Mark Mitten  00:04
One quarter, A blind corner .... ... another blind corner. You better call Paul.

Paul McAlary  00:16
Hi, Holly. It's Paul, this is how are you? Good. So did you have individual questions you wanted to ask? Did you want to? 

Holly  00:26
Yes. Well, when I reached out to this place I had spoken to you a couple months ago, you were kind enough to reply. And you had to question I asked, and you had said that, it doesn't make any sense for me to just replace what I have, I should take the wall down. So I decided, go ahead, take on the wall. And I asked for a design that would have a, you know, an updated layout. And they sent me basically the exact same layout I have now, but with the kitchen island, and just that wall down, right. So I'm thinking there's probably some improvements that could be made on what I have already.  that

Paul McAlary  01:08
Yeah, let me look at your measurements. One thing is the cut the cabinetry that's sold at Costco, which I guess is Tuscan hills, it's actually pretty well made. But you certainly are not working with a normal Kitchen Designer. If you're getting a design done from Costco, you're probably saving a little bit of money. But then there's not really a brain behind what you're doing to sort of ensure that all this sort of makes sense. So let me just ask you a couple of questions. So when I look at the layout of your kitchen, as this is the door that is on the one wall that nothing is on right now. You have a back door, I guess that's going outside to the right of the sink.

Holly  02:00
The other door garage door, that's a garage door, and that blank wall is actually a fireplace.

Paul McAlary  02:08
The blank wall, the wall that the garage door is on has a fireplace.

Holly  02:13
Yes, between the garage door and then the door that goes out to the back. That's at the fireplace. 

Paul McAlary  02:20
That's a fireplace. So that's sort of interesting. Usually, if you're a garage, you have a fight. So your garage was added on to the house. Is that why that's a fireplace?

Holly  02:30
 No, no, the garage was not added on. I do not know why they put a a fireplace in such a small kitchen. I've lived it maybe one time and it was turned it into a literal oven in there. 

Paul McAlary  02:43
Oh, you mean it's it's a fireplace that's opening into the kitchen? Correct. Okay, so now I understand so. And it's a functioning fireplace. I guess 

Holly  02:55
I don't use it. How old is your house? Good. But yeah, I haven't I don't. I didn't keep up with it. Because it's really not practical to have one in there. And it has a mantel and everything else or Yes. So well, that whole wall is Brick. That whole wall is Brick up to the fireplace now. I mean, up to the garage, room door, the garage door on the other side of the garage into the dining room is not brick. 

Paul McAlary  03:23
Right. One of the issues that you have with this kitchen, the design that they did, it's not really horrible or anything. If you're not using that wall, that the fireplaces on, you're sort of pretty restricted as to what possibilities that you have. And then yet you haven't started the project. So you load bearing wall is still up and everything right? Correct. With the brick on the fireplace? If you mean if you really think that that's a fireplace, that doesn't have any merit to it. Then if you were to close it up, or cover it up, and does is there a fireplace on the second floor for you this

Holly  04:04
have any merit to it. area? No, no.

Paul McAlary  04:19
And it's a brick wall that's exposed and has the fireplace in the middle of it.

Holly  04:25
Yeah, and the fireplace kind of bumps out a little bit. It comes up and then goes back into the wall. And I wouldn't worry. It looks fine. I mean, it's a nice look at as interest but I wouldn't want to put anything on that wall anyway because it's like the entryway to the back is right there. Well, you couldn't I couldn't even put cabinetry. But you know how you couldn't start cabinetry until you were three feet away from that door. But you can have a very different kitchen. If you

Paul McAlary  05:00
We're putting cabinets on that wall, and you're sort of don't have much of a choice, if you're not doing anything that with that wall. So for an example, if that wall had your refrigerator on it, now your stove could move down, you could have cabinetry on either side of your stove, you'd have a lot more usable countertop space to be working at. Because your refrigerator was on that wall. And the back of your house is what's the back of your house made out of?

Holly  05:31
Oh, well, if you go out that door, there's a screened in porch

Paul McAlary  05:34
screened in porch. Okay. So that one is getting cabinets on. And I have to add up all these numbers that you have in the picture. But let's see, you've got going across the spaces D, E, F, and G. So D is 51. Plus, if people will listen to this, trying to figure it out, figuring out what I'm doing. This is the measurement guide that Costco gives you, I guess, to to figure out your, your dimensions on your own, which is a frightening concept. So for example, when you're doing these measurements, and somebody hands you something like this, the act of actually doing a kitchen design, from the measurements that you're really supplying with this initial measurement guide is incredibly dangerous. So 99% of people probably couldn't measure this correctly. Only because like when you're measuring your window that's over your sink, do you include the trim that's on the window in the size of the window? Or did you measure the inside of the window,

Holly  06:40
that was the outside edge of the window, the outside edge

Paul McAlary  06:45
on the window? Yeah. And then when you're measuring the door, you're measuring the

Holly  06:52
outside edge.

Paul McAlary  06:54
So the G is 37. So that's outside edge. And was there any wall against to the right of that door

Holly  07:02
is the trim, right like an inch, inch, inch or two?

Paul McAlary  07:05
Okay, so we know that we got an inch or two, that's not being accounted for that would help your cause. And then as long as the measurements that you're adding from the corner of the room to the window, are on to the outside trim of that window, and then the window itself is outside trim to outside trim. And then the F measurement from the door to the doorway from the window is outside trim to the doorway, you're accounting for everything, a lot of times, what a lot of people would do is they measured to the window where they'd measure to the trim, then they'd measure the inside of the window, and then the measurements won't all add up. So a good way to do this is if we were to just go and add up in your design, you have d, e, f and g, well, your l, p and j should add up to those same numbers. And if they don't, then we know that we have you know we have a problem according according to the design, but sorry, you have like theoretically, you have 157 inches. So 157 inches minus 26 equals, you really only have a couple of options if the wall is coming out. And I think the wall coming out certainly makes this an eat in kitchen and makes it a better space makes it your house less formal, but you're happy with the wall coming out, right? And connect,

Holly  08:28
I was praying more sunshine and for sure.

Paul McAlary  08:30
Okay, so then you don't really have very many choices, your choices really are either to not put anything on the fireplace wall as they're doing now. In which case, pretty much, you're you probably are going to end up you know, there's not very many versions of this area that are going to work. Although I think that they've got you in this design. They have you sitting on the back side of the island, and you got 157 and really your island is going in the right direction. But I think what you want to be doing is sitting on the side, in back of you know, with the refrigerator facing the refrigerator, because your island is longer it can be much longer in that direction. So okay. They're just orienting your island, in like in this in this picture with this island. They've got you're sitting with two people, but it's hard for me to see what the cabinetry is that they're using. It looks like they've got just one set of cabinets that they're putting cabinets at and then they're thinking that you're going to get two bar stools on the end of that island. And the end of the island won't ever fit to barstools that way. So it's only really good but it will fit several bar stools in the other direction. It looks to me like they've got this Yeah, they've got the island going in the right direction. But they just have the The seating area in the wrong on the wrong side.

Holly  10:05
Put the seating where the on the fireplace wall

Paul McAlary  10:07
with the seating on the fireplace wall. And you'd have one you'd have cabinets coming down. And you could really probably have your island go. The length of see is 110 inches. And the the opening to the left of the refrigerator goes into the hallway. Yeah. And then the other door to the left of that opening is your basement.

Holly  10:30
No, that's the like, that's the only closet I have.

Paul McAlary  10:34
Okay. And do you use that as a coat closet? Or is it a pantry?

Holly  10:38
It's not large enough. It's a it's a pantry.

Paul McAlary  10:41
Okay, what's on the other side of a, the a measurement that you have your opening going back there? That's yeah, so

Holly  10:50
that's that that's a doorway you walk through. And then on the other side of that there's a basement door on the left and a bathroom door on the right.

Paul McAlary  10:58
On the right. And the is 36 inches. And what's the a measurement that's eight inches wide? What's in back of the A

Holly  11:09
that's between the opening and the it's just a piece of wall that's on either side. So just sticks out there?

Paul McAlary  11:18
Yeah, so your house works better if A is zero, and B moves down that way. Right? Okay.

Holly  11:28
So if you're that little mini wall out, take the

Paul McAlary  11:31
mini wall out and I would close up be, I would leave myself with a 36 inch opening. If you're moving the doorway down, suddenly, you know you have much more space, right you'll have an X you'll have eight extra inches, and that eight extra inches that you have, you can use for another a bigger cabinet in between the refrigerator and the stove. Or instead of having a blind base in the corner where your stove is that suddenly your you can now have a lazy susan maybe in that, in that corner. Moving these appliances farther apart, helps the cause I might even instead of like in the picture, it shows that the opening that you had the doorway has trim around it. Do you have trim around your doorway or is it so if it was me, I might even make that doorway, one without trim. So like right now the trim is maybe three inches or two and a half inches wide on either side, you have a 30 inch wide doorway. And then you have this trim around either side. Well, what if you got rid of the trim and you made it just drywall and corner bead, it's going to be it isn't really that attractive, because it's just a square corner. If you really wanted to get fancy nowadays, they sell corner bead that's rounded, so that it looks like plaster, it looks a lot more attractive. So it takes that square opening that you're going to be leaving yourself and just gives it a little bit more character so that all the corners are all rounded. And you can talk to the contractor that's doing the work about it. But it's free, it doesn't really corner bead, you know is it $2 Are length, whether it's plastic, or whether it's plastic with a rounded corner, or metal with a square corner. But the reason that you would love to be able to just do that is now you'll capture even more space. So now if you left yourself safely make the opening even a little bit bigger. So instead of having the opening be 30 inches, the opening was 32 inches, but now you don't have any trim. So now you're going to actually get B was 36 You're going to get another four inches, so you're going to get eight inches from a and then you're gonna get another four inches from B. I mean from Yeah, from from the doorway that we're calling B. And so suddenly you have 12 inches of added countertop that can be over, you know where your refrigerator and your stove are. And then the good thing about that too, is once that doorway is moved so that it's right against the closet, you're actually going to end up with the door to your garage, being straight across from the door to the hallway, and the bathroom and everything and then the the pantry door is right there too. So what you're actually doing is what we call it funneling traffic. So the traffic of the people that are walking through the spaces are all going in the same line. So that really allows your cabinetry to be bigger, so your island can actually grow the 12 inches that you just really move the doorway over because it's not going to be in the way anymore. You'll get a foot longer island that have this and that will probably be In that you'll sit an extra person, and then you'll get more countertop, you know, on one side of your stove. Do you follow all that so far?

Holly  15:09
Yeah, that sounds great.

Paul McAlary  15:11
The biggest cabinet in your whole kitchen is the corner to the right of the stove.

Holly  15:18
Yeah, that there's so much wasted space there.

Paul McAlary  15:21
So I don't know what they're doing with that space. Right now. They're making it a blind cabinet. So a blind cabinet is one of those cabinets where you have to open the door, and then reach all the way back to try to access that space all the way in the corner. Yeah, that's

Holly  15:37
what I have. Now.

Paul McAlary  15:39
When we design somebody's kitchen, we would only give them a blind cabinet. If somebody put a gun to our head. Really, what you want to do is make that area accessible. And the way to do that is to put like a lazy susan in the corner with a folding door. Then the door folds open. And now you have like a lazy susan that spins around. You can totally get anything that you want in there, that lazy Susans nowadays and even from Tuscan hills. I'm sure the Lazy Susans won't have like a bar in the middle of the Lazy Susan and have it be a cheap plastic thing, it's probably going to be a wooden Lazy Susan that sits on a shelf, you'll have one below and one above. And even if you didn't even make it a lazy Susan, if you just made it open shelves, you're totally can get into that corner. Because it when you open the folding door, everything is accessible to you. In fact, that kind of folding door has a name, the name of that door is called an easy reach door. So it's making it easy to reach into the corner. The really the advantage of moving your doorway is that once you move your doorway, you'll have 12 extra inches. Now you can have a lazy susan or easy reach cabinet in the corner. And then I guess what I would do too, if you have an easy reach and you kept your dishwasher where it is, then your sink would come down probably centered on the window. But you might even be better off. If we had you have an easy reach. And then we gave you a double trash can pull out on the left of your sink, and then had your sink cabinet. And then your dishwasher to the right of your sink cabinet. And then whatever's left another cabinet on the end. So I can really tell you what that would be. How biggest thing

Holly  17:30
I don't I don't have any. I haven't thought about that. That doesn't really matter to me much.

Paul McAlary  17:36
Let's say we give you a standard single bowl sink. Ideally, we want to have your end up centered in front of the window maybe. Yeah, that's how it is now. So let's see what the center of the window is. How about that. So 23 So the center of the window is 74 inches down. Yeah, so really, you could have a lazy susan in the corner and an 18 inch double trash can pull out then your sink with a filler to get your sink centered in front of the window. Or maybe make your trash can pull out a 21 inch trash camp allowed. So then you have your lazy susan in the corner a 21 inch double trash can pull out then a 36 inch sink cabinet. Then you'll have your dishwasher. That leaves you with like a nine inch cookie sheet and tray cabinet on the end. And then your pots and pans cabinets that you're going to have instead of being to the right of your sink. Really ideally in a kitchen you like to have your sink and your trash can cabinet I guess the other way to do it is you could keep your dishwasher where it sorta is. And you could get your lazy susan cabinet, then your dishwasher, then your sink cabinet senator in front of the window, then your trash can cabinet. And then if you did that, you would be left with a bigger cabinet on the right. So because you could make your sink cabinet a little bit smaller so maybe you could have your lake your your sink, sort of a living that instead of centered on the window a tiny bit to the left of the window like you have a tiny bit to the right now. And then you'd have your trash can cabinet and then a drawer base with drawers on the right of that. So I mean you have to play around with it. The person that's really doing this is not really considering the things that you really have to have. You really want to be designing a kitchen so that you have a dishwasher on the one side here so that you can be actually be accessing the corner there. So you're not wasting that corner. You want to have a dishwasher on one side of your trash can on the other. Ideally, it actually is better if the dishwashers to the right of you. Only because then the dishwasher door is not coming down. When you're unloading it and preventing you from putting a lot of stuff away and all the cabinetry that's to the left of the dishwasher, right. So if we didn't the dishwasher to the right of your sink, then when your dishwasher door was down, you can really put everything away. So that's probably the better design is to have the Lazy Susan, than the to the 21 inch wide double trash can pull out, then have your sink. And you can have his biggest thing because you want because it can be centered on the window. Or if you wanted to have it a little bit off centered, you can have a small cabinet, then the dishwasher, a smaller sink cabinet will be not quite centered on the window. And then you'd have the your dishwasher and then like a drawer base to the right of that. But having your dishwasher to the right of your sink, probably makes it easier for you to put stuff away. And then that makes sense. And then what we also want to do is when we redesign your kitchen, we want to have the cabinets on either side of your sink. So this designer, good. One thing that's good is he left the cabinets the same distance away from the window on either side. So that it sort of seems symmetrical, right that at least the cabinets on pressed up against the window on one side, and far away on the other. But if we can make it work, what really looks the most attractive is to have the cabinets on either side of the window be also the same size. We won't do that on the podcast. I'll do it after we finish talking. I'll put your measurements, put them to scale, and then I'll hand draw in how you might be able to accomplish that.

Holly  21:39
Okay, so it's you're saying it's a toss up between having them both the same amount of space between the 10 and the window window or have them the same side and you say, go, whoa,

Paul McAlary  21:52
whoa, ideally, we want to do both. And I don't think it's going to be impossible to do that. In fact, the other thing that they gave you is they gave you a dead corner to the actually what they did was, oh yeah, so I guess they gave you blind the cabinet on the right side of your stove too. So you got blind cabinets everywhere. So yeah, just it just makes it impossible to get at these places. So instead of having a blind cabinet, maybe we'll give you an angled corner cabinet in the corner, or a folding door cabinet in the corner so that you can access the corner. And then you'll end up with like a 12 inch cabinet to the right of your stove. But you might have a little bit of an issue in that of the door on the left side of your stove is a different size than the door to the right side of your stove. But I'll play around with it, we'll see if we can get it so that it's sort of symmetrical. And then, you know, when you're looking at your island, we're going to have everything in your island, I think open up towards the refrigerator, so that you have one run of cabinets with pots and pans so that there'll be directly across from your stove, essentially, that can be a pretty long island, especially if you move the door down. So maybe you're gonna get two sets of pots and pans cabinets going along that or anything else that you want pots and pans cabinets, and then a cabinet with a drawer on top and door below. And then you'll be sitting on the back with the fireplace and backup view. But now, you'll be able to sit three people along there. And if you really wanted to get fancy, you could have an overhang on both sides on the back of the island and on the side of the island going into the dining room so that people could sit along the back end on the side and sort of face each other when they were sitting. You follow that? Yeah,

Holly  23:50
okay. Yes. So are you did I hear you say only have doors open towards the fridge because it looks they also have doors that open towards the sink?

Paul McAlary  24:00
They they did that? But you know, see how they have the blank. Yeah, that looks terrible, right. So I think what we want to do is you could do that and then put have doors, you know, open towards the sink. But I think it's much more likely that if you're at the island, you won't be working at the sink side of the island, you'll be working at the stove side of the island, because that's the long direction. So if you're cutting and chopping and preparing a meal or doing something, you can be facing the people that are at the table, you can be facing the fireplace and then turn to your right to see people at the dining room table. But that side of the island is going to be the working side. So if that's the working side of the island, why don't we just put fake panels on the ends and on the back to make it look attractive? And then everything will be open from the roof, excuse me refrigerator and the stove side. And then everything will just be fake panels on the accent on the other side, and you won't have some things that are fake and some things that are real, and you won't have these blank spaces, you know, wouldn't be a big deal if you're wanting to have a big blank space to have the sides be blank and flat and have the back be blank and flat, that doesn't look anywhere near as bad as having cabinets open from different directions and having one space that's just flat space. Right? That looks silly. So yeah, I think you're just better off having everything open from the one side, because also, then everything opening from the one side, you have the most length there. So you'll have wide cabinets going in that direction. Whereas if you have it from the sink side, the things that open from the sink side. So what did they got? They got, I guess what they did was they got a trash can pull out there, and another pull out. Oh, so that's how they were getting for people to sit. So they were going to have your island be four feet deep and not doesn't really look like that in the picture, though,

Holly  26:03
that looks to me like the sink side is is wider than refrigerator side. Let me know.

Paul McAlary  26:13
When I look at the whole kitchen, in the first picture that they show you. And I look at your island, you know in proportion to everything else. They're fitting to people there, but they're making it pretty tight in between your refrigerator and your island. Like if I look at the first picture of their kitchen, it looks to me like that countertop lines up with at best, the right side of the dishwasher. Right? Yeah, sure, just sort of like almost the middle of the window. So the middle of the window is 74 inches, your refrigerator, if it's a counter depth refrigerator, is going to come out something like with the doors of the refrigerator, we won't even count the handles 29 inches or something like that minus 29 equals 45. That's not that bad. If you're sitting on this side, you can sit too I think really the best use of this space is to do what I said second is to sit on both sides of this island is to sit sit on the the the back side and the end side.

Holly  27:31
But I would have to the floor in front of the hearth the fireplace like it kind of dips down on its brick for a little bit. But that could be I'm hoping I could have a floor guy come in anyway when I take the wall down. So maybe something could happen there.

Paul McAlary  27:50
Well, I don't think you have to worry because I'm making your island go in the other direction. So you have way more space with your island the way I'm I'm running it in the way they are running it. Okay, so I'm running it in the other direction. So if you left the same amount of space, like 45 inches between the frigerator and the front of the island, which is not a bad amount of space, if you left 45 inches, but then back of the countertop, where people were sitting, there would be another at least 45 inches, so there'd be plenty. Even if the fireplace comes out a little bit. I don't think that you're getting that close to it.

Holly  28:30
Okay, no, yeah, no, I'm saying the floor in front of the fireplace. It's kind of like dugout and lower brick.

Paul McAlary  28:37
But how much?

Holly  28:42
I don't know, the question probably about 16 inches.

Paul McAlary  28:46
Oh, sit a hole 16 inches coming out? Yes. So even

Holly  28:52
in that maybe it's closer to a foot.

Paul McAlary  28:54
So even even in this design, when people are coming in the back door, once you put the island in, you're sort of making people you know, sort of walk over that area? Yes. Well, that's not particularly great. If there's 45 inches there, and it comes out of foot, you still got plenty of room for people not to step on that. Unless people are sitting at the island. Once people are sitting at the island and my design, then it will be a little bit tight in this design. It's going to be a little bit tighter than that with the island running in this direction. But I think you're better off with the island running in the other direction. I mean, there's one other way to do it too, is that you could have a U shaped kitchen. I don't know if anybody's if you've considered that or not. But

Holly  29:44
I wasn't quite sure what my other options would be when I took that basketball when I

Paul McAlary  29:50
so if you did 51 plus 46 plus if you were to do a year Shape kitchen, then a U shaped kitchen would be you'd have your refrigerator stay in the same place, you do the same thing with the doorway and with everything else. And then you have the Lazy Susan in the one corner. And then you'd have your lazy susan in the one corner, then your dishwasher normally then your sink, then you'd have a blind cabinet turning into you coming out off the wall where the sink is, and then you'd have an overhang on that countertop coming off. And then you'd be sitting at the back of the you with your back to the island. I mean, with your back to the fireplace, facing the refrigerator. The only thing about that design is you'll be sitting into this door, like when people come in the door, you'll you'll be sitting into their area essentially. And then when we're doing it that way too, you'll be that much closer you'll be you know, you'll be that much closer when you're sitting there. Essentially the countertop is going to come all the way down to pretty much the same area where it's coming down to now. But you'll be sitting there you'll force everybody to be have to be walking, you know, over your, the front of your fireplace. So mean that fireplaces, if it really won't use it and everything else, it might be something you might want to think about. Deactivating?

Holly  31:34
Yeah, it looks nice. And it gives it some character, but it is it does add some challenges. I think I like the island better, or the islands, I'd be better than a you because like you said to have people walk around and sit there, the door might be a hassle. Okay,

Paul McAlary  31:52
you could do it either way. And you could have the island also go in the direction that they have it going in now and have everything open from one side. But that just a space that you have is longer in one direction than the other. So again, you'll get a bigger island going in the other direction, and you'll be able to sit on two sides of it. So it's sort of a toss up, generally, I think you're a little bit better off going in the other direction. And then when you're at the stove, if you're working at the stove, you don't have a great amount of countertop to work at. So it makes it easy to just turn around and work at the island and then go to the stove from the island. Okay, I'll do a hand drawing, just because it can, I can do that very quickly, instead of putting it on a computer and everything. And then send it to you so that you can sort of see it. But the biggest thing about this whole thing is I take out the wall, and I'd move the doorway down. And both of those be outrageously expensive. And then I guess if all the measurements are correct, then you might not be bad off. Getting cabinets from Costco, it's just the only road to getting cabinets from Costco that sort of makes sense is before you finally place the order, you might want to check with us again or check with me again, just to make sure that they haven't done anything else that doesn't add up or whatever.

Holly  33:20
Yeah, I also I noticed that you like I think fab you would and I do have some local places that that have that. So I think that will be my next option is go seeing seeing what else was out there.

Paul McAlary  33:31
Yeah, there's a lot of cabinets that like fab you wood is in a fabulous it is the most expensive probably, of the inexpensive brands. But there's a lot of other brands that are very inexpensive, that are maybe 20% less than fab you would that are very well made. The Costco brand from what I remember looking up when I looked it up, it's pretty well made. But I think the pricing is very similar to like CNC or cube tech. There's a lot of cabinet brands that are a little bit less expensive than fab you would that will be equally well made. Like if you go to a fab you would dealer, it's quite likely that they carry a whole bunch of different cabinet lines like we carry fab you wood, we carry Timberlake we carry Jim Bishop cabinets, we carry two custom cabinet brands. So we carry all of these different brands. And so why that's a good thing is that designers are have to be that much better because they're working in high end cabinet lines. So they're just that much more knowledgeable and they sell customers, whatever the kinds of cabinets that customers need. And if we're selling somebody a fabulous kitchen, well, it's actually less work a lot of the time it's we're certainly making less money as designers on a fabby wood kitchen, but it's less time because it's not so involved and detail oriented as a custom kitchen is so if you figured out how much we make per hour there's probably not very much difference between a really expensive kitchen In an inexpensive kitchen, it's just you know, there's much more work and the expensive ones there should be if you're doing them, right. So the designers that are working in at cabinet dealerships, that sell a bunch of different brands, they're good enough to know all the specs, and all the dimensions, and all the details for all of these different brands. And, and then you're getting their inexpensive brand, but you're getting a person that you're working with, that's much more knowledgeable than the guy never considered that. Which is really why the worst thing of all, is actually the person that is an independent kitchen designer, in my opinion. So an independent kitchen designer, is somebody that doesn't really work for a place that sells cabinets. And why that's such a bad idea is the guy from Costco is not charging you for his time, right? That's all free. Right? Right. So you might go to a kitchen company, and they might make you we make customers pay us $150 deposit to have us measure their kitchen, and to have a few appointments with us, for us to do the designs and price everything out. Some places have none. Some places have pretty big deposits. But whatever the deposits is, if it's going towards cabinetry, and if they're sort of reasonable for cabinetry, then it's, it's totally fine. And then you're you know, you're getting somebody that's much more experienced, if you hire an independent designer, that not selling cabinets. at Costco, you're not paying anything with us, you're paying $150, some places you might spend more, but as long as the money is being applied towards the cost of the cabinets, you're not wasting any money, when you have an independent designer, then they're charging you for their time to design a kitchen. But they're not even as good, they're never going to be anywhere near as good as the designer that works with a cabinet dealership that sells the five cabinet brands. Because those people are working full time. They're designing tons of people's kitchens, they're getting a commission, and they're making way more money than an independent designer ever could doing designs, and then charging for their time and then sending people to places to buy cabinets. So anybody that's good at our job is trying to get a job first not like maybe first you work at Costco, and you decide that you like doing it. And then if you get a little bit better, you get a job at Home Depot or Lowe's. And then if you get a little bit better after that, then you get a job in an independent dealership. And then if you get a little bit better at that, you get a job at a really nice independent dealership. And then now you're making a whole lot of money. Now the guy had Costco is making $30,000 a year, the guy at Home Depot and Lowe's is making, you know, maybe 35 or 38, the guy at the independent cabinet dealer, one of our designers makes over $200,000 a year. And there's some designers that make even more than that. The reason that they're getting paid so much money is because they're that much better, really. So, but that's how our industry works. So you're you're working with somebody that's working at one of these better places, they should be more knowledgeable. Otherwise, they couldn't have gotten their job really where theoretically they shouldn't have been able to get their job. The one good thing about a dealer too, is that they sell fab, you would, you know they have to be reasonable. If there weren't a price fab, you would very expensively probably people wouldn't be buying it from them. Right? If a dealer is selling fab, you would I think that's generally a good sign that they're not overly expensive. For the cabinet's that. That's good. If you go there, you can see what kind of experience you have. Yeah, especially if if you call them up, and you don't need an appointment to come in, or you make an appointment to come in and just sort of talk a little bit about your measurements and stuff like that. See, if you get a better feel. And then, you know, if they put the design on the computer for you, then they should do a better job than this. Although this is not that bad. I'm surprised this person that Costco didn't do a bad job. And maybe he doesn't even have the or she doesn't even have the panels on the sides of the islands and some of the finishing touches just because they didn't have a chance to get to it.

Holly  39:28
Yeah, maybe.

Paul McAlary  39:29
So I will flesh this out a little bit better for you. And then send your hand drawing and then maybe you can bring that back to Costco. We'll bring it to another kitchen place and they can put it on the computer.

Holly  39:40
Yeah, yes. Oh, wonderful. Thank you so much for your help. I never thought about that little wall and moving that out in this really.

Paul McAlary  39:50
That's a big thing because really, that cabinet that is in the corner. It's a really big cabinet making those two coins under his blind corners, they probably have almost six or seven square feet of dead space. And you know, that's pretty much like one whole big cabinet that the biggest cabinet in your kitchen is being eliminated essentially. Okay, the advantages, suddenly now you're able to use the corner. But more importantly, now you have more countertop to, and having countertop on either side of your stove is sort of helps the cause. That way when you're, you're at your stove, you're not right with your hip pressed up against the countertop like it is now.

Holly  40:37
Yeah. Well, thank you again, Paul. I appreciate your time and your expertise. And

Paul McAlary  40:42
best of luck. And if you're in the mood, don't hesitate calling back and checking on something or showing us what you got towards the end or whatever. We're, we're here if you need us.

Holly  40:56
Okay, well, thank you so much for talking

Paul McAlary  40:58
me out. I'll email you the hand drawing probably in the next half hour or so.

Holly  41:03
Okay. All right. Take care. All right, bye. Bye.

Mark Mitten  41:07
Thank you for listening to the mainline kitchen design podcast with the world's greatest Kitchen Designer poll mapillary. For more on kitchen cabinets and kitchen design, go to www dot mainland kitchen design.com


Transcribed by https://otter.ai