spray painted them with the same color white as the shiplap and put new hardware on them. ?

Installed shiplap as a backsplash!

I really wanted tile, but was scared to tackle this project myself, so we went with the next best thing (it was also free)… shiplap. We had shiplap in our garage that was being used as a wall divider, so we took it down, reinstalled it in the kitchen, and painted it.

New concrete countertops!

We went with concrete, because it was much less expensive than granite or quartz especially with the amount of counter space we have, but is still super durable and pretty. We went with an off-white grayish color. Our friend, Chris, from Arete Woodworking installed them, along with helping with other various things like installing the stainless steel range hood, faucet, and sink. We seriously couldn’t have done it without him, and he did such a wonderful job. We did end up having an issue with the sealer, so he sanded the whole thing down and reapplied a new epoxy. It’s basically a bar top epoxy and everrrrything just wipes off. It’s amazing.

The stainless steel sink (same one, but is the 28 inch) and the farmhouse oil rubbed bronze faucet were both a really great price, and I’m loving it. Deep sinks and awesome faucets are game changers. Sooo many dishes that I don’t want to wash can fit in there. Seriously, I had to take a few more photos for this post and it was after lunch, so the sink was FULL of dishes. Can you even tell? Nope! The sink bottom isn’t super sloped, so it can be challenging to get food down the disposal (especially when I’m trying not to get handsy with soggy plate scraps), but it doesn’t really bother me. We saved almost $200 from choosing these options, rather than name brands at a big box store.

New light fixtures!

The old light was a shop light… why, oh why, would someone install that inside a kitchen? We took it out and had electricians install these glass pendants and some can lights (the lights and the countertops were the most expensive parts since we didn’t DIY these).

Added Shelving!

There was a very outdated 70’s trash compactor that we removed, and in its place put shelving and baskets from Ikea (they are like $10 apiece – what a steal!). We wanted it to look like it was always there and not a random thought – which it kind of is – so we will eventually add molding to make it look like it was a built in.

Styled it pretty!

Y’all, it’s been ages since I decided to decorate anything. I blame it on lack of inspiration with our prior outdated 70’s rental. Nothing could help that poor soul. Anyway, I had a limited budget to decorate with, so we used most things we had laying around and ended up spending $68 on a few plants, some adorable pots, a bread box from World Market, and a vintage kitchen scale my husband found. Not too shabby.

I forgot to paint the wall back white… oops!

I painted this EAT sign blue, red, and green when we first got married seven years ago, and finally got around to updating the letters with a fresh coat of black paint.

How much did we end up spending?

We ended up spending probably a little under $7,000. A big chunk of it was the appliances (new fridge and range), the electrical, the countertops, and labor costs. The appliances alone were around $2,300, and they were on sale. We could’ve spent a lot less if we would’ve made cheaper decisions, were a little handier and could’ve handled a few more of the projects ourselves, or didn’t paint the walls multiple times (I didn’t end up liking the first color we chose, so we repainted) only to cover them up with shiplap… oops. So, if we didn’t have to buy appliances, it would’ve been close to $4,500, which is pretty darn good to me!

I’m really thrilled with how it turned out, and I love being in the kitchen. Don’t get me wrong, it definitely still has some quirks, but it brings such a calm and peaceful feeling being in the room. I love cooking and even cleaning my kitchen now – gasp! – because she is just so pretty! I’m so thankful and grateful for all our friends and family that helped us with this huge makeover. We literally couldn’t have done this without them!

What do y’all think?

Sources:

• Faucet
• Plates and bowls
• Cups
• Cow Creamer – Bed Bath and Beyond
• Pot with plant – Michaels

Source

http://ablossominglife.com/2018/03/kitchen-renovation-reveal.html

Source

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/home/how-to-set-your-budget-for-a-big-home-improvement-project/2018/03/26/acf2b7cc-2c7f-11e8-b0b0-f706877db618_story.html

sofa from Value City–not my first choice in style, but y’all it was less than $500! Check the clearance area! Ottoman from HomeGoods, rug from At Home

It’s not done yet, but if I waited until a room was finished before I shared it, I’d have one post a year here. If I’m lucky.

Our basement has been patiently waiting to be renovated since we moved into this fixer-upper almost 5 years ago.

There’s about 500 square feet of space that’s already heated and cooled (unlike our second story with our boy’s two bedrooms that has no heat or air). It’s a walkout basement that leads to our underporch out into the backyard. We also have a space under the stairs where one day we hope to put a bathroom.

Here’s the same wall 5 years ago when we moved in.

And the rest of the basement when we moved in. We donated that bar to our boy’s high school along with a huge fish tank that happens to fit on it perfectly–such a happy ending for a huge, ugly 1980’s bar, right?!

Drop ceiling, florescent lights, part carpet, part tile–the works!

Our basement had cinder block walls with thin paneling over it.

The ceilings are able to be about 7.5 feet high, and we covered every wall and the ceiling with luan, just like we did to our ceilings and to our bathroom walls.

Sean had to bring the ceiling down a little lower in the front of the room because of our huge stove hood exhaust pipes. But when you cover everything with paneling and wood trim, it ends up looking fine in the end.

This area in the photo above ends up becoming my office. You can see our furnace there, we couldn’t move it so that’s why my office is L shaped, so we could put walls around the furnace and not have to look at it. Plus, we had two load bearing columns that couldn’t move–they are hidden in the wall behind that black trash bag above.

Luan and can lights are up, the old tile is gone. Sean did most of the work for us, #thanktheLort

The floor tile is from Lowe’s Home Improvement. We used the same floors on our back porch, and bathrooms. Plus the basement opens up to our underporch and backyard and we have some slate and stone out there that works well with this tile.

Floors are down and still wet from being mopped!

Forgive all the crooked lines, if I don’t hold my camera just right, it looks like one of those optical illusion fun houses.

Anyway, that’s my little office back there. Tomorrow, I’ll give you a tour of my almost finished office space. It’s not got any windows but, right across from this entrance door is our double glass doors to the outside and lucky for me they are south-facing so even though it’s not ideal, it does get a surprising amount of light.

Here’s a little sneak peek while I was setting up my office. The chair is from At Home, the desk is Ikea, the laurel wreath is from HomeGoods and I spray painted it black. All the clipboards on the left each hold chapter ideas for my next book (not the one that comes out this fall, but book number THREE, oh my gosh!).

View to the underporch, backyard and pool…

Cray, cray right now, but still, you get the idea…

do you see Francie Cat up there?

Deciding what kind of bed to put here for guests–bunks? Full size frame for this mattress? Twin over full bunk bed (Edie calls those ‘mullet-beds’ ?). Also, I’ll be painting the piano–I’m thinking black.

Come back tomorrow for an office tour and giveaway!

Source

http://thenester.com/2018/03/our-basement-renovation-from-bad-to-glad.html

Source

https://creationsguyloup.com/great-kitchen-renovation-ideas-for-small-space/