Food for Thought with Alex Bielak- Top 10 Do's and Don'ts for your Kitchen Renos

The Top Ten Do’s and Don’ts for Your Kitchen Reno

Thinking of re-doing your kitchen? Then here are the top ten things you should consider to save your sanity as well as some dollars. Rest assured you’re not just getting my views; I solicited input from some of the kitchen designers, countertop specialists and cabinet builders at the Fall Home Show and Sale in Hamilton last weekend. I also checked in with the designer of our own kitchen, and asked our long-time handyman and house reno consigliere, Mark Gilroy of Marx Group, for his top do or don’t do item when he dropped over to do some work at our place.

We re-did our kitchen a few years back. It’s awesome, and as soon as we had the butcher-block island countertop installed, it shifted the centre of the house. The kids immediately started to hang out and do homework in the warm, renovated bright space while we made supper. It was money well spent, but we learned some hard lessons along the way, not least when the company we hired to do the work began to go bankrupt. (They’re back in business in the same location but under a different name, so, as always, buyer beware. And yes we had checked references before we signed the contract. And yes contact me directly and I’ll tell you the whole story.)

So here’s the top ten:

1. Unless you have money to burn, you want to do the reno once and forever. Elysha Cesar, the designer for
Hampton Kitchens in Hamilton, advises “going with a timeless look” and avoiding anything trendy in terms of colour and style as you’ll be seeking to replace it soon. “Consider the usage,” said our trusted handyman, Mark. “Is the kitchen something you use all the time or once in a blue moon: is the new one going to stand for a hundred years, or will it be something that will be torn down?”

2. Think of the kitchen design in terms of verbs rather than nouns. What will you be doing in your kitchen? How do you like to cook? Do you like an audience and to be social? Do you roll out a lot of pastry? Rick Walker, President of Stoney Creek’s ACF Surfaces, who works with Cesar and specializes in countertops and sinks, advises that “Ideally you should get some-one who is a certified kitchen designer” to help you. “They do a better job than someone who just builds cabinets”, he said, adding that the National Kitchen and Bath Association has lists of such individuals in your area. Cesar adds that it is critical your designer be someone you enjoy dealing with, as a kitchen reno is a long process. 

So true: when we rebuilt our kitchen we were less than impressed with the folks who started off by telling us about design flourishes on various columns, and went with the designer who came, had a glass of wine and watched me cook in my old kitchen before making any suggestions. It turns out Art Warren (now at The Kitchen Gallery in Oakville) was one of only four Master Kitchen and Bath Designers in all of Canada at the time. (There are now about double that number Art told me when I re-connected with him for this piece.)

3. Shelli Nowak, who is a designer with Burlington-based The Wright Kitchen, notes “The quality of the material is key. It is better to use wooden construction rather than melamine. Dove-tailed joints rather than staples. Doing a kitchen is a large investment and it will have a much longer life if you use durable material.”

For instance we discovered cabinet finishes come in a vast array of colours and grades: You might pick one from what’s on offer, only find out too late that it was custom and you could have chosen something perfectly acceptable, in a similar shade to that “mottled ivory duck egg” your partner coveted, for far less. That said, while picking a standard, rather than custom, colour can save you a fair bit of cash, make sure the finish is waterproof and easy to clean.

4. Don't demolish anything till you have the cabinets on hand. Despite promises, our cabinets were delayed for several weeks because of our nascent wrangle with the contractor, and then caught in the August holiday construction industry doldrums. If we were ever to do it again, we’d ensure the cabinets were in our garage before the sledge hammers came out.

5. “A kitchen counter can make or break a kitchen” said Douglas Jones, President of Ancaster’s CRS Granite who use thin granite slices to overlay existing counters for a cost-effective alternative to installing a new full-thickness top. While many will want some kind of granite or facsimile stone in a renovated kitchen, I suggest you consider mixing it up with butcher block, particularly for any countertop where people will sit. It’s much warmer on your elbows and more forgiving when glasses topple over! It builds up a beautiful patina with time and, if you actually cut on it (we don’t) or it gets scratched, can be easily refinished by sanding. 

If you are putting in granite elsewhere, enquire about salvaging any "waste" cut outs from your sink to use as inlays in the wood (see photos). We use ours to rest dirty spoons next to the cooktop. And we also acquired a couple of (heavy) cheese plates... Speaking of which, we recently noticed a catering company using these “waste” granite pieces as hot plates. They propped up the stone slab on flower pots and put a heating cans underneath. They said the granite will usually crack and be destroyed after a few uses like this, but granite companies seem to have a never ending supply of these little pieces and are evidently willing to part with the scrap. Back to the list…

6. A glass/mirror backsplash is easy to install and keep clean (really!) Not only were the savings over tile considerable – critical when our contractor began not paying his trades, but the kitchen appears bigger and brighter. (Again, see the pictures for what I mean.)

7. “Don’t rush it and make decisions just to make a decision” counsels Art Warren. Though we liked and spent a lot of time with him, with so many options available, one of the hasty decisions we made was where to put our spice cupboard. It ended up in a slide-out vertical cupboard next to the dishwasher. There it was too low to easily find things, and the heat from the appliance was not good for our herbs. It was minor in the scheme of things, but in hindsight we should have put more thought into it because it became a source of ongoing irritation. (The issue was eventually resolved by my putting some nifty IKEA spice jar inserts in a more easily accessible drawer. I know, first world problems…)

8. Don’t skimp on the BTUs. For instance, if you cook a lot using a wok ensure you get the most powerful elements or burners available on your new range. Conversely your stove should also be up to the task of keeping things at the gentlest simmer.

9. Renovating in the summer is easier than doing it when it is cold outside. We were able to set up our “camp kitchen” in the laundry room and cook anything we needed on the barbeque.

And finally, probably the most important thing you must know is:

10. It will cost more and take longer!

Let me repeat that. It WILL cost more and it WILL take longer! “You need to expect the unexpected,” says Sarah Parker, kitchen designer with Kitchens Inc, a Brantford-based full-service kitchen and bath renovation company. “Things crop up. You open a wall and there are pipes where you didn’t expect them and they have to be moved.”

Been there, done that. Here’s hoping these tips give you food for thought, and help you avoid some pitfalls as you build the kitchen of your dreams.

To see more pictures, click here. 

Alex (Alex can be reached at fft@thehamiltonian.info ) or on twitter @AlexBielak

Food for Thought logo, designed and kindly donated by Ninka Bielak. Ninka can be reached at ninka.bielak@gmail.com.