Ten Mistakes to Avoid when Designing Your Kitchen.

1. Make sure there is enough light both natural and electric. Remember dark cabinets and tops will make the kitchen look darker so you need to compensate with lighting.
2. Do not try to put every feature you see in magazines into the project. Often less is more. A few well placed design features will work better than too many features in not enough space.
3. Plan eating space for your family as it is and as it might be. If family is not complete or if you have elderly parents moving in with you make sure you plan the space.
4. In addition to providing enough cabinet space make sure you design for even sized doors. We once had a customer select cabinet sizes for a laminate door and wood frame. They filled up the space to fit the storage they anticipated. Each door was a different size and the cabinets looked like a UPC symbol.
5. If you are in a northern climate and moving the plumbing make sure any plumbing along an outside wall is properly insulated.
6. Make sure any walls you remove are not structural!
7. If you decide to replace sliding glass doors with Dutch doors make sure you have the space to open into the room without hitting the table. Even if you are not changing the door plan for the kitchen table and chairs. Make sure you have room to place the chairs and sit at the table.
8. Plan for the stove exhaust vent. It is much better to vent to outside than use a re-circulating fan with a charcoal filter but if the stove is on an interior wall you need to plan on how you will route the vent; through the cabinets and loose space, up to a soffit or down through basement or crawl space. Down flow vents tend to be very inefficient.
9. Plan at least three feet of circulating space around all islands and features. Make sure the door on that beautiful oversize refrigerator you selected will work comfortably with the circulation space.
10. Plan your budget and down time. If you plan on eating out during the construction add it to your budget. If you are doing it yourself double the time you think it will take… maybe triple.