The kitchen is the heartbeat of every home.
Almost universally the most used space in any home, our kitchens are where we prepare meals but they are also where people gather together to connect with one another, too.
This is the space where we have breakfast with our loved ones before we start the day.
This is the space where we entertain our guests, welcoming them into our home with so much more than food and drink.
It’s where we entertain, where we make a lifetime of memories, and where we find ourselves drawn to day after day.
It should come as no surprise, then, that the kitchen is maybe the most renovated space in a home (ranking right up there with bathrooms and master bedrooms).
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If you’re going to be tackling a kitchen renovation you’ll really appreciate the inside information we share below.
These are the seven things you should be thinking about when remodeling your kitchen, helping you turn your dream kitchen into your everyday reality.
Let’s dig right in!
1. Focus on Flow Before Anything Else
The layout of your kitchen space will make or break how you use this room from here on out.
Nothing (literally nothing) is more important than getting the flow of your kitchen right as you go through the design process.
You need to know how you’re going to move through the space, how each countertop connects with one another, where your storage is, where your major appliances are, and how you can use the space to prepare meals and to entertain all at the same time.
This is definitely going to be the most challenging part of any kitchen renovation.
But when you get it right everything else just sort of falls into place!
2. Upgrade Your Electrical ASAP
Plenty of people tackling a kitchen renovation know how important it is to upgrade their plumbing, to move their natural gas lines for their stove, and spend a lot of time thinking about cabinets and countertops.
But not enough people think about how much a modern kitchen demands from your electrical system.
You’ll need to make sure that your new kitchen is fully up to code, that all of your outlets are protected with GFCI technology, and that your electrical components are intelligently laid out to provide easy access without ever causing safety hazards at the same time.
This is a big piece of the puzzle you’ll want to get right but one that is often overlooked. Don’t make that same mistake!
3. Ventilation is Key, Too
It’s one thing to have a poorly ventilated kitchen that pushes the smell of fresh baked apple pie throughout your home for days on end and something else entirely for that same poorly ventilated kitchen to flood your home with the smell of French onion soup or roasted garlic.
Ventilation system should be smartly designed to move air out of your kitchen efficiently, not just to clear away the smell of cooking (though that’s a great reason in of itself) but also to eliminate a lot of excess heat as well.
If you’ve ever done a lot of stovetop cooking or baking in the summer you know exactly how unpleasant things can get without the right ventilation.
Square that away early in your plans and you’ll be good to go.
4. How Do You Want Your Storage Setup?
No matter how large or spacious your kitchen is or how intelligently you layout your cabinets there’s never going to be enough storage in your kitchen.
The world’s largest kitchens still end up feeling tightly packed and claustrophobic.
That’s just the nature of the beast. We love to fill our kitchens with all kinds of stuff, and if there’s even a square inch of space available will find a way to overload it.
At the same time this doesn’t mean you should ignore planning your storage as intelligently as possible.
Take advantage of all available real estate to put cabinets and storage solutions in your kitchen.
But also look for creative ways to maximize the space you’re working with (especially as far as vertical space and your walls are concerned).
5. Flooring Should Be Beautiful and Practical
The flooring you choose for your kitchen is going to make a statement no matter what.
Ideally it is going to be absolutely gorgeous, contributing a lot to the aesthetic and style of your kitchen – but hopefully it is practical, too.
The most beautiful flooring in the world in your kitchen isn’t going to be all that great if it’s slick or slippery, especially when ingredients accidentally get dropped while preparing meals or dessert.
You want something strong, something durable, and something that will last and last without a lot of wear and tear.
Like we mentioned earlier, the kitchen is going to get a lot of foot traffic on a day-to-day basis.
Thanks to today’s flooring options (especially in the engineered and synthetic wood departments) finding that perfect balance between beauty and practicality is a lot easier now than ever before.
6. Laser in on Lighting
A dark kitchen is anything but cozy or inviting, that’s for sure.
But at the same time, an overly well lit kitchen is going to feel pretty sterile and uncomfortable, too.
Just like flooring, you want to strike the perfect balance between practicality (being able to see everything in your kitchen clearly) and aesthetics (adding the right amount of light to boost the mood in this space).
Think about the interplay between natural light from any windows or skylights and artificial light and the positioning of those lights around the room.
It’ll take a little bit of figuring at first to get the perfect balance, but when you hit that sweet spot your kitchen renovation design goes to the next level.
7. Details Make or Break Every Kitchen Design
Finally, the details of your kitchen renovation are going to make or break the way this space feels more than anything else.
Everything needs to flow, everything needs to look cohesive, and everything should look neat and refined.
Focus on the details (from the way things are laid out down to the hardware you put on your cabinets and everything in between) and it’s not hard to breathe life into your dream kitchen with this kind of renovation project!