Main Line Kitchen Design gives advice to a DIYer on remodeling their home on their own.
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Below is a post from one of our blogs by a homeowner contemplating remodeling their home. Paul’s detailed answer stresses the do’s and don’ts for DIYers.
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Question: We are thinking about remodeling our six bedroom home this summer. I’m praying I can do a wonderful job. Any tips?
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Paul’s Answer
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Success in renovating a home requires the same thing as any other project.
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First – Doing the research to understand what’s involved in the project. And after researching deciding correctly what parts of the work you are capable of doing yourself and what you will need to get professionals for.
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Fortunately we now have Youtube and the internet so you don’t necessarily have to go to the library. Spend at least 20% of the time it will take to do a project researching how to do it the way professionals do and planning it. Then you can reasonably attempt the project yourself.
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Assuming you know how to do things you are not trained for is the most common mistake for amateurs and less competent professionals.
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For example most homeowners believe that they know how to paint or even wall paper. They foolishly believe that there is little to know in these simpler renovation tasks. However there is a great deal to learn and not learning assures a very poor job. Professionals will often spend longer prepping the work area than actually painting or wallpapering.
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Find out what tools professionals use. You may be doing a renovation yourself to save money, but if you aren’t using the tools needed to do the job well you will certainly fail. Tools won’t be expensive and will pay for themselves in the time you save. Learn how to repair and prep drywall, how to use a caulk gun, plaster, sand, prime, size for wallpaper. Follow the procedures laid out in detail on the videos you watch and the books or articles you read.
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For example one difference between a professionals work and an amateurs in painting is that a professional might use up to a case (12 tubes) of caulk prepping walls and trim work in an older home while an amateur might use zero and not even own a caulk gun much less know how to use it. The difference in the finished product is staggering.
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As a kitchen designer I can assure you that designing a kitchen well is not possible without the help of an experienced and talented kitchen designer.
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Fortunately most cabinet dealers supply design help free of charge as it is incorporated into the cost of the cabinetry. Designing your kitchen yourself especially if you are an architect, engineer, real estate professional or contractor means you haven’t grasped the fundamental concept that you don’t know what you haven’t done professionally.
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The worst designs we see as kitchen designers ALWAYS come from these professions because they arrogantly assumed that they knew enough to design a kitchen and did little or no research. Smart professionals in these fields KNOW they need professional kitchen design help, and that it is free, and so collaborate with kitchen designers at the cabinet dealers they chose.
. Buying RTA cabinets or IKEA saves about 20% on cabinetry but you still must put cabinets together and you have no qualified professional kitchen designer to help you design, plan, and organize your kitchen renovation. This makes no sense, but is all the rage. The best contractors, and architects would never buy RTA cabinetry so why do homeowners and less experienced pros assume this is a good idea. The answer is the IKEA effect a common delusion that effects most do-it-yourselfers. . The distinguished researchers that named The Ikea Effect found that the majority of human beings would rate their first attempt at complex origami as better than a lifelong origami maker’s. This exaggerated over evaluation of their ability is telling and dangerous for DIY re-modelers.
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As humans we can be delusional and in denial. We see examples in our politics, and in our personal lives. The smartest and most rational person is always the person that admits they don’t know something and then does the research needed. . Because as humans we tend to delude ourselves, critical thinking and self evaluation are surprisingly important on any large scale DIY renovation. IE knowing what you don’t know.
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Below is our blog on this subject with a funny video that makes this point!
Check Out These Kitchen Related Quotes From Celebrities
“Kitchens should be designed around what’s truly important—fun, food, and life.”—Chef/restaurateur Daniel Boulud
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“I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food.” ― W.C. Fields
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“I wish my stove came with a Save As button like Word has. That way I could experiment with my cooking and not fear ruining my dinner. ” ― Jarod Kintz
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“It does not matter how expensive your kitchen is if you are a bad cook.” – Loesje
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“I love what you might call brutal elegance. Where form and function are really obvious. There is nothing easily broken in this house.”—Actress Meg Ryan
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“Most people start out wanting to go for their fantasy, but end up painting their walls dove-white.”—Shopkeeper/interior decorator Rayman Boozer
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“I was 32 when I started cooking; up until then, I just ate.” – Julia Child
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Wishing the Happiest of Holidays to all our customers and friends, and of course….
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Bon Appetit!
Main Line Kitchen Design
Paul, Julie, Ed, Chris, John, Lauren, Tom and Stacia
Homeowners often use home centers like Lowes and The Home Depot to design their kitchens and to buy cabinetry. I have often defended home centers as not a bad place to work with if you are designing a kitchen and you do a good job finding the most experienced home center designer in your area. And contrary to what many people believe both Lowes and The Home Depost sell well made cabinets if they are upgraded as needed.
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However due to a combination of poor decisions made at the corporate level, I now feel that particularly Lowes, but also The Home Depot, are poor locations to design and to buy a kitchen. I’ll explain in detail below:
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Lowes
The corporate environment at home centers has always been at odds with what is required to design and sell complex kitchen renovations. In the past, home center kitchen designers worked around company policies that hindered doing their job effectively. The reason for the lack of support by home center management is that designing kitchens is very different from retail sales.
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Designing and helping organize a kitchen construction project requires a great deal of knowledge and experience. Unlike selling retail merchandise where only a limited knowledge of the products you sell is required, designing kitchens requires far more expertise. Knowledge of complex kitchen cabinetry, countertop specifications, kitchen design, and of all types of construction is a must. Because of this quite often kitchen designers at both home centers were payed in line with department managers.
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As time has gone by home centers have continued to decrease what they are willing to pay kitchen designers and both Lowes and The Home Depot have tried to limit their responsibility in designing and managing kitchen renovations. For example both locations no longer allow the person designing your kitchen to ever see your home, or measure your kitchen. Both home centers also recently decided not to design or install kitchens that remove load bearing and even non load bearing walls. Despite the fact that over half of all kitchen renovations today involve removing a wall. This policy makes sense when you decide not to employ good kitchen designers, as it limits your liability.
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Lowes, in particular recently made sure that no experienced kitchen designers would work for them. About 5 years ago Lowes eliminated commission for their kitchen designers. At that time, their best designers earned double their salary in commissions, so to avoid a complete employee walk out, Lowes agreed to increase the salary of their experienced kitchen designers by 50% of their commissions from the previous year. So a designer that might have made 70K was suddenly making only $52,500.
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Main Line Kitchen Design’s phone rang off the hook with kitchen designers looking for work following this cruel decision by Lowes Corporate. Shockingly last month Lowes told all those kitchen designers still working for them that they were going back in time and reducing their pay by the 50% they gave them 5 years before. So now a designer that might have been making 70K in 2014 now makes 35K. This guarantees two things. First that no good kitchen designer will continue to work for Lowes and second that any experienced kitchen designer still working for Lowes will be insensitive to their customers needs and angry with their employer.
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The Home Depot
The Home Depot has been less aggressive in their devaluation of the kitchen design profession but they have continued to undermine it, and under pay their designers. Designers can no longer measure their kitchens, move walls and doorways as needed, or even take responsibility for their designs. Contractors are expected to verify all measurements and take responsibility for any discrepancies. Home Depot kitchen measures that were once quite detailed and took over an hour are now routinely under 20 minutes.
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Lowes and The Home Depot also continue to have disingenuous sales. Pressuring customers to buy now or miss a sale that is manufactured on a regular basis. These sales drive closings on kitchens often before it’s sensible to be ordering. And home centers are generally not less than 5% from their competitors in price, even with sales. In fact, they are sometimes more expensive. Cabinet pricing from an independent cabinet dealer must be similar, when the independent dealer carries the same cabinet lines.
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IKEA
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The lucrative kitchen cabinet market has lured other retailers besides IKEA such as Costco into selling kitchen cabinets. But again, without the benefit of a true kitchen designer. As is so often the case, greed and a lack of knowledge is dangerous.
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Kitchens are far too expensive and complicated not to have a professional kitchen designer advising you on the important decisions you have to make during a detailed renovation. And investing in a poor kitchen design can not only waste money, it can actually devalue your home. Buying poorly made cabinets like IKEA is no longer even inexpensive, as many better constructed import lines are available. IKEA has also recently downgraded their cabinet construction making them a particularly poor choice in kitchen cabinetry.
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In my opinion, working with home centers when renovating a kitchen is no longer sensible. Here are some of our related blog posts:
Main Line Kitchen Design does an analysis of the storage space advantage of frameless vs framed cabinetry.
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Many customers select European frameless cabinetry over more classic framed cabinetry because they want additional storage. This isn’t surprising since the drive to maximize storage space in a kitchen is frequently the motivating factor for many kitchen decisions. However, often the reasoning behind these decisions is either flawed or the advantage is overvalued.
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Let’s do some math to compare the additional space gained by using frameless cabinetry over more durable framed cabinet construction.
Frameless Cabinet
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Above is a cross section of a cabinet built using the frameless method of construction. Notice the cabinet box is simply a back, bottom, top, and sides. The front of the cabinet is missing. Below is an example of a framed cabinet. Notice the front frame on the cabinet that the drawer passes through and that the hinges and hardware is attached to.
Framed Cabinet Box
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Better made framed cabinets usually use 1/2″ thick sides and a solid wood face frame with horizontal and vertical pieces 1 1/2″ wide x 3/4″ thick. Better made frameless cabinetry uses 3/4″ thick sides and the cabinet has no front at all. This means that the hinges and drawer tracks are all attached to plywood or particle board sides on a frameless cabinet as apposed to solid wood on a framed line. However it also means that all roll outs, drawers, and pull outs must pass through the reduced size opening in the front of a framed cabinet.
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What’s the difference in storage between the two options?
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Lets do the math!
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First the inside of both boxes are essentially the same since the width of the inside of a cabinet is identical in both framed and frameless examples. And while the frame does take up a tiny bit of space it is far less than 1% of the total cabinet space. It is only in the drawers and the roll outs that space is reduced significantly by the moving parts needing to pass through a smaller cabinet front opening. This also means that both framed and frameless wall cabinets contain the same amount of space. This is because it is only in the base cabinets and the bottom of the tall cabinets that drawers and roll outs can be used.
Frameless kitchen
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Each drawer or roll out in any cabinet will lose 3/4″ of space on each side so that the inside of every drawer in a framed line will be 1 1’2 ” narrower than in a frameless line. For an average cabinet of 24″ in width this means that the storage capacity of any drawer or roll out is reduced about 8%. More in narrower cabinets but less as the cabinet gets wider. So were a cabinet to have all drawers or all roll outs the most that the storage space would be reduced on average would be 8 %. A cabinet with only a top drawer would only lose storage space for that top drawer and the cabinet below would hold the same amount. So without roll outs a typical base cabinet with only a top drawer would lose at most 2% total storage. We are simplifying the calculations due to some other minimal factors we are not taking into account but we are also being liberal in the overall storage savings.
Framed beaded inset kitchen
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Most kitchen use more drawers and roll outs today so assuming that the bottoms of most tall and base cabinets use drawers or roll outs lets say 6% of all the bottom cabinetry is lost. Since none of the storage in the tops of tall cabinets and wall cabinets loses space certainly the overall kitchen won’t lose more than 4% of it’s storage space using framed vs frameless cabinetry.
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A 4% loss of storage space is not such a large number. By comparison choosing a range and a microwave hood above it in a kitchen can save 10% of the total storage in a small kitchen versus a design using a cooktop and a wall oven and microwave wall oven with a hood above the cooktop. Dividing cabinetry to create small spice pull out cabinets or tray divider cabinets can lose a similar 4% in a small kitchen. Even adding decorative 3″ wide legs on either side of a cooktop or sink would lose 5% of the base cabinet storage in a small kitchen. 10% if you did it in both places.
Contemporary acrylic European style cabinetry
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Frameless cabinetry is less durable than framed cabinetry because there is no solid wood front on the cabinet. Cabinet fronts protect the cabinet box and frameless cabinet front edges are just 1/4″ thick edge banding at best. Having hinges and tracks screwed to the solid wood frame and screwing each frame to the faceframe next to it is what makes well made framed cabinetry capable of holding up over a lifetime. Face frames do get in the way which is why frameless cabinetry is also called “easy access cabinetry”.
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Our take away from these space calculations and considering the durably issues is that we do not recommend using frameless cabinetry unless some of their other added benefits come into play. Most notably, there is no question that if you want very contemporary slab doors in your kitchen these modern styles look better on frameless European style cabinets.
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Door and drawer gaps on frameless cabinets are 1/4″ tighter due to how the frameless hinges operate and that gap makes a big difference in making a contemporary kitchen look sleek, modern, and stylish. Because of this the most modern foil, acrylic, and laminate slab doors styles will only be available in frameless cabinet lines. However raised panel and recessed panel door styles like the popular shaker style look fine in framed lines.
Frameless modern “Steam Punk” styling
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So before you jump into a decision of one cabinet construction type over another, consider your options and do the math!
Kitchen and Bath Design News, the premier industry magazine for kitchen and bath designers and industry suppliers, featured 50 top innovators in the kitchen and bath industry in their October issue. Main Line Kitchen Design’s President Paul McAlary was selected as one of these top innovators.
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The Bio from the article is below:
Paul McAlary possesses a voice that resonates far beyond the boundaries of Philadelphia’s western suburbs and the city’s prestigious Main Line – the location of his well-established Delaware Valley design firm. McAlary, president and senior designer of Bala Cynwyd, PA-based Main Line Kitchen Design, is an internationally recognized kitchen design authority who has won more than a dozen local and national design awards, including being named a 2017 Viking Appliances Designer of Distinction. Beyond his achievements as a designer, McAlary has also forged a burgeoning reputation as the creative force behind the “Main Line Kitchen Design Blog,” a unique online forum and social media resource that is read by more than 40,000 people each month and has been honored as one of the top kitchen design blogs in the world. Main Line Kitchen Design’s videos and blogs address a wide range of kitchen/bath-related topics aimed at sparking a constructive exchange of ideas among both consumers and design professionals. McAlary, whose kitchens and comments often appear in trade magazines and on social media sites, is sometimes at odds with the kitchen design establishment, but he maintains a distinct sense of humor and is known as a fierce advocate for design standards, ethics and transparency in the kitchen design trade.
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Paul being mentioned in an article is refreshing in that he is often a critic of The National Kitchen and Bath Association. So including him among the innovators is the type of transparency that we appreciate. Giving our customers honest appraisals of our designs and the products we sell even when the those appraisals are negative is something we always strive to do.
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Hoping our industry and the world in general continues to become more transparent. And as always a hearty . . .
Bon Appetit!
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Paul, Julie, Ed, Chris, John, Lauren, Tom and Stacia
Today, cabinets can be purchased online at prices as much as 20% below what cabinet dealers and showrooms sell them for. Some of the online cabinet sellers even make pretty well made cabinetry. So why would saving money and buying your cabinets online not make sense?
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The answer simply put, is that buying kitchen cabinets is not like buying a toaster or a pair of pants. It is the first and most important purchase that locks you into a renovation, design and construction strategy. And it is just the tip of the iceberg. Many thousands of dollars in choices are made after finalizing the kitchen design and purchasing the cabinets. Flooring, countertop, lighting, backsplash, appliances, sinks, fixtures, molding, and even the types and locations of windows and doors determine how your kitchen functions. How much you decide to spend on these choices determines whether your money is well spent or wasted.
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When you buy cabinets online or at IKEA, Costco, or other extreme discount retailers, you are giving up having knowledgeable kitchen design help. Having a professional measure your home, weigh design choices and help you make effective decisions is worth far more than what you might possibly save on cabinetry. Without expert design help the majority of kitchen renovations are a waste of money and poorly designed. Left to their own devices, homeowners nearly always spend more and spend it ineffectively.
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The truly sad part for these homeowners and the frustrating part for good kitchen designers is thatbecause people aren’t kitchen design professionals, they seldom realize howproblematic the choices they are making are. See our funny video on this topic here.
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Even worse, are the homeowners who recognize how much better their design is after working with an expert but, after getting good design help, go right back and buy cabinetry online. Homeowners who do this are essentially asking their contractors to install their kitchens blindfolded. And they are giving up the important advice needed to coordinate the other materials they select. Good designers both remain involved and are needed during the installation process and for help coordinating materials. During the installation process, contractors working with Main Line Kitchen Design contact us on a regular basis to confirm and confer on nuances for installing the best kitchen available. Customers who don’t finish the design process and buy discount cabinets online end up making poor decisions that result in costly mistakes they will live with every day.
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Embarking on a $20,000 – $200,000 kitchen renovation without the help of an expert kitchen designer makes no sense. And, every kitchen we see designed by architects, contractors, interior designers, or other pseudo kitchen professionals always contain major design flaws and substantial overspending. The expert help from kitchen designers is included in the price of the cabinetry. Opting to save a small amount by purchasing cabinets online ends up costing much more in bad decisions and substantially lower resale value.
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Still considering buying your cabinets online? Invest 10 minutes in a call with us or any kitchen design professional first. The well designed kitchen you end up will be worth much, much more than what you think you will save buying cabinets online.
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Bon Appetit!
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Paul, Julie, Ed, Chris, John, Lauren, Tom and Stacia
This is one of our favorite conversions. A high ceilinged barn in Villanova transformed into a understated and stately, light filled home. I love the tasteful choices and the elegant but not too formal furnishings.
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Our avid blog readers might notice a cooktop and hood in front of a window that we will often warn against. In this case both are OK because the stone exterior wall is 12 inches thick and so the window is not only 12 inches up from the level of the cooktop but also 12 inches back.
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For those not “in the know” – the danger of putting a cooktop in front of a window is that a gust of wind from an open window could blow out the flames on the cooktop burners allowing gas to fill the room. Or curtains could be placed on the windows creating a fire hazard. Or finally the heat from the burners could break the seal on the insulated glass in the windows. Thankfully the combination of the added wall thickness, the windows located 12 inches above the countertop and the window in back of the cooktop being fixed all made the design safe.
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Hoping to help you make your home a place that makes you just a little bit happier each day . . . and of course. . .
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Bon Appetit!
Paul, Julie, Ed, Chris, John, Lauren, Tom and Stacia
The Cabinet world is full of confusing information about the fumes new cabinetry can give off after installation.
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Unfortunately the cabinet industry is not policed beyond a certain level and the companies that tout themselves better than industry standards are often less likely to be honest and reliable. This is because their claims are not being verified by independent laboratories and even some certifications from laboratories like GreenGuard are more about who bothers to pay to be tested than if the tested results are any better than average.
Testing kitchen cabinets for formaldehyde off gassing began in California.
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What is CARB 2? CARB is shorthand for the California Air Resources Board. This body governs air quality and researches causes and solutions to air pollution. Phase II of CARB’s Airborne Toxic Control Measure (ATCM) went into effect in California in 2010. The rule limits formaldehyde emissions from hardwood plywood (HWPW), medium-density fiberboard (MDF), and particleboard (PB), as well as household and other finished goods containing these products manufactured or sold in California. For many years CARB2 was the only testing standard cabinets could be tested to meet.
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The Federal Government created their own limits similar and more detailed than CARB 2 and these new rules went into effect this year across the entire US.
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After March 22, 2019: Composite wood products must be certified and labeled as TSCA Title VI compliant by a TPC (third-party-certifier) approved by EPA and can no longer use CARB-approved TPCs or products certified to CARB ATCM Phase II emissions standards. Only TSCA Title VI compliant panels and finished goods may be sourced.
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So under the new Federal Guidelines all cabinetry sold in the US that is made by major cabinet companies will now pass CARB2 emission levels.
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Individual carpenters making cabinetry will not be tested of course.
Under the new and old emission rules plywood is always held to lower levels of formaldehyde than particle board or MDF so the first step in reducing the off gassing of your cabinetry is to purchase cabinetry with all plywood construction.
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One of the most important things you can to do to limit the amount of off gassing that you are exposed to is to allow your cabinets to off gas on their own prior to installing them inside your home. This can be done in a warehouse or your garage. Removing the cabinets from boxes helps. Four weeks should vastly reduce any volatile organic compounds (VOCs).
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Even after the cabinets are installed you can still help reduce your exposure. Simply stay elsewhere for a couple of days and close all the windows in your home while raising the thermostat to 90 degrees. This should bake out additional fumes. Be sure to air out the entire house and bringing the home to a normal temperature before moving back in.
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Placing cabinetry over heaters or using cabinet boxes as heat ducts is also not advised if you are trying to limit VOCs.
One of the most misunderstood elements in this off gassing dilemma is believing that imported cabinetry will have higher off gassing levels, and that expensive custom cabinetry will have lower levels of VOCs. This is because of untested Chinese flooring a decade ago that had very high formaldehyde levels. Today all cabinetry sold from major brands will have been tested so this is notpossible.
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In fact US companies that are importing their doors and cabinet parts from overseas will have had their parts given added time to off gas due to the shipping time to import and also because stock cabinetry parts are stored until assembled. More expensive custom cabinetry will be made specifically for the individual customer and will usually ship only a few days after completion. So allowing your more expensive custom cabinetry to off gas could be particularly important.
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Be careful of very small custom cabinet companies. They will not use ovens to bake their finishes between coats. Larger custom lines and semi custom lines will be baking their finishes sometimes even spraying a powdered finish onto their doors that is melted to create a more durable finish coat. Larger manufacturers will use catalyzed conversion varnishes that are much harder to damage and less likely to off gas. This is one reason why we are not fans of Amish made cabinetry. Read link
The most troubling component to this issue is that customers doing their own research are generally not able to evaluate the reliability of the search results that they find. Particularly since the cabinet industry does not have reliable results to find. Moreover the cabinet brands and the kitchen designers that will be the most assuring are generally simply telling people what they want to hear. As is so often the case the person that professes not to know the answer for sure is often not only the most honest but also the most reliable.
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One further test if you are particularly sensitive to chemical odors would be to buy a test cabinet from the complete cabinet design you intend to purchase. It is better to wait an additional few weeks for cabinets than to rip out a kitchen and to deliver the whole cabinet order only to find that you are overly sensitive to what you have selected.
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Wishing our customers a wonderful fall season. And of course . .
The most valuable part of your kitchen renovation is the design of the kitchen itself. Professional kitchen designers understand that it takes a decade for anyone, no matter how talented, to become proficient at designing kitchens. And yet many people believe that coming up with the best design for a particular space and spending their renovation budget effectively should be easy for non design professionals.
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Homeowners, contractors, architects, engineers and real estate agents often believe that a kitchen designer is not needed for their project. And even though professional assistance from a kitchen designer comes free with the purchase of cabinetry from most kitchen cabinet dealers, people can still stubbornly refuse to accept free input from someone who’s been designing and selling kitchens for decades. They believe that they know how they use their kitchen and as every kitchen designer hears several times a day that they “know exactly what they want”.
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Here is our funny video that tries to put that belief in perspective. Click on image below:
Kitchen Designers Paul McAlary and Doug Mottershead
At Main Line Kitchen Design we know that you can not be an expert in everything. This is why we refer our customers to expert sales people for appliances, flooring, lighting, and backsplash tile. It is also why we subcontract to or simply recommend expert installers.
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When you are working on a complex renovation you need experts in every field. We hope you will let Main Line Kitchen Design be your experts for designing your kitchen and selling you the cabinets that best suit your needs and budget.
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Have a great Labor Day weekend and of course . . .
