Top 5 Kitchen Renovation Prep Questions
Unless you’re a contractor you will be hiring professionals to help to redesign and renovate your kitchen. Regardless of how involved you plan to be in these processes you will definitely have some planning and deciding in your future. Some of those questions can be a bit more involved and harder to answer than you might expect. In this week’s post we cover the top questions professionals will ask you when you’re hiring a Kitchen Remodel team.
Designing a new kitchen or remodeling your existing kitchen will be an involved and time consuming project. The more questions you can answer up front will cut down on excess costs and delays. Below we list the top 10 questions that professionals will ask when you start shopping for Designers/Contractors. We even include a standard Kitchen Design Questionnaire to help save you time and energy in the early stages of this process.
Why Are You Renovating Your Kitchen?
Your answer to this question might be very common, but there are 4 common answers to this question. Your response tells your team how to approach the overall design and the level of stylistic creativity to expect.
Renovate For Resale
How updated a kitchen is can drastically affect a home’s price-tag and how long a home stays on the market. If you are looking to simply upgrade an older kitchen and make it look a bit more modern, your General Contractor will be able to help you find the most cost effective way to do this.
If, on the other hand, you want to do a top-of-the-line Kitchen Renovation to get top dollar out of your home, this is a different approach. The best General Contractors will know what fetches the highest resale value in your area. That doesn’t mean what appliances and materials are most expensive. Rather, if your renovation team is worth your money they will know which appliances and finishes will last the new homeowners 10-20 years.
Time to Update and Upgrade
Most often on the front end of purchasing a home with a somewhat outdated kitchen, we see these full kitchen upgrades occur. This means more than new kitchen cabinets, with or without custom cabinet fronts, and countertops. Usually, these require new appliances, an updated kitchen layout, and all new finishes and fixtures.
If the kitchen wasn’t redone in anticipation of the sale, there can be a number of surprises in store for the new homeowner. These Kitchen Renovation usually accompany Full Home Renovation as there are often issues of bringing wiring and plumbing up to code.
A Growing Household
This is a common answer that leads to quite a few important questions. There are numerous ways a household can grow. When they do, the household’s kitchen and dining space needs to keep up with their needs. From a design perspective, those kitchen & dining needs grow exponentially with each added member of the household. The age and needs of those new members will impact the approach to the form and function of the new kitchen design.
To Honor Someone
More frequently than some might expect, a homeowner will redesign a kitchen to honor a loved one that has passed away. In these instances the new kitchen design is meant to replicate an old design from a previous home through layout, finishes, or both. This requires that the Design & Remodel team be able to be supportive and insightful: applying practical updates to the design that still create the desired look and feel of the thoughtful design.
What Is Your Kitchen Redesign Budget?
Knowing what your budget is a primary question that both you and your team need to work out at the beginning of the project. Knowing that construction costs have risen significantly over the last 5 years, it is important to know if those increases will affect the scope of the project.
With Kitchens being the heart of every home you can rest assured that every dollar spent is an investment into the overall value of the home. This is why there are so many home improvement financing options available to homeowners.
What Is Your Kitchen Remodel Timeline?
This is where planning ahead really pays off. The changes to supply chain functionality and material distribution has affected the entire construction industry. What once took 3 months to plan and schedule for can now take 4 to 6 months. It’s not that all materials are backlogged or have increased in price. Rather, highly sought after items like certain appliances, IKEA cabinet boxes, plumbing & lighting fixtures, are still experiencing slow distribution.
Supply chain issues cause delays for not just your project, not just multiple projects for your contractors, but a lot of the construction projects in your area. Whether you are taking on a Full Home Renovation or Kitchen Remodel it is best to map out your needs and start shopping for your team as soon as possible.
What Do You Need In Your New Kitchen?
What are you certain that you want to see in your new kitchen? Are there specific brands or types of kitchen appliances you have in mind? Do you know exactly what kinds of kitchen cabinets you want? Will your new design include a kitchen island? Are there specific traditional or modern finishes you want included in the design but aren’t exactly sure how yet? Any team you hire will have you put together separate lists of needs, wants, and would be nice to include. Knowing where there will be flexibility is important to your team.
Who Will Be Using This New Kitchen?
A kitchen for a home full of adults & kids that are always on the go will be designed differently than that of aspiring chefs. Who does the most of the cooking tells you a lot about what they will be cooking.
Costs are up and the average homeowners construction and renovation budgets have dropped nearly 50% since 2020. This is a major incentive to work out precisely what your household needs out of your Kitchen Redesign. The right Design & Remodel team will make sure your needs are met in the most cost effective way.
New Kitchen Design Questionnaire
To prepare for your kitchen renovation project a good idea would be to download an/or print out this questionnaire, courtesy of John Webb Construction & Design. This way you have a lot of these answers ready as you shop for the right team.
Written by Todd Zimmerman
Producer of the John Webbccast
