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The design of a kitchen remodel is, for lots of people, the most satisfying and fun part of the process. While it is achievable to design a pleasant, elegant kitchen on your own, you may in addition want to consider hiring an expert to help you with your design. A specialist can provide you with many ideas and introduce you to new products while staying true to the spirit of your original design vision. Whether you decide to do all the plan work yourself, or hire a professional, there are some things to think about that will get you released not off course for your kitchen remodel.

The skill of kitchen design is intricately associated with how you will be utilizing the space. The old saying, form follows function, has a lot of truth to it. Design is not only about how things look, but how things are used. And while most of us certainly start our dreams of a new design for our kitchen with visions of a particular look in mind, space planning is every bit important.

What To Consider In Kitchen Remodeling Design

The kitchen is frequently referred to as the heart of the home, and many different pursuits happen there besides cooking. You may routinely linger with a cup of coffee and the morning newspaper, or feed your family breakfast before they dash out the door. Your kids may like to do their homework while you cook in the evenings, or maybe you and your spouse share cooking duties. Perhaps you regularly host large gatherings, or cook for intimate dinner parties. All these various activities will impact your kitchen design, and it is essential to consider them as you set about planning. You will likewise want to ponder storage space as you plot your design. Do you routinely have trouble finding space for all your pots and pans? Is there enough room for every relative to sit around the nook? All of these space-use issues and any other problems you have with your current kitchen design should be noted. You may wish to speak to each member of the family unit and see what their concerns about using space are.

How To Do Kitchen And Bathroom Remodeling

Once you’ve made a directory of problems to correct in your new plan, the fun part of kitchen remodel design begins, as you make alternatives about cabinetry, flooring, countertops, and lighting. All of these design elements need to work together to establish a coherent design, but that’s not challenging to accomplish with the range of products accessible today.

There are a multitude of cabinet options, starting with your choice of wood or laminate. If you pick out wood, you’ll need to decide what form-oak or cherry or birch? And then there are door styles-plain, curved, recessed panel, arched? With flooring you need to take into account not only looks but durability and ease of cleaning. Countertops must be robust and durable, and with the variety of organic and man-made options today, your design can pair beauty with easy maintenance. Lighting is in addition intimately paired with space issues in your design-are there places in your present kitchen where you need more light? Is the preparation area currently too dark? Perhaps you want recessed or track lighting to increase the brightness, or maybe you like a refined chandelier.

Remodeling Your Kitchen

Begin with these considerations of space and use as you ponder your kitchen design and the rest will naturally wall into place. Your kitchen design will not only be an item of beauty, it will also be a functional, efficient space.

How to Install a Low-flow Faucet Aerator

You may have noticed a new trend lately in going green, but this choice doesn’t have to put you in the poor house. It can be as boring as putting a $2.99 add on to your faucet. Remember, it’s easy to make more expensive mistakes if you don’t spend some time on research. Many manufacturers label their product as “earth friendly” or “green” but there are no government standards in place currently to define what makes an item eco-friendly or not.

Follow these 5 tips to assist you on your journey to create a kitchen that will save you money, give you a fresh new look, & save the world all at once:

1. Buy a low-flow water faucet/aerator

• Why: A shiny new faucet is a simple upgrade, but kitchen faucets can vary from 1.5 – 4 gallons per minute in water flow. Low-flow bathroom faucets with the Environmental Protection Agency’s new WaterSense label are about 30 percent more efficient than older models.

• Simple Eco Upgrade: Until the government comes up with some industry standard for low-flow kitchen faucets, for $3 to $11 you can make most new or existing taps more efficient simply by attaching an aerator. These devices save water, and lower utility bills as well, because less hot water is used. Because of this, low-flow aerators will typically pay you back in about 90 days.

• Cons: With lower flow, it might take a bit longer to fill that 2 gallon pot for spaghetti night.

• Suggested Purchase: Look for a gallon per minute rating of less than 2 gallons per minute or GPM (some are as high as 4 GPM). Many Kohler models offer an aerator that can reduce the GPM rate by about 25 percent. When buying aerators, keep in mind, some of them are available with more than one water speed setting. Keep the aerator on the slow speed when using the sink for typical use and set it to high speed to fill up big pans with water. Another green choice is a hands-free faucet, like the Danze Parma D421058, $480 or other low-flow Danze faucets.

• Keep in Mind: When you find a faucet that fits your budget and style, make sure it has a lifetime warranty that covers stains and water-wasting leaks. Also, some kitchen aerators will allow you to flip between two flow rates without affecting the water temperature

2. Switch to low wattage lighting

• Why: Modern kitchens can use up to 2,000 watts for lighting (especially track lighting) because standard incandescent, halogen, and xenon lights are energy vacuums. All that burning heat from your inefficient lights might motivate you to turn down the A/C to keep the room cool.

• Simple Eco Upgrade: Switch to cool-burning compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) in your fixtures, and also consider adding some LED or fluorescent under cabinet task lighting. This easy fix costs about $199 for 5 fluorescent fixtures.

• Cons: A handful of CFLs and LEDs cast a bluish or other odd color light. Before you buy, ask if you can return the fixture if you don’t like the way the light looks with your décor. On second thought, try the light in the store or tip an associate for their personal recommendation.

• Suggested Purchase: Strips are the most common type of task lighting, round “hockey puck” lights are best for casting pools of light onto a counter and linear lights are best if you need more versatile fixtures. Both round “puck” lights and linear lights can be discovered with LEDs.

• Keep in Mind: If your cabinets don’t have a built-in valence to hide task lighting, either add one or choose a fixture with a sleek housing that’s not as noticeable.

3. Install a ceiling fan

• Why: Kitchens get hot, and if you use an air conditioner to cool things off, it will gobble up a lot of energy and money.

• Simple Eco Upgrade: A ceiling fan in the kitchen will use only a fraction of the electricity that an A/C would.

• Cons: Aesthetics, few people have ceiling fans in kitchens for a reason, it doesn’t usually look good.

• Suggested Purchase: There are a number of great models from Hampton Bay, Harbor Breeze, and Hunter, and most circulate air about the same. So rather than shop for a particular brand, go for a style you like and remember that lighting affects energy use.

• Keep in Mind: You might be able to find CFLs designed for ceiling fans that can replace the original bulbs and save energy. You need to remember CFLs on the market now don’t function correctly with fans that have light dimmers.

4. Refurbish with second hand materials

• Why: A new countertop or cabinet face can change the whole look of your kitchen, but producing them keeps coal power plants polluting the air and some “earth friendly” materials aren’t as green as they might seem.

• Simple Eco Upgrade: Before you buy new, see if you can find used materials.

• Suggested Purchase: Salvage shops are stocked with new or lightly used stone countertops, hardwood flooring, decorative lumber, and kitchen cabinets, so they’re a great place to look for bargains. Even better, Habitat for Humanity sells used and surplus building materials at outlets called ReStores.

• Keep in Mind: If you will buy brand new, at least search for greener cabinets and other products made from sustainable lumber and materials.

5. Trade in/Sell the biggest energy hogs

• Why: The appliances in your kitchen that take the most energy to operate are refrigerators and dishwashers. The more geriatric these appliances are, the less energy efficient they are and the more expensive they are to run.

• Simple Eco Upgrade: Only open the doors when you know what you want. Open fridges are the biggest energy hogs so don’t waste time & energy browsing with the door open. Typically, it’s not cost effective to replace working inefficient appliances with brand new ones. But when you choose to update, search for models that require less energy & are quieter. Yes, energy efficient models cost more BUT, you’ll recover the investment as your utility bills decrease.

• Suggested Purchase: Look for appliances that are Energy Star qualified. These ENERGY STAR qualified refrigerators need only half as much energy as models manufactured before 1993. Also ENERGY STAR qualified refrigerator models use high efficiency compressors, improved insulation, and more exact temperature and defrost mechanisms to increase energy efficiency. Switching out a dishwasher manufactured before 1994 with an ENERGY STAR approved dishwasher can save you more than $30 a year in utility costs. These also use significantly less H20 than conventional models. If not on city septic, this can also help extend the life of your septic tank.

• Keep in Mind: You don’t have to get rid of all the old appliances at once. Start with the ones that are the biggest energy hogs. It’s logical to replace them when repairs would cost more than 50% of a new appliance.

If this is all seems complicated some online retailers make it easier for you such as Designer Plumbing Outlet with the help of Site Search technology by SLI Systems. When looking for kitchen items on their e-commerce store you can easily refine your search by “Eco-Friendly” results. This helps simplify your search and makes going green even easier when buying new.