Adapting a Kitchen to a Budget

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There were a lot of unusual aspects of this kitchen remodeling -- not the least of which was that the homeowners already had fully developed construction plans.

Some years before, a kitchen designer had drawn the plans, but the owners had deferred the project. Life events had intervened, including the arrival of children. Now they were ready to build their kitchen, but did not have quite as much money available as they had hoped -- only about 60% of the amount required, in fact. Their question was "could we do it within the budget available?"

The quick answer was "No". But then we decided to see if it was at least possible.

The very first step was to measure and photograph their existing kitchen and examine the structural elements to see if any had to be upgraded. The existing kitchen had a pretty good layout -- the sink, cooking area and refrigerator formed an acceptable work triangle that could be improved with just a little tweaking. The new plan had made radical changes in this arrangement that would have required relocating the existing plumbing. By leaving these three elements near their existing locations, this expense could be saved.

With the beginning of a concept, we set about incorporating the features the homeowners wanted into the new layout. We divided these features into three categories:

• Cannot do without
• Important, but....
• Nice, but not necessary

The first to go were the pear-wood custom cabinets. Pear is a very straight-grain, very hard wood valued for its pinkish color that turns slightly orange over the years. It is a staple wood in oriental furniture making. But it's not produced by very many manufacturers and is expensive. Our customers liked the look of pear, but did not have to have the wood itself if we could come up with a substitute. After a little trial and error with a variety of veneers and stains, we found that birch stained with a pinkish commercial dye was a virtually indistinguishable match for pear. Birch is a "standard" cabinet wood and readily available. The cost savings here were pretty dramatic.

Next up for consideration was the issue of custom vs. semi-custom cabinets. Custom cabinets almost have to be made locally by us or another cabinet shop. They are usually built to precisely fit the available space rather than in modules that are then screwed together to fill up the space. For cabinets that exactly match the space and have exactly the right features, this is the best choice. But expensive. An alternative to custom cabinets are what are called semi-custom cabinets what can be made up in knock-down ("KD") modules for easy shipping, and can be made in any size as opposed to standard factory cabinet sizes. An even more economical approach is to use as many standard sizes as possible then fit custom-size cabinets into the remaining space. There is an up charge for non-standard box sizes, so if we can make use of mostly standard size cases, we save more money. This approach might be called the "semi-custom-factory" method for lack of a better term.

We do not have to order the cases and doors from the same manufacturer. The standards for hinge placement are uniform enough that one company's doors will fit another company's cases almost without exception. This gives us the flexibility to price cases and doors separately: ordering the cases from a case specialist and the doors from a company that makes only doors. Since we were going to stain and finish the birch locally, we did not have to be concerned with color matching. In the end, however, we got the best price on both from the same company in North Dakota - one we have used in the past and found to be reliable - so that's where the order was placed.

The cabinet pulls specified in the original plan were a commercial grade hospital product. We were able to identify a nearly identical but less expensive home version that was acceptable to the homeowners. Other features were simply eliminated because they were no longer necessary or because they were just too expensive. Crown moulding on the upper cabinets was in the "nice but not necessary" category, and got the ax. The granite counter top was replaced with a granite-look composite material (See: New and Traditional Countertop Choices) for about half the price. The separate kitchen office area was replaced with a pullout writing surface, and the solid wood shelves with MDF veneered in Melamine®. The built-in ovens and refrigerator faced with matching wood veneer went away: replaced with acceptable color-coordinated appliances - which the owners bought on sale. Some features that could be added later were deferred - the tile on the wall, for example. This could be installed when the owners were able to better afford it.

More savings resulted from replacing the specified custom-made cabinet pullout shelves and baskets with factory-made items from a company that specializes in these products. Just the materials to make these locally were more expensive that this company's finished product.

In the end, however, all of these design changes did not save quite enough money, so we looked at the construction phase. These homeowners were fairly handy with tools, so they agreed to do some of the less skilled work to reduce costs. They took care of the initial demolition and cleanup, all the painting and varnishing (but not the staining - it takes a little practice to get an even stain). They also did most of the cleanup during the construction, which saved us about 1/2 hour each day.

In the end, it was just barely doable. But well worth doing. The final result is a beautiful, well-balanced and fully functional kitchen. The design and planning time we spent on it was good investment (and learning experience) for us and for the owners.

End

For a case study of adapting a kitchen design to the ergonomics of its owners, see Adapting a Kitchen to Human Dimensions and Movement.

For more good reading, check out our complete articles index.