Thursday
Apr222010
Kitchen Plans
Thursday, April 22, 2010 at 04:32PM When my wife and I purchased our home 20 years ago the kitchen was a disaster. As I am an ex-professional chef, that was a big deal.
We loved the house otherwise, and quickly hired a contractor to redo the kitchen. The contractor, all smiles and promises, took our money and promptly declared bankruptcy. We lost the entire down-payment we’d given him and learned an expensive lesson.
So we scraped together more funds and did a lower-cost renovation so we at least ended up with a working kitchen. That was 18 years ago.
As we looked around, we realized that it was time to finally build the kitchen of our dreams. These days contractors are looking for work and you can get fantastic prices. As we’d had a good experience with Home Depot’s construction service when upgrading a bathroom, we decided to have them do the kitchen work.
So I began to dream, make some sketches and decide what I wanted. It’s been a blast. Over the past month or so I’ve been working with the designer assigned to our project and the job should be done by summer.
We’re doing a total makeover. All new appliances, counters, etc. Even going to upgrade some of my tools to the current “in” stuff among the foodie set. I’m embracing the “Open Kitchen” concept in this renovation, which means that instead of hiding stuff inside of cabinets, you “show what you have.” Knives are displayed on a magnetic wall rack, pots are displayed on a pot rack, tools are displayed in racks designed to hold them, etc. Instead of upper cabinets, there are open shelves. Exactly as you’d find in a professional kitchen at a good restaurant.
Totally looking forward to having this done, even though the construction is never fun to live through. More later....
We loved the house otherwise, and quickly hired a contractor to redo the kitchen. The contractor, all smiles and promises, took our money and promptly declared bankruptcy. We lost the entire down-payment we’d given him and learned an expensive lesson.
So we scraped together more funds and did a lower-cost renovation so we at least ended up with a working kitchen. That was 18 years ago.
As we looked around, we realized that it was time to finally build the kitchen of our dreams. These days contractors are looking for work and you can get fantastic prices. As we’d had a good experience with Home Depot’s construction service when upgrading a bathroom, we decided to have them do the kitchen work.
So I began to dream, make some sketches and decide what I wanted. It’s been a blast. Over the past month or so I’ve been working with the designer assigned to our project and the job should be done by summer.
We’re doing a total makeover. All new appliances, counters, etc. Even going to upgrade some of my tools to the current “in” stuff among the foodie set. I’m embracing the “Open Kitchen” concept in this renovation, which means that instead of hiding stuff inside of cabinets, you “show what you have.” Knives are displayed on a magnetic wall rack, pots are displayed on a pot rack, tools are displayed in racks designed to hold them, etc. Instead of upper cabinets, there are open shelves. Exactly as you’d find in a professional kitchen at a good restaurant.
Totally looking forward to having this done, even though the construction is never fun to live through. More later....
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