budget

Murphy’s Law … “If anything can go wrong, it will” … was coined at Edwards Air Force Base in 1949. Its namesake, Captain Edward Murphy, was an engineer working on a project to determine how much sudden deceleration a person can stand in a crash. Upon finding a transducer wired wrong by a technician, he remarked, “ If there is any way to do it wrong, he’ll find it.” The project manager added this to his list of “laws”, referring to it as Murphy’s Law.

As discussed in a previous blog, remodeling a kitchen can be expensive. One alternative is refacing cabinets instead of replacing them. Refacing cabinets can be a viable option, however, there are situations in which refacing cabinets does not makes sense. Let’s look at what refacing is and the advantages/disadvantages of this option.

Depending on the style you want and the options you choose, a significant chunk of your kitchen remodeling budget will be applied towards the purchase of cabinets. Industry benchmarks have cabinetry making up approximately 40% of the project costs.  Many factors affect cabinetry’s portion of the budget. Knowing a few of these factors will arm you with the basic knowledge you need going forward.

In many areas of life, we tend to think in terms of the here and now. This is often evident in the areas of buying, building, or remodeling a home. We seek out design elements that are representative of our current stage of life. Life, as we know, is fluid and ever changing. Our situation today may not be our situation tomorrow. That is where Universal Design comes in.

When it's time to choose the perfect cabinets for your kitchen, one of the decisions you will have to make is whether to choose painted or stained cabinets. Maybe that decision is one you have already made, and you know exactly which you will choose.  Perhaps you are still debating which option suits you best. If so, this information will hopefully make your choice a little clearer.

With today's busy lifestyles, microwave ovens are an important and frequently used kitchen appliance. Microwaves come in four basic designs ... portable, microwave/hood combination, built-in, and drawer microwave. Determining the best microwave for your kitchen or remodeling project needs to balance a number of factors, including cost, convenience, usage, and aesthetics.

If you are considering a kitchen remodel, you are probably giving a lot of thought to how much it will cost and what you can afford to spend. It is crucial to keep the project affordable so that your budget is not depleted before the work is finished. With this in mind, here are ten steps to help you manage spending during a kitchen remodel.

So much thought is put into the desired cabinet style that it may be easy to overlook the type of wood used for those cabinets. After all, wood is wood, right? Actually, there are quite a few differences between the wood species, including durability, grain variation, and color. Let’s examine some popular wood choices for cabinetry and their specific characteristics.