How to Evaluate Your New Kitchen Needs

By eHow Home & Garden Editor

Rate: (3 Ratings)

This part of the process begins before you've hired anyone, and will continue until you put your first box of cornflakes up on it's brand-new shelf.

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Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

Pencils
Paper

Step1

Make a list of all the things you like about your kitchen, then make a second list of everything you hate.

Step2

Make a list of all the things you dream of having, based on all the kitchens you've ever seen, and then make that second list, too.

Step3

Put the like and hate lists together, and be prepared to keep adding and subtracting.

Step4

Research, research, research. Educate yourself by reading magazines, visiting showrooms, watching all those shows on television, and talking with friends who've done it.

Step5

Dream large, as it will be easier and cheaper to make changes on paper before you sign any contracts.

Step6

Combine your aesthetic requirements with your practical ones, but keep the practical elements in the foreground. After the first blush of excitement, you won't care how pretty the kitchen is if it's difficult to use.

Step7

Take the future into account. Children coming? Children going? Are you getting on in years?

Step8

Visitors often gravitate to the kitchen, so do you want them nearby and able to help, or out of the way but still able to chat? Or so uncomfortable they'll never come in the room again?

Step9

Consider the traffic patterns into and out of the room.

Step10

Take into account any special needs, such as handicap and assisted access, children who do homework in the room, and sides of moose and canned rhubarb to store.