The Best Time to Choose Kitchen Fixtures and Finishes During a Remodel

So you’re finally ready to start remodeling your kitchen into your dream space. You’ve been pouring over Houzz, Pinterest, and all the home design magazines for months, maybe even years, searching for the perfect materials for your vision. You think you know exactly what you want in your dream kitchen, right down to every last decorative detail including the pottery you plan to use in that corner shelf.

Planning is great, but now it’s time to take your carefully curated Pinterest board and toss into the Internet’s trash bin and get to the real planning phase of your kitchen remodel. Just kidding! Don’t throw it away, it will come in handy later. As you start your remodel, hold those plans lightly and trust that your vision can be altered and still be everything you wanted when the remodel is complete.

Now that you’ve mentally set aside your remodel moodboard you’re ready to get to the “real” planning phase. But what decisions do you make first? We’ve got a few suggestions.

The Preliminary Phase-Space Planning and Schematic Design Plan

The first step is to find a kitchen designer to work with on space planning and schematic design. If you choose McCarley Cabinets, your first phone call should be to us. We work with professional interior designers to ensure that we’re creating kitchens that fit our client’s spaces and budgets. Your space plan is basically choosing the best layout for your kitchen’s space. The schematic design plan is planning the overall scheme of your kitchen. To learn more about space planning and schematic design, check out this excellent article from Houzz.

Appliances First

Not all of your kitchen fixture decisions come after initial planning. Decisions like the type and size of your appliances, as well as the type and amount of lighting you’ll need, will be made during the preliminary planning phase. Appliance size affects cabinet layout so you’ll make those final decisions before your cabinet builder their layout and measurements. Though you can choose some decor later, you’ll need to decide the type and amount of lighting early. This allows rough electrical work to be completed before the drywall is hung. Another decision you’ll need to make during the preliminary phase? Deciding if you want an additional prep sink along with your main sink. Much like electrical work, plumbing will be done before most other work.

Cabinets, Countertops, and Tile Work

We told you to forget your Pinterest board and this step is the reason why. You may think you know you want an all-white kitchen or a moody kitchen with blue or green cabinets but you may not know what shades of white pair well together or which countertop material matches that tile you’ve been eyeing for backsplash or flooring. When you work with a professional cabinet builder like us, we’ll show you a palette of materials and help you decide what works best for your vision and the actual design. If you plan to have tile or stone flooring, you’ll need to those choices during this step of planning as well.

Four for Floor

As we just mentioned, choosing your flooring comes right along or right behind making your cabinet, countertop, and tile choices. It’s during this critical phase that you’ll learn what we mean when we advise you to let go of those Pinterest plans because those wood cabinets you “absolutely have to have” don’t actually pair well with that “must-have” flooring, and one or both will have to go.

Paint Party

If you’ve ever painted a room in your home, you know that choosing the right shade of paint is much trickier than those paint company commercials make it look. Luckily, decisions you made before this step like choosing your cabinet, countertop, backsplash, and flooring materials come in super-handy here. We recommend taking samples of these materials to a paint color expert (every paint store has one in-house). These experts typically hold some type of design or art degree that gives them special knowledge of color tones and shades including which blends work well together and which ones create a color nightmare.

Decorative Details

Okay, time to “dust off” that Pinterest board again! Now is the time to choose those little details that make a huge impact on your kitchen’s overall look. During this step, you’ll make final choices on custom cabinet work like cabinet shape and creating niches fit just for your needs. Some special spaces we’ve seen include a spice niche or interior shelving that’s measured for various pan types and sizes.

Furnishings and Accessories

Great things come to those who patiently wait because more Pinterest fun is to be had and at this point, fun is all you have left! Now that your kitchen plan is complete, it’s time to furnish and accessorize. Those bar stools you’ve been eyeing on Wayfair are ready to be ordered and placed at your new island and you can finally return to your local pottery store to pick up those pieces you selected months ago.

Are you ready to begin preliminary planning for your kitchen remodel? McCarley Cabinets is ready to help! Get started on your plans today by requesting your free project quote at 662-728-1533.