As you probably know, kitchen renovations (renos) are major projects, and knowing where to start is one of the hardest parts. Before you begin your planning process and enter the beginning stages of completing a kitchen renovation, you need to know what exactly you hope to accomplish.
Plus, it’s always important to know your budget, so you know how much you can spend. Kitchen renos can be expensive, but it can be worth it when you resell your home – if it’s done well.
However, not everyone is going to look at the resale value of their home after remodeling a kitchen. You should do kitchen renovations because you want to do them and don’t think about what will happen after that.
Getting Started
To start, you should be asking yourself what kind of kitchen you’re wanting and then think about how you live your life. This is important to understand because it helps you figure out the majority of what you’ll need in a kitchen. For instance: if you hardly cook, do you need an expensive stovetop? Wouldn’t something cheaper work? If you host all of the family holidays and entertain a great deal, then your kitchen needs to reflect a larger gathering spot with a bunch of cooks in the kitchen.
Kitchens are the center of a home. This is true even if you hardly cook because the kitchen is where you’ll find a coffee pot, the refrigerator, and the microwave. It’s also where you’ll find the kitchen sink and water, so it only makes sense that almost every human need is located in the kitchen.
With all of this in mind, we’ve put together a list of some of the best kitchen reno ideas for your Ottawa dream home.
Countertops
Consider going with a quartz countertop. While you might get plenty of suggestions for granite, quartz offers a cleaner look and is indestructible. Quartz is a better option too because even when a house is new, it can look like its dated back about 20 years because of granite.
White Kitchens
A huge trend right now is having a white kitchen, but you might want to do this in smaller quantities. If you add a lighter mix of another color and white, it can help break up the hospital feel of the white in your kitchen. An example of this would have white cabinets that are connected to the wall and have gray cabinets on the island.
Using too much white can lead to people becoming disinterested in your kitchen, so consider mixing things up to make it more interesting. This is because people will start to look at the color combinations of hues and colors.
Remember also that having a completely white kitchen can be impossible to keep clean, especially if you have a large kitchen.
Lighting
The lighting in your kitchen is everything. It’s always everything, and this is especially true when dealing with kitchens because setting the mood using lighting makes a huge difference. Many people start kitchen renos and forget to consider the lighting in the design phase. However, if you have a good designer, they will ask you plenty of questions to gain a better understanding of how you live.
Lighting can set the mood when you come home and when you are entertaining family or friends.
The lighting of your kitchen should provide services and provide the work that it was intended for. Lighting should also create shadows and reflect off of prominent items that you’re hoping to enhance. A good example of this would be rock walls with tabletops along with having the lights reflect off your stainless-steel appliances.
Lighting should also be brought in with different colored light bulbs of blue, white, and yellow for different areas of the kitchen, as well as including different sized bulbs.
Be Mindful
The little things in your kitchen can have a great impact on your kitchen design. This idea comes back to designing your kitchen to match how you live. What is on your wish list, and what are your pressure points? The last thing that you want to have happen is getting cabinet hardware that is too flat and thin to grasp if your fingers are wet – which can also lead to you not being able to open the cabinet door. You also don’t want to have a kitchen faucet that doesn’t reach out far enough, so it splashes all over the counter top.
When designing your kitchen, make sure that you’re thinking about the things that would drive you crazy. Work with your designer throughout the building and renovation process to make sure that everything works well for you and your family. You can easily do this when you’re tearing apart your old kitchen because you can then write down things that drove you crazy.
Another thing that you should be mindful of is minimalism. Remember, just because you can do something doesn’t mean that you should. Think about adding some extra space to help make your kitchen feel more open and spacious, consider clean lines and smooth fronts.
Mix & Match
Try being bold with the unexpected in your kitchen reno. Mix things up with your cabinets and flooring and maybe get an interesting back splash. When you do these things, you create your design style.
You don’t have to feel boxed into mid-century modern, contemporary, or colonial looks in your design because it’s all about you. Don’t be afraid to mix and match in your kitchen because this is what makes your kitchen design yours.
So, when you’re getting ready to start designing your new kitchen, we hope that you’ll consider some of the ideas that we’ve given you in this article. If you’re ready to start designing and building your dream kitchen in your Ottawa home, consider working with Ottawa General Contractors. They are dedicated to building you a kitchen that matches your style and needs and is there to help throughout the entire process.