Design2Share, home decorating, interior design, garden tips and resources

Q: What Should I Change & Update In My Kitchen?

Kitchen remodeling jobs often provide strong returns on investment. But where should you start and what projects should you undertake when facing an intrusive gut-job or (at the very least) an inconvenience for your family during a kitchen makeover? Irwin and Nicola demystify this process in the latest Design2Share Q&A episode. Their tips and advice cover the importance of kitchens as the heart and gathering place for the home, how to make a multi-functional kitchen plan, ways to use open plan layouts to help tie in kitchen decor with adjacent rooms, the average costs for remodeling, specific details you can change or refresh to achieve more impact on a limited budget, appliances that will help you achieve a better look, and the welcome groundswell for using eco-friendly building materials and recycling in your kitchen project. Finally, our Tip2Share" segment recommends new resources that won't strain the environment. Go green!

Update on November 15, 2009 by

Design2Share

Kitchen Favorites

Kitchens are changing every day. As the heart of the family home, it's become a gathering spot for conversation, doing homework, playing games, watching TV, and . . . oh, yes, even eating. The hot trend in kitchens is to incorporate more of a "living room" experience into the traditional kitchen footprint, to make this a bigger hangout area meeting multiple purposes than solely food storage, food prep, and eating. Here are some Design2Share kitchen faves to consider when remodeling your existing kitchen or building a new one.

The Fisher & Paykel Energy Star Double DishDrawer dishwasher (above) is one of many two-drawer dishwashers that make life easier for families -- or people who like to entertain. Easy to program, you run double loads or clean only the drawer that you can fill.

Valcucine creates modular kitchen systems (see examples above) that are beautifully designed and -- big bonus -- are created with eco-friendly materials in processes that minimize environmental impact. You need to consider both when designing your kitchen, and Valcucine has the added bonus of designing systems that integrate everyday life and multi-tasking into the kitchen (see examples below of cabinetry which allows appliances to disappear and kitchens to take on a different feel).

Chef. Check out the How to Green Your Kitchen checklist from the good folks at TreeHugger and get some great tips.

New Retro Dining has US-made products that are true throwbacks to Happy Days, perfect for updating a classic mid-century kitchen. Shown above are elements of their Malibu Series line.

The Miele Convection Plate Warmer slots in well with most any wall oven footprint, and it's a nifty addition to the high-end kitchen.

Today's kitchen is all about convenience, and Liebherr has two solutions (above) to quench your thirst. Their 24-inch Under Counter Beverage Center (top) stores a variety of chilled wines and other drinks; the 24-inch Built In 56 Bottle Wine Cabinet (bottom) has many advanced cooling and storage features for your fine wines. Both units are easy to install because of their front-end ventilation through the toe-kick base.

We've recommended a number of wonderful, high-quality cabinetmakers to our D2S visitors in the past; enter "kitchen cabinets" in our D2S Search window to access these resources. It's important in the traditional kitchen to go with great cabinets. Cheap fixes will cost you more in the long run. Pictured above is a great example of quality cabinet work from Absolute Kitchen and Bath Marketplace in Surrey, Maine. Check out their Superior Construction Checklist to help you select quality cabinets that will stand up to the test of time.