re: Renovating Kitchen - What are some things you did, you wish you had done or not done

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Bottom line, glad I kept the wall between the kitchen and living area. No longer a fan of the open floor plan, and think they’re trending downward.

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We've had an open floor plan for the last 6 years and I fricking hate it. Thankfully, we're buying our old house back in Alabama in June that's not an open floor plan.

I can finally watch television again without having to pause it when someone is washing a plate in the sink.

Worst housing trend ever.

- Full extension drawer slides

- Shelves with heavy duty, full extension drawer slides for all lower cabinets.

- I personally hate cooking while staring at a wall, so I will always have my range top on an island or bar facing the dining area.

- I wish I had a large, single basin sink.

- If you have space and budget, full size fridge and freezer.

- 36" range if you cook a lot

We have 36” range with gas oven (thermador -wanted the gas broiler for pizza and steaks).
Sink in corner looking into garden- but large space to the left for espresso machine and dish drying area

dishwasher to the right of sink bc we’re right handed and makes loading easier
Single electric wall oven with microwave above that. We use both ovens often we’re a 5-6 day per week cooking family.

Large island..lots of drawers. Agree on the heavy duty slides in the bottom under island to make access easier ..slides under the sink

Trash can on island, upgrade to heavy duty slides bc some jacka$ will try to mash the trash down and bend your slides …not into the cutting board above trash—-kind of gross imo

We have a classic white subway tile backsplash that goes counter to ceiling —through whole kitchen, easy clean up

Outlet boxes and switches built into underside of cabinets..nothing on the backsplash wall, very clean, plug mold on end of island
We have led lighting under each cabinet and lights in the upper cabinets that go to ceiling with glass panel doors, pretty in evening, allows light without using the can lights..independent switches

Spice cabinet next to range and pull out kitchen utensil drawer near range

Oversized range hood 1200cfm (think stirfry smoke, searing steaks!)

We love our layout, our only complaint is we chose a softer marble based on an aesthetic, but it wears much to easy, so we have to embrace the aging ha!

Rather than renovate into an open floor plan, we had a sun room on one side of our kitchen. So we extended our kitchen into that area to create more social space where we placed a dining table, as well as a smaller seating area between the cooking space and the dining space.

We also had obsolete wall outlets along the backsplash such as 1 or 2 analog phone plugs and 1 or 2 cable tv outlets. To clean up the backsplash beyond a more visually appealing stone tile, we relocated the backsplash electric outlets from the wall to being hidden from view underneath the upper cabinets, and beside undermount LED lighting. It gave the countertops a very clean look.

My wife also did not like having multiple appliances continuously resting on the counter tops. So we converted a nearby laundry room (why anyone needs an entire room for that is puzzling to us) into a walk in pantry where we store large/heavy kitchen appliances. The former location of a shallow wall pantry was converted to house our primary refrigerator - next to the entrance to the walk in pantry. It made sense to store cold and dry storage next to each other. We also bought a new cabinet style additional refrigerator/freezer that can be switched from one function to the other depending on need - which we located in the walk-in pantry. That area is now our storage zone.

Our oven was located in an odd location. So we converted that area into 3 levels of floor to ceiling cabinetry wide enough for the middle section to serve as a coffee nook. The new oven with dual doors that open like cabinet doors is now within a zone where 1-2 people cooking can more easily access everything (including a new pull-out spice rack) while anyone else roaming around can easily pass through the former oven location without cluttering the cooking zone.

I also made the switch to an induction cooktop. Buying new cookware was a nice problem to have. I now love induction so much any new home we own will also be switched to induction. Part of the appeal is the efficiency of temperature control, never smelling natural gas in the cooking area, and keeping energy costs down (significantly less wasted heat). Vastly improved temperature control also means vastly improved cleaning up after cooking - much less spattering

We also removed all fluorescent lighting. It was replaced with LED pot lights and pendant lighting above the island where the induction cooktop is.

My sink came with a hot water dispenser. It’s got a red H on it and is right next to the one with the blue C

Under cabinet lighting. Wish I had not cheaped out.


I think I’m gonna elevate my next dish washer. Less bending. No lower cabinets. All drawers.

Bigger sink with a reverse osmosis water filter underneath

Pics wiil help; most of these ideas came from this board as my remodel progressed. we did 100% of the planning, design, materials selection and electrical & just had a contractor put everything where we requested.

- Lots of drawers, floating shelves, PROFESSIONAL undershelf lighting cut into the shelves themselves, not LED light strips. Made all the difference.
- 4" 'halo ring' recessed lights that are also on a dimmer. flip the switch 3 seconds after turning on to toggle between halo and regular lights
- 36" sink, Bosch dishwasher, touchless faucet, garbage disposal button cut into the countertop, double trashcan pull-out
- all outlets are built into the shelves so you don't see any wall outlets anywhere in the kitchen.
- kitchen is just a bit too narrow for a dedicated island so we have a farm table that we sometimes remove.




Close up shot of the undershelf lighting cut into a groove in the shelf



- spice drawer next to stove as someone mentioned was smart. cant tell you how nice that is

- wife and i both hate looking at microwaves so we put an outlet in the pantry & put the microwave in there so you don't see it unless you're using it.



- completely lazy pasta filler behind the coffee machine because...i'm completely lazy and now i don't have to turn around and take 2 steps to fill it up. and yes i love this.




- knocked out the wall between kitchen & dining area and extended the countertops to built in buffet behind table (you cant see it in this pic very well)
- also had the cabinet guy continue them into the other room since space is a premium and the shelves on the right have a false back because we had to move the plumbing that was in the middle of the room to the wall and need to hide it.
- light fixture above table was in the 'to be thrown away' pile at Restore but my wife saved it and it couldn't hae worked out better.
- dogs were apparently part of the project which i was unaware of at the time.
- planned for oversized fridge & freezer because God Willing, CAD will never stoop down to pull a frozen pizza from a bottom mounted freezer that gets stuck pulling it out, throws ice all over the floor and in general is up there close to my NINTH CIRCLE OF HELL. NEVER AGAIN. i just open the full-size freezer and grab my bourbon ice mold at chest level like a civilized person now.