We are thrilled to be sharing our home design and renovation tips with you each week. It is our intent to provide you with as many valuable tips as possible to help you better prepare for your next big home design and remodeling project. Think of us as your partners each step of the way!
For the past weeks, we have shared some valuable bathroom tips which you can check out with this link. For the next set of tips, we will be focusing on kitchen remodeling, to get that wonderful kitchen you’ve always wanted. Without further ado, here are your tips for this week!
Elizabeth Mitchel
Partner at Finesse Design Remodeling
Many of the clients that we meet with are suffering with small and closed off kitchen space. This makes it very difficult to be able to entertain for family or friends or to be able to keep an eye on small children if you’re fixing dinner or breakfast. One of the solutions for this is to open up the kitchen to some of the neighboring living spaces such as the family room.
But some of our clients, whether they have spoken with a well-intentioned friend or neighbor, are under the impression that this is not an option for them because that wall they want to take out is load bearing or it has plumbing, electrical or ventilation ducting in it. And they have also been told that this is cost-prohibitive. That is not necessarily the case, especially if you are working with a licensed, professional design-build contractor. And you may be able to actually get that wall taken out of the way and it may be a lot less expensive than you realize.
Brian Bielski
Partner at Finesse Design Remodeling
At times when we come into these older homes in D.C., we have a situation where we have to cut radiators out to make room for more cabinets. And the problem becomes then what do you do about creating enough heat after you take the radiator out. A lot of people don’t understand that they may get special toe kick heaters that fit under the cabinet and you can buy them in either 120 volt electric, 240 volt electric or you can either get water toe kick heater.
They fit under the cabinets where they are invisible. They have a blower on them, which you can control remotely from your phone. And you can put a track grill in the toe kick on the cabinet which you can paint the same color as the toe kick so it “disappears” and that will blow warm air out so it’s making up for the fact that we removed the radiator to create more cabinet space.
Another thing that I want to talk about with toe kick ventilation is sometimes we remove a wall and there will be an air duct that traveled up and then diffused out the face of the wall. So rather than move the diffuser out of into the kitchen floor where it will be visible in either the hardware or the tiles, what we do is we blow it up the bottom of the cabinet with a 90-degree boot and we defuse it out of the toe kick. It is hidden and you’re still getting the air into the kitchen that you had.
We hope you found these tips helpful!
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