Reader question: How do I know how much to spend on a renovation?
I get reader questions from all around the location and this one arrived some time around the brand new yr. Usually, I solution reader questions with a short notice and every now and then, they want a greater considerate response. The following got here from a reader in Melbourne and there has been no way a quick email response ought to have achieved it any sort of justice. I research as much from my global readers as I hope they study shape me.
My excursion studying protected McCloud's '43 principles of home'. In this e-book bankruptcy 15 is dedicated to 'things at domestic no longer worth making an investment in' and one of the sections in this bankruptcy is 'kitchen cabinets and doorways'.
"The bits that matter in the kitchen are the machines that so the work and the bits you come into contact with." Chapter 16 of the same book is devoted to things worth investing in and include kitchen door handles, taps and worktops. Knives and pans are also important. But door cupboards aren't. And frankly, the best made kitchens in the world are still 'carcassed out' using orientated strand board, chipboard or plywood. Structurally there's negligible difference in quality between a $10k kitchen and it's $100k equivalent. Moreover, high-street merchants like Ikea have got wise to this and are now retailing budget kit kitchens that mimic the bespoke German ones. It also seems daft to spend vast quantities on an aspect of the home that the next owners will invariably rip out and replace. Which they will, because it's human nature to territorialise the new cave with a new kitchen. All of which demands that you invest in kitchen units and doors that are ecological, recyclable and for that matter probably recycled in the first place. (McCloud then suggest a suitable company for sourcing your kitchen carcass from.)"
So to be fair this issues probably needs the context of the entire book. But this little tidbit of advice worried me because it seems like sound advice, and yet I don't like the idea of a chipboard kitchen from Ikea or from bontempi for that matter. But does it make sense to get a carpenter in to hand make all my cupboards in native hardwood?
Intuitively I'd have thought this was the right thing to do. Although we're not planning on moving, are kitchens are so subject to trends and fashions, and am I so merely mortal that 10 to 20 years the life span for a kitchen? And if so, is chipboard ok?
I consider your submit of kitchens via the ages... So the evidence is weighing in at the aspect of restricting the investment within the carcass.
Ikea carcass and doorways tricked up with wolf appliances a subzero fridge an included stainless steel sink bench pinnacle on one facet of the galley and a cool stone bench top on the opposite (for rolling pastry and for pasta making) on the alternative, and the excellent faucets and handles to finish it off.... Would this paintings?
That was a long question I know, but I thought it was important to run the whole thing. The question came to me from Fleur, a reader from Australia and she raises a couple of good points. Before I could answer this I had to dig in a bit and find out about the source of her question, Kevin McCloud's 43 Principles of Home.
Kevin McCloud is a designer, writer and television presenter based in the UK. He has an enormous following there and in the rest of the English-speaking world. Everywhere it seems, except for the US. His latest book, 43 Things isn't available in the US and it drives me crazy that I can't get my hands on it. Maybe I'll find it in Germany in a few weeks.
The book's published by Harper-Collins-UK and they prepared this overview video I found on YouTube.
I like this guy's fashion and I like what he has to mention. Sort of. I understand extra about the renovation scene in Europe than I do the scene in Australia unfortunately, but from what I've discovered from different Australian readers, it is quite special from that in the US and Canada. As I apprehend it, there's a wide center of the marketplace here that is now not quite so huge for your a part of the sector however there are a couple of factors that maintain authentic everywhere.
Kevin McCloud's opinion not withstanding, there's an enormous difference in the quality of a $100K when compared to a $10K kitchen. There just is. Whether or not a carcass is made from particle board, MDF or plywood isn't an automatic indicator of quality. There are plywood-sided cabinets I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy and there are particle board-sided cabinets I'l give a kidney for the privilege to own. What makes a quality carcass is the thickness of it and the manner in which it's joined. You make a $10K set of kitchen cabinets by making those carcasses thinner and less well joined. Another way you make a cheap set of cabinets is you skimp on the quality of the finish on the door.
A $10K kitchen will need to be replaced in ten years or less. A $100K kitchen will last forever. It's not possible to separate the doors from the carcasses, especially when you start customizing the sizes of things. Even when you don't customize, manufacturers build both together and they do so using proprietary sizes. A door from company A won't fit a carcass from company B properly. Part of that door and carcass package and what's usually a bigger driver of quality than either is the hinges. Hinges tend to be made by third party companies and they come in a wide variety of qualities and price points. A nice-looking, well-made cabinet door with a cheap hinge makes for a cheap cabinet.
So what there is to do is study from the good things and discover a greater cost-powerful supplier who uses as lots of those pleasant points as you can discover. Most human beings don't want or want a forever kitchen. However, no person needs a kitchen that falls aside in five years.
So look for things like hinges and hardware from Blum, a German hardware manufacturer with plants all over the world. Pay attention to the thickness of the sides of a cabinet and the manner in which the sides join the back and the floor. Ask about things like rabbeted joints and catalyzed glue. You may get funny looks but those things are important. The US market is starting to become flooded with cheap in every sense of the word cabinetry from China. I'm sure that stuff hit Australia before it washed up on our shores. Avoid it.
Back to your actual question though, people do combine cabinetry from IKEA with Wolf/ Sub-Zero appliances all the time. There are a couple of pitfalls to this method though. Sub-Zero refrigerators are built in and don't come with finished sides. Better cabinet lines sell the parts to finish them off but cabinetry from IKEA can't panel in a Sub-Zero. So be sure the refrigerator model you buy and the design you choose for your kitchen work with the cabinet supplier you end up with.
The kitchen you describe sounds splendid however be cautious approximately spending too little on your cabinetry. When it comes to building merchandise, price factor is a quite desirable indicator of first-rate. A $a hundred tap is one you'll be changing in a yr. A $3000 tap is overkill for maximum people, but you could rest confident that it's going to never want to get replaced.
Does that assist?