Archive for the ‘Kitchens’ Category

Five Great Kitchen Addition Ideas

The kitchen is a central living space in our homes. We spend a lot of time in the kitchen cooking, gathering, feeding our families, and visiting. Here are five popular kitchen additions and upgrades that will add convenience, comfort and beauty to your home.

1. Cabinet Organizers and Lazy Susans

How often do you find yourself rummaging through your kitchen cabinets for that skillet or sauce pan that just seems to have disappeared? And where’s that favorite utensil that you haven’t been able to track down for months? Must be hiding in the back of one of your cabinets somewhere. And be honest, would you pull out the Cuisinart more often if you didn’t have to get on the floor on your hands and knees to dig it out of the cabinet?

Cabinet with lazy susan installed

You can greatly improve convenience in your kitchen with cabinet organizers and lazy susans that make your cabinet interiors visually accessible and easily reachable.

Cabinet with lazy susan open for easy accessThese storage enhancements make it simple to see what you do and don’t have, and you no longer have to pull everything out of a cabinet to get at an item that’s hiding all the way in the back. (more…)

Kitchen Remodels Dos and Don’ts

Kitchen remodels remain one of the most popular home remodeling projects that homeowners undertake. In 2004, admittedly at the height of the recent housing boom, Americans spent more than $10.5 billion remodeling their kitchens. With the current downturn in the economy, the spending on remodeling is returning to more traditional levels of 5% a year.

While homeowners may be getting more cautious given the current market conditions, kitchen remodels still remain a key area of focus for homeowners looking to improve the beauty, functionality and value of their home.

Your kitchen can be one of the more expensive projects. You’ve seen some of the very extravagant kitchen upgrades in home decor and designer magazines. These high-end kitchen remodels can cost as much as $100,000 or more. While beautiful to admire, that’s probably beyond the budget of most Americans looking to improve their kitchen.

If you’re considering a kitchen upgrade, here are a few ways to get the most for your money.

Always start with a plan. According to a recent Consumer Reports Survey, people who did less homework before they began their home-improvement projects reported more problems. Nearly 25% of the over 2,000 homeowners surveyed said they wished they had done more research or chosen a professional contractor more carefully. One of the more common complaints was that the job wasn’t finished on time.
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