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Article 11: Kitchen Remodel: Replacement or Re-Design?

Understanding the difference can save you time and money.

By Donald Silvers & Moorea Hoffman

You're excited. You're about to do your kitchen. Where will you go? to Home Depot? An intimate showroom? The Great Indoors? What about an architect? How do you choose? You first have to ask yourself, "Do I like the way my kitchen works?"

If you are happy with the way it works, then you're a candidate for a replacement kitchen.

To determine if your kitchen is as functional as you need it to be, ask yourself, "Can I have more than one person work in my kitchen comfortably? What is the largest group of people I will cook for in a sit-down dinner, and is it easy to do so?" Also consider the amount of time you spend in your kitchen: can you do an hours work in an hours time?

If your answer to any of these questions is, "No", or, "I'm not sure", then you need to look at the elements that have a part in making your kitchen functional. Do you have enough counter space? Enough storage? Is your sink large enough? Are you stuck with one sink station? What are your appliances like? Most importantly, consider the kind of cooking or entertaining you want to do. People who like to bake have different requirements than those who prefer grilling or making stocks, candy, etc.

It's time for you to do your research. Go to the library, get on the Internet and buy some design books. What you are trying to do is figure out what you want and who can help you get it.

Kitchen remodels fall into two broad categories: replacement or re-design. Replacement projects include aesthetic changes (out with the old - in with the new), but the essential functionality and layout of the kitchen stays the same. Re-design projects are bigger, more expensive, and more drastic - they can include moving or re-moving walls, changing appliance and plumbing locations, adding on to the home, and moving windows and doors. It is important to understand this difference so you can budget accordingly and get the appropriate help to complete your project.

Here are some guidelines to help you figure out what you need.

If your counters are in good shape and you don't need to replace them:

You could paint, stain, or resurface your cabinets to update the look. When you paint or stain the cabinet, you change the color, perhaps the handles, but in essence everything else remains the same. Resurfacing involves replacing the doors and covering your existing finish with very thin sheets of wood or vinyl. It is more expensive than paint, but allows you to change the door style or wood species. You can add decorative glass doors and create a very different look, going from traditional to contemporary, or vice versa.

However, the cost of re-facing is not far below the cost of new cabinets from a lower-priced modular line.

Budget aside, the only reason to paint or resurface instead of buying new cabinets is keeping your existing counter. Be aware that that if your counter will need replacing in the next few years (and you are not planning on selling the house), it may be just as cost-effective to install new, inexpensive cabinetry now, and get your improved kitchen done once and done right. Although you will be paying more for the installation and you will have to update the counters and backsplash now instead of later, you will be able to invest in better drawers, roll-outs, and make small changes to the layout, like moving your microwave or refrigerator. Ultimately, this means that you get a much better result for the same money - you just have to spend all of the money at once.

If you want new cabinets but want to keep your appliances and sinks where they are:

You have many cabinet providers to choose from. The key question is: how much personalized attention do you want? The "big box" stores carry medium- to low-end cabinetry and will install it for you. The average installation cost should be 10% to 15% of the cost of the cabinetry. You could also go to a kitchen showroom. They will have a range of products from high- to low-end. Lumber yards that do kitchen remodels have medium- to low-end product lines. Again, you have to ask yourself how much attention you want. The kitchen showrooms will be your best bet for personalized service.

No matter where you buy your cabinets, the dealer must also do the installation.

Don't fall for the low cabinetry installation price your contractor may give you. If there is a problem during installation, the cabinet dealer will blame the contractor, who'll blame the dealer, and ultimately you will foot the bill to fix whatever is wrong. By having the cabinet provider install the cabinets, he or she has all the accountability, and you are protected.

So far, we have been talking about leaving the kitchen layout as is cosmetic improvements, or tearing out old products but replacing things as they were originally designed.

When you want to change everything:

The kitchen doesn't work - its driving you nuts. Not enough counter space. Appliances that are too small or located in the wrong place. The kitchen needs light, so you want  to add a skylight or a window. You decide to tear everything out, down to its bare walls. You realize you need help beyond what a cabinet salesperson can offer. Do you need an architect? A kitchen designer? What's the difference? Are all kitchen designers the same, and how do you determine the differences?

When you approach re-designing a kitchen, the first thing to recognize is that the kitchen is a very unique and complex space and cannot be driven by beauty alone. It really doesn't matter whether you hire an architect, a kitchen designer, or an interior designer. What matters is how experienced that person is at  designing highly functional and beautiful kitchens. Some interior designers can do this, but many times  the kitchen will require a specialist. There are architects who can do it, although they are very few and far between because their training is focused on the outside, not the inside, of the home. Here is the first question to ask any design professional:

"Do you know how to cook  a sit-down dinner  for ten to twelve people without using a microwave or frozen food?"

This probably sounds silly at first, but think about it. It is essential that anyone designing a kitchen be able to take raw food to a finished, delicious product. If they say, "No, I don't cook", don't walk, run someplace else. The person who designs your kitchen must understand electrical, plumbing, cabinet installation, counter surface materials, backsplash materials and all of the other myriad details that form a completed kitchen. But unless they understand how to cook, there is no way the kitchen will work. Remember, in the final analysis, you have to cook in the kitchen.

At this point, you may be thinking, "I only cook for my family of five, I don't need a gourmet kitchen." It is always a mistake to design for the minimum requirements of a space instead of the maximum. While you may not cook a sit-down meal for twelve very often, a dysfunctional kitchen can hurt you everyday by making food preparation take longer than it should. The right appliances and the right layout mean an hour's worth of work will take one hour, not more. When you do decide to cook for more than six, the experience will be more enjoyable, even relaxed, instead of hectic and frustrating.

When you think about your kitchen in the context of function, understand that the cost of doing a kitchen that works well is the same or only slightly more than ignoring function completely. But, six months after the kitchen is done, when you're enjoying the space with friends and family, you won't remember the ten percent of additional money invested unless you didn't spend it.

Written by Don Silvers on 6/27/2009 4:44:50 PM.
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Article 10: Outside the Box

To be able to think outside the box you have to know what's in the box. By Don Silvers

Written by Don Silvers on 9/12/2007 5:26:22 PM.
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Article 9: Cookbook Review

Several weeks ago my son suggested I get a book called Culinary Artistry by Andrew Dornenberg and Karen Page (1996, ITP International Publishing). It was ranked as one of the top culinary books of the year, and can be conveniently purchased in paperback. I always listen closely to cooking-related suggestions from my son, Josh Silvers, because he is the chef/owner of the renowned restaurant Syrah in Santa Rosa. Josh suggested I read Culinary Artistry because he knows that I have been a cookbook collector for many years and no longer follow a recipe. I may use several recipes to create a concept of a particular dish and that’s what Culinary Artistry is all about. Instead of giving you a series of recipes, it gives you an ingredient; bay leaf, for example. And from that beginning, the authors give you a list of twelve ingredients they feel would work wonderfully with bay leaves. The list includes beans, game, risotto and shellfish, soups and stews and so forth. In addition to seasonings the authors also describe pairings for main entrees, vegetables, pastas, fruit, meats and more. For example, they suggest well over sixty or seventy ingredients and seasonings that would be delicious when married with lamb, and also describe whether you should bake it or braise it, broil it or grill it or if all of the above may work. This is a book designed for the cook who never wants to follow a recipe but would like guidance on what he can do with a dish, pulling from a variety of different ingredients and seasonings. It is a book that belongs in every cook’s library, especially those who want to take their skills to the next level. What an inspiring read for anyone who takes pleasure in the preparation and consumption of gastronomic delights.

Written by Don Silvers on 5/25/2007 11:14:09 AM.
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Article 8: Contemporary Designers and SubZero Wolf Appliances

Do you like contemporary styled kitchens? Do you cook? Be careful to choose a designer who won't make your kitchen an extension of their showroom. A few weeks ago I was invited to attend a luncheon sponsored by a public relations firm that represents the SubZero and Wolf appliance companies. It was a focus group: two representatives of the firm were sounding out L.A. area designers on trends in the industry. In addition to myself and my associate, Moorea Hoffman, there were also three owners/managers of cabinet showrooms from LA, one manager of an Orange County showroom, two designers who work primarily with builders in the desert area and another independent designer. Three designers represented contemporary cabinet lines. They all said the same thing: they specified far more SubZero products than Wolf products because Wolf cooking equipment does not have the “sleek” or “low-profile” look that works with their minimalist cabinetry. Now, I love contemporary style kitchens. Although the style is desired by less than 10% of homeowners, I have worked on hundreds of projects with this design aesthetic (to see some examples, check out my portfolio). I understand the streamlined, clean look—but the designers who attended this luncheon were so wedded to this style that they stridently proclaimed Wolf unusable. They weren’t unfairly picking on Wolf; all professional style equipment like it fell into the un-specifiable category of “clunky.” I understand that designers often select one appliance over another because of its’ look, but I was astonished to see professional style (what I call multi-purpose) ranges and cooktops completely eliminated. This is the only category of cooking appliance that offers the cook power and versatility—and expands their menu choices instead of limiting them. Moreover, these were no interior designers or architects who often lack knowledge about appliances. These were kitchen design specialists, some of them certified by the National Kitchen and Bath Association (NKBA). When I asked if they specified Wolf products for clients who liked to cook and entertain, they arrogantly proclaimed these appliances to be “overkill.” That may be a great sales technique when you want to keep the focus on the cabinets, but it is a terrible disservice to the homeowner. They asked why they should use this type of appliance when their clients only prepare “one meal a year” for a large group. Last time I checked, Thanksgiving is not the only holiday, and many people celebrate birthdays or other special occasions by gathering together family and friends in their home. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether your client cooks one meal a year for a group, or one meal a week. What matters is that you, the designer, are charged with creating a room whose purpose is the preparation of food. By focusing on the aesthetics and the minimum cooking needs (family of four) rather than the maximum cooking needs, you enforce a restricted menu, a restricted guest list. Or you force to the client to do more work (and spend more time) than necessary, or even to call in a caterer. Of course kitchens should be beautiful, but not at the expense of function. After all, we don’t eat with our eyes.

Written by Don Silvers on 4/12/2007 9:15:58 PM.
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Article 7: How to find the right designer

Attention homeowners looking to remodel your kitchen . . .

You probably find yourself deliberating between a variety of cabinetry options.  Though cost and style vary considerably, a cabinet is, in essence, just a wooden box.  Given a basic attention to quality, one will be much the same as another, especially when it is installed.  But the person who designs your kitchen . . . now there is a choice fraught with peril.  

Although you may not realize it, the designer you choose wields tremendous power over the outcome of your project.  Certain attributes are logical to seek:  experience, product knowledge, a sense of style.  One attribute critical to success but commonly overlooked is, “What is your design philosophy?”  If your designer replies the Kitchen Triangle, it’s time to head for the hills.  

The Kitchen Triangle does not work!  This so-called design scheme is no more than a technique for selling cabinetry.  Who would you rather have design your kitchen: a cabinet salesperson, or a kitchen designer?  While the industry would have you believe this is one and the same, do not be fooled.  To find a kitchen designer truly qualified to help you create the best space possible, find someone whose philosophy focuses on function and who has the cooking experience to back up the talk with action.  Frozen food and microwaves do not count!  At the risk of repeating myself, the only way a designer has the knowledge to design a functional kitchen is if they are able to put a tasty, timely meal on the table for at least 10 people.  

In defense of these unfortunate cabinet salespeople masquerading as designers, many of them don’t know that what they do doesn’t work.  Since they don’t have the cooking experience to understand the dysfunction of the kitchen triangle, they are unable to see through the misinformation they are taught.  They believe the National Kitchen and Bath Association when it says the Kitchen Triangle is the way to design a good kitchen.  Recently the NKBA tried to update their training manuals to catch up to the products and trends today’s savvy consumers demand.  Their new books explain layout in terms of “Zones” rather than the Kitchen Triangle.  But this is a linguistic sleight of hand: the flow patterns they diagram in example floorplans are laid out according to the same old kitchen triangle.  The NKBA has learned how to talk the talk of function, but they still can’t walk the walk.

Written by Don Silvers on 3/9/2007 5:50:57 PM.
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Article 6: Must Reads for Good Cooks--or those who aspire to be

The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
By Michael Pollan, author of The Botany of Desire


This terrific book looks at the history of the food we eat – not our historical eating patterns but the back-story of the meal that ends up on our table: how and where it was grown, what was used to grow it . . .

I’m reading the first section, Industrial Corn, which follows the story of a corn-fed steer, number 534, through its path from birth to table.

The following excerpt is from page 83-84

“I don’t have a sufficiently vivid imagination to look at my steer and see a barrel of oil, but petroleum is one of the most important ingredients in the production of modern meat, and the Persian Gulf is surely a link in the food chain that passes through this (or any) feedlot.  Steer 534 started his life part of a food chain that derived all of its energy from the sun, which nourished the grasses that nourished him and his mother.  When 534 moved from ranch to feedlot, from grass to corn, he joined an industrial food chain powered by fossil fuel—and therefore defended by the U.S. military, another never-counted cost of cheap food.  (One fifth of America’s petroleum consumption goes to producing and transporting our food).  After I got home from Kansas, I asked an economist who specializes in agriculture and energy if it might be possible to calculate precisely how much petroleum it will take to grow my steer to slaughter-weight.  Assuming 534 continues to eat twenty-five pounds of corn a day and reaches a weight of twelve hundred pounds, he will have consumed in his lifetime the equivalent of a thirty-five gallons of oil—nearly a barrel.
So this is what commodity corn can do to a cow: industrialize the miracle of nature that is a ruminant, taking this sunlight- and prairie grass-powered organism and turning it into the last thing we need: another fossil fuel machine.  This one, however, is able to suffer.
Standing there in the pen along side my steer, I couldn’t imagine ever wanting to eat the flesh of one of these protein machines.  Hungry was the last thing I felt.  Yet I’m sure after enough time goes by, and the stink of this place is gone from my nostrils, I will eat feedlot beef again.  Eating industrial meat takes an almost heroic act of not knowing or, now, forgetting.  But I left Poky determined to follow this meat to a meal on a table somewhere, to see this food chain at least that far. I was curious to know what feedlot beef would taste like now, if I could taste the corn or even, since taste is as much a matter of what’s in the head as it is about molecules dancing on the tongue, some hint of the petroleum.  “You are what you eat” is a truism hard to argue with, and yet it is, as a visit to a feedlot suggests, incomplete, for you are what what you eat eats, too.  And what we are, or have become, is not just meat but number 2 corn and oil.”

This is a small passage of this extraordinary book: enjoy.

Other MUST Reads: On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen by Harold McGee

This is a book that’s hard to describe.  All the things we cooks have been doing by rote is now actually explained.  It is wonderfully refreshing to find out why we’re doing what we do.  It is not written as a science book but as a pleasure book—to read and learn.  His opening to the introduction follows:

The Professor to his cook:  You are a little opinionated, and I have had some trouble in making you understand that the phenomena which take place in your laboratory are nothing other than the eternal laws of nature, and that certain things which you do without thinking, and only because you have seen others do them, derive nonetheless from the highest scientific principles.
—Brillat Savarin, The Physiology of Taste (1825)

Written by Don Silvers on 3/7/2007 5:05:17 PM.
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Article 5: Two MUST Read Books on the subject of food:

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
By Michael Pollan, author of The Botany of Desire

On Food and Cooking
By Harold McGee

Written by Don Silvers on 3/1/2007 9:06:11 PM.
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Article 4: What is the Appliance Industry Afraid Of?

The question many of us kitchen designers ask is: what oven works best? Or, what cooktop, refrigerator, dishwasher. . .?  In other words, how does the consumer find out what’s the best appliance?

There are showrooms that allow the consumer to come in and cook or clean to see if they like that specific product.  That’s just not good enough.  What this industry needs is an eastern, mid-western, and western test center that allows us to compare many brands simultaneously.   This exists in the world of commercial appliances.  Since I do commercial kitchen design, as well as residential, I find myself in those test kitchens often.

I would like to see the appliance industry, especially in the area of ranges and cooktops, build better products across the range of price points; there is nothing that works well in the lower-end marketplace.

Written by Don Silvers on 2/21/2007 3:02:19 PM.
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Article 3: Renowned kitchen designer is FED UP...

...with the backwards priorities of the kitchen remodeling industry. I have been in this business for thirty-five years.  I have seen tremendous progress in the quality and variety of products available to consumers.  However, I am disturbed by the current and continuing trend that gives the cabinet manufacturers and dealers the power to set specifications for the appliance industry.

You can cut a cabinet any number of ways—you cannot cut or modify an appliance.  The standard 24” depth counter is not a matter of ergonomics; it is a matter of tradition. As a retired chef and commercial kitchen designer, I know what it takes to make a kitchen work well and look beautiful, too.

It is not refrigerators that are too shallow to store large bowls and platters.  It is not cook tops with burners so close together that a commonly available 13” sauté pan won’t fit and still allow surrounding burners to be used as well. (Please see our article, Cookie Cutter Kitchen, discussing the true ergonomics of kitchens). We’ve all heard that kitchens are the heart of the home. Appliances are the heart of the kitchen.

When you take them away, what you have left is a very pretty, very spacious closet. Yet many designers don’t know how to specify appliances. Why don’t designers know how to select appropriate appliances for you and your family? Because they don’t know how to cook.

The NKBA has done a terrific job of training kitchen designers to sell cabinetry, but nowhere in the years of classes and testing required to become a CKD are designers ever asked to make a meal for even six people.

It is my contention that a critical prerequisite for being a good kitchen designer is the ability to prepare a sit-down meal for 10 to 12 people without using a microwave or frozen food product. When you are comfortable with the process of cooking then—and only then—are you qualified to design a kitchen.

Written by Don Silvers on 2/9/2007 1:12:44 PM.
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Article 2: Why remodel your kitchen?

If cooking is a priority for you, then finding the right kitchen designer means asking the right questions.

"Do you cook?" should be the first one. Whether it's a stovetop that doesn't accommodate large enough pans, or a refrigerator placed where it requires constant long walks, a badly designed kitchen can make cooking a chore.

I can help you.

Written by Don Silvers on 2/2/2007 5:31:12 PM.
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Article 1: Welcome to my Tips and Advice area.

Welcome  to my new tips and advice area. I'll be posting here often. Thanks for coming - hope you will return soon.

Written by Don Silvers on 1/25/2007 6:37:39 PM.
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