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What’s Your Kitchen Design and Renovation IQ? Take the Test.

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5 on What’s Your Kitchen Design and Renovation IQ? Take the Test.

Kitchen renovations are complex. This is why it can take a professional kitchen designer a decade of working full time to become good at their job.

NOTE: Kitchen Renovation IQ’s seem to be going down. Bad information from HGTV and over confidence from online searching has created a Dunning-Kruger Effect where people with low competence in kitchen remodeling overestimate their own ability, while highly competent individuals tend to underestimate their skills relative to others.

Below is our test to determine your kitchen design and renovation IQ.

Albert Einstein Renovation IQ Genius?
What’s your Kitchen renovation IQ?

RENOVATION IQ TEST

Answer the following ten True or False questions. Get 9 or 10 correct and you are a kitchen genius and Albert would be proud of you!

  1. Kitchens need to be gutted and any walls removed before measurements can be taken to order cabinetry. True or False?
  2. Granite and engineered quartz countertops are OK to put a hot pot on. True or False?
  3. If your ceiling is 8 feet high, then the largest wall cabinets you can use are 42″ high. True or False?
  4. Your contractor should supply the measurements to the kitchen designer and cabinet dealer. True or False?
  5. Painted cabinets are more easily damaged by water and chipping. This is why it is important to get more expensive cabinetry when you want a painted finish. True or False?
  6. It is important to find cabinets that are Carb 2 compliant and meet off gassing standards. True or False?
  7. For less expensive cabinets, getting cabinets made in the United States is a valuable upgrade. True or False?
  8. Solid wood doors on a slab style-stained wood door are important in order to get the nicest looking doors. True or False?
  9. Stopping by a showroom to see what they have is a good place to start before considering a kitchen renovation. True or False?
  10. Researching to find a kitchen designer that can make your dream a reality is always worth the effort. True or False?

Are you an Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, or a Forrest Gump at remodeling kitchens?

DaVinci Remodeling genius He has a high renovation IQ

Find out your score and your kitchen design and renovation IQ at the link below:

https://www.mainlinekitchendesign.com/general/kitchen-iq-score/

Written by:

Paul Mcalary

Paul McAlary is the President of Main Line Kitchen Design located in Bala Cynwyd, PA. He's been designing award winning kitchens for 25 years and can be reached at paul@mainlinekitchendesign.com

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5 Replies to “What’s Your Kitchen Design and Renovation IQ? Take the Test.”

  1. Jon Goldman

    Thanks so much again Paul!

  2. Jon Goldman

    Gut renovating a kitchen. Don’t know whether to go with higher end factory cabinets like Omega or Starmark, or deal with a local cabinet maker who a kitchen designer we like is recommending, but with whom she just started a relationship with.

    The kitchen designer has a lot of experience, so I assume she researched this local cabinet maker, but she only has a handful of project going on with this person, and this is a new relationship for her.

    Thanks for anyone’s suggestions.

    1. pmcalary[ Post Author ]

      Hi Jon,
      Generally two things are true that worry me about your inquiry.

      Local cabinet makers are generally a bad idea if they are very small companies. This is because they don’t have the ovens and equipment needed to make the durable cabinetry and finishes that larger custom cabinet companies do. We call these cabinets “home made” and not custom. How does a warranty work with a small cabinet maker that may go out of business, die, or go bankrupt in the middle of your kitchen project. Or ten years later. Real brands have lifetime warranties backed up by both the manufacturer and the cabinet dealer.

      The best kitchen designers actually work for cabinet dealers. Independent designers are less experienced, know far less about design and cabinetry because they aren’t selling the cabinetry. They charge for their services while the better designers design time is actually incorporated into the cost of the cabinetry. The most frustrating and absolute worst kitchen designs I see come from independent kitchen designers and architects that have created badly planned custom designs. Often it is more work fixing these designs than starting from scratch. This frustrates the customers that are often happy with these bad designs not understanding what’s wrong with them.

      I would send us your design to review on our Friday helpline I suspect it may have many of the common mistakes made by independent designers. FYI if your designer was good she would be usually be working for a dealer that carried brands like Omega, Starmark, and real custom brands such as Plain $ Fancy, or Brighton. She would usually make triple the money at a dealership and no dealer would ever recommend a small cabinet maker.

      Call into our Friday helpline and podcast most Fridays between 2 and 4 pm Eastern Standard Time. We review designs and give design help. Call 61O-5OO-4O71 then leave a message and we will call you when a line opens. Be ready to email designs or measurements you want Paul to consider.

      1. Jon Goldman

        Thanks so much Paul.

        Do you or anyone else here have familiarity with StyleCraft out of Terre Hill, Pa? I don’t know if this is the same cabinet company that is reviewed in Main Line’s top 157 cabinet brands, under the name Stylecraft.

        Thanks so much.

        1. pmcalary[ Post Author ]

          Hi Jon,
          Yes it’s the same company. Custom cabinets from PA. They are real custom cabinets made in a factory. Ihey will be more expensive then Omega or Starmark.

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