At Home: Can this kitchen be saved?

“I want a bigger kitchen,” my daughter says.

“So, remodel,” I say, which is pretty much my first response to any home-related complaint.

“But I don’t see how we can make more space, and I want room for a couple barstools.”

“So, move.” This is my second standard response to any home-related complaint.

“But I love my house, the neighborhood and location.”

“So, talk to an interior designer. If they can’t help, call a Realtor.” This is my standard third response to any home-related complaint.

If those three solutions don’t solve your problem, I’m out of my depth. My daughter knows this and consults me anyway. The situation is this: My daughter and her husband of one year love to cook and entertain. To make their home what they want for the long term, they would like an upgraded kitchen. If they can’t get one, they would like to move.

They’ve talked to a couple of designers and contractors. One designer drew up a proposal that outlined the scope of work and her design fee but did not include creative solutions or construction estimates.

“I value her talent and want to compensate her for her time, but I don’t want to pay the design fee unless I know what I will get and what the total project will cost, and she can’t know that until she designs it,” my daughter says.

“Um-hmm,” I say, the wisest two syllables any mother can say.

The remodel-or-move debate is a common conundrum among homeowners weighing one set of unknowns against another all in the effort to answer one question: Will it be worth it?

They ask themselves, would I rather endure months of inconvenience, dust, noise, strangers in my house, dozens of decisions, financial surprises, and life with no kitchen, or put everything I own into boxes, then on a truck, pay a bunch of moving costs, and set up house all over again in a new neighborhood with new problems yet to be discovered?

My daughter and I bat around the pros and cons of remodeling or buying a house that has the kitchen she wants. Whatever side I take, she takes the other one, which is how we roll. Like a dog chasing its tail, we go round, get nowhere, get tired and give up.

Just as I was about to throw in the kitchen towel, I got an email featuring a kitchen makeover by interior designer Sara Malek Barney, founder of BandD/Design in Austin, Texas. Another young couple wanted a bigger, better kitchen, and got it. The transformation was impressive. This gave me hope.

I called Barney to ask how homeowners can know whether their kitchens can be saved, or whether they should put out the for-sale sign.

“Almost anything is possible,” Barney said. “The question is at what cost?”

Cost, of course, includes not just money, but time, inconvenience, and fried decision banks. Though the answer isn’t black and white, Barney offered the following dos and don’ts to consider before you bring in the sledgehammer.

• Don’t do it if you won’t love it. If you won’t get what you want in the end, don’t do it, she said. “You might get a nicer kitchen, but you don’t want to just put lipstick on it and not be fully happy.”

• Don’t do it if it’s going to be too costly. “Often, giving clients what they’re dreaming of requires taking a wall down,” Barney said. If it’s a load-bearing wall, removing it could add several thousand dollars to the project. If making room for barstools means moving plumbing and gas lines, that, too, gets expensive. You have to weigh the cost, against your budget and the value of the home, then decide whether it will be worth it.

• Don’t focus only on looks. Don’t remodel your kitchen to make it look better if it’s not going to also function better. In addition to improving flow, a good designer can help you make small, inexpensive moves that make a huge improvement in how your kitchen functions. These include adding pull-out shelves, pantry drawers, lazy Susans, power strips inside drawers to charge devices, soft-close cabinet drawers and doors, and angled drawer organizers.

• Don’t do it if your tolerance for chaos is low. “Consider the sanity factor,” she said. Though remodels are not as scary as people think, construction is still messy, intrusive, loud, inconvenient, unpredictable, and expensive.

• Do factor in your lifestyle. If you’re a big cook and you want an open kitchen and plan to live in the home for a long time, go for it.

• Do consider your neighborhood. Bringing your kitchen up to the quality level of the homes around you is probably smart. Over improving is probably not.

• Do consider what buyers want. Even if you plan to stay in your home, you should still factor in resale. According to Kiplinger, a consumer resource focused on personal finance, 90% of buyers want energy-efficient appliancesand 82% want an eat-in kitchen.

• Do consider the context. “The biggest mistake I see is when homeowners remodel a kitchen and then it no longer goes with the rest of the house,” Barney said.

“You need to make sure it looks like it belongs.” The kitchen remodel she did for the young couple in Austin was in a 70-year-old home. She unified new and old spaces with paint color, furniture choices and uniform flooring.

Marni Jameson is the author of six home and lifestyle books. Reach her at marnijameson.com.

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