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re-do survivor is voice of experience
Kitchen re-do survivor is voice of experience
 By
JUDITH W. WINNE
Courier-Post Staff
I survived a re-do of a small kitchen. If you are planning a renovation,
my message to you is: One, it's worth the aggravation. Two, better
make sure you know what you're doing.
My new-and-improved 8-by-12 kitchen features:
Cabinets with both pull-out and Lazy Susan drawers for easy access.
A pair of leaded glass cabinet doors in a style reminiscent of
Frank Lloyd Wright.
Warm granite counter tops in a color the retailer dubbed Tuscan
Spice.
An airy look-through from the kitchen to the dining room. When
the builder removed cabinets hanging from an ugly soffit, the architectural
alteration became a reality.
Maple cabinets in a natural finish, a change that makes the new
space look considerably lighter. The 20-year-old cabinets were dark
as night.
All new stainless-steel appliances.
A small but polished wood floor.
A bar sink.
The sink is the key functional feature. For years, my husband and
I competed for faucet time. If I rinsed vegetables, he couldn't
wash his hands to help with dinner and there was no other sink nearby.
But there's a trade-off. If you add, you generally must subtract.
To make room for the bar sink, I relinquished a washer-dryer combination.
The garage is now the option for the laundry. Obviously, this is
not a decision I would make if I had a large family.
In a tiny space, planning is critical. Don't rely on the builder
to figure it all out for you. Our builder wanted to extend the granite
countertop where it approached the dining area. We nixed the idea
when we noticed that even a small extension would interfere with
our ability to move the dining room chairs.
Aesthetic questions cropped up, too. We placed the leaded glass
doors, illuminated by tiny lights, in the only place where the cabinet
doors could be spotted from both the dining and living rooms. Because
they were a special purchase, we wanted to make sure they were visible
and we could enjoy them.
On the more practical side, our new dishwasher needed a sensible
space. Most folks place the dishwasher next to the sink. It makes
sense, especially if you rinse your platters, but we had to come
up with Plan B.
So why didn't we follow the common practice? We realized in this
tight space, if we stood at the sink we couldn't open the dishwasher
and load it. We didn't need an architect to tell us that was a bad
idea.
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