Is it time you made some improvements to your kitchen? Whilst kitchen renovations can be expensive, they can often add value to your home making them a worthy investment. In order to create the perfect kitchen, it’s important to get the right balance of style and practicality. Here are just a few tips to help improve your kitchen.
Fix up your floor
When planning your kitchen renovation, you may as well start from the ground up. People notice a shiny kitchen floor – if your current flooring has lost its sheen, decide whether it’s worth refinishing it or simply laying a new floor. Lino and vinyl are often the cheapest options, although both have slowly been going out of fashion. Laminated wood and sealed stone tiles can often offer a more long-lasting impact as they are less prone to damage. You can shop around for deals on flooring at sites like homeflooringpros.com.
Upgrade your countertops
If your countertops are looking a bit battered, it could also be time to upgrade these. There are a lot of different materials that you can use as a countertop. Luxury stone materials such as marble and granite remain trendy, although they are very expensive. Fortunately, there are now a number of artificial substitutes on the market that look the real deal whilst providing as good – if not better – durability. Laminated wood is also popular and can suit all kinds of kitchen styles from modern to rustic. You can often save money on countertops by shopping second-hand online – there are lots of practically brand new reclaimed countertops out there going cheap.
Tap into new technology
Taps have been taking on all kinds of new forms in the 21st Century. Pull-down taps are particularly trendy and can make washing up pots and cleaning the sink easier. Instant hot water taps meanwhile can provide you with a hot cup of tea or coffee in seconds. Sites like tapwarehouse.com stock all these types of tap. Make sure to factor in the price of installation when choosing a tap (instant water taps may require some additional plumbing costs).
Preserve the work triangle
When it comes to practicality, consider the layout of your kitchen. The work triangle is commonly accepted as the most sensible layout – it involves forming a triangle with the refrigerator, oven and sink so that you can easily switch between the three. You don’t have to adopt this layout, but you may find that disrupting it negatively impacts your workflow. Besides, moving these fixtures and appliances around can be unnecessarily expensive – relocating a sink or an oven requires extra plumbing that will most definitely require a professional.
Protect your walls
It’s worth considering the walls above your countertops. These can often get covered in food, so it’s worth adopting tiles or adding a splashback to make cleaning easy. Older kitchens used to rely on painted plaster or wallpaper, but such décor has fallen out of flavour and is generally regarded as not very practical. On average, splashbacks tend to be cheaper than tiles, although tiles can often have more classic feel that is better suited to older properties.
Add more lighting
Brightening up your kitchen can make it look more attractive as well as making preparing meals easier. Many kitchens are gloomy due to countertops and cabinets taking priority over space for windows. If you can’t install extra windows, you can always install extra artificial lighting. Track lighting can be a great way of illuminating all corner of the room by positioning multiple lights facing different ways along a single track on the ceiling. Spot lighting is more expensive, but it could be more effective at brightening up any alcoves or corners in your kitchen. Some homeowners may be able to consider the option of a skylight – this is a window in the roof that allows natural light to flood in from above, but it does require your kitchen to not have another room above it.
Go green with appliances
When choosing to update kitchen appliances, it’s worth considering the energy efficiency. Many modern appliances use up very little energy compared to older appliances – whilst you may save money by buying someone’s used refrigerator for cheap, you could possibly save money in the long run by buying a new modern one. Sites like energy.gov offer some great information on energy-efficient appliances. Gas ovens tend to be less costly to run than electric ones, but you may well prefer the convenience of electric cooking.
Don’t sacrifice storage
When redesigning your kitchen, be careful of sacrificing cupboard space. Having lots of storage is always handy – even if you’ve got free space at the moment, there may be a day when you need it for your growing glass collection or perhaps to store an appliance such as slow cooker or blender when not in use. Having lots of storage will also potentially be good for the value of your home.
Keep a colour scheme
The kitchen is one of the few rooms where you can get away with being fairly matchy-matchy – the classic all-red kitchen is still very much in vogue. Alternatively, you may want to keep things neutral with whites and greys, or you may want to stick to natural wood colours. Whatever the case, try to stick to some kind of scheme to give your kitchen a sense of harmony. Avoid using multiple shades of wood or clashing bright colours.
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