Planning a remodel of your kitchen may seem like a huge, daunting project, but it can be made easier if you break it down into manageable steps. If you take your time, be organised and keep a tight rein on your spending, you can make it much easier to create your dream kitchen – and bring it in on or under budget!
Here’s our 10-step guide to help you plan the project:
- Set a timeline. Experts recommend leaving around 6 months to plan for a kitchen remodel. If you’re not in any rush, it’s worthwhile to extend this timeline to give yourself plenty of breathing room in case you need to solve problems or change your mind. It’s crucial to get it right, not necessarily as quickly as possible, so plan for as long as you need to.
- Measure, measure and measure again. Accurate measurements of the room will enable you to create an accurate floor plan, and to guarantee everything will fit.
- Create the floor plan. You need to figure out what exactly will fit where and play around with your floor plan until you have it just the way you want it. You can do this with just a few pieces of graph paper and a tape measure, or you can use an online tool.
- Start a spreadsheet for the budget. At this stage, it’s a good idea to set a maximum budget and start keeping track of your likely expenses. This will help you to make decisions on what you can afford and how much to spend on what.
- Put together a list of key tradespeople and other contacts. This includes everything from kitchen fitters to plumbers and electricians. You need to be able to contact and line up your tradespeople so that they’re ready when you need them.
- Choose a kitchen supplier. This all comes down to style, price and whether a supplier offers all of the options you want.
- Visit some showrooms. You just don’t know how things will look until you see them in person. By all means do lots of online research, but you can save your final decisions until you see everything in person.
- Ask lots of questions. Visit or call up your kitchen supplier to clear up any questions you may have. You can also call us here at A&J Kitchen Fitters to double check that there won’t be any problems with your chosen items before you buy them.
- Order your kitchen. Make sure you have somewhere to store all of the parts of your kitchen before they are installed!
- Prepare the room and line up your tradespeople. You may need to paint, clean or remove clutter ready for fitting day, so that your kitchen fitter has easy access.
If you need help with kitchen fitting or have questions during the design and planning process, the team at A&J Kitchens will be happy to help. Please call us on 01942 873781 or contact us online.