 | Jim Price
is President and Owner of McLaughlin Construction, Inc. The McLaughlin Family's construction ties in Wichita goes back to the late 1800's, when his Great-Great Grandfather Joseph built the original Douglas Street Bridge. His son, 'Grandpa Mac', built many of the buildings at Wichita's aircraft plants during World War II. Now, several generations later, McLaughlin Construction still handles all types of residential and commercial construction. You may contact Jim at (316) 640-9775. |
Home Improvement
2004-07-01 10:52:00
Tips on remodeling the kitchen
ANSWER: The kitchen (arguably in competition with the bathroom) is the most functional room in the house. There are so many different things to consider. We will try to cover them all over the next few issues.The first consideration should, therefore, be suitability for the tasks to be performed and not appearance as so often seems to be the case. Time should be spent working out, in detail, the way in which the room and the facilities contained or to be installed in it will be used in the face of the constraints imposed by the locations of entrances and exits, water and drainage, gas, electric, lighting, ventilation, and such like. Some will be adjustable. Some may be too difficult or too costly to adjust. Safety must be a prime consideration, particular attention being given to the activities and antics of children of all ages, the top of the hob and items that might be on it, and to the conflicting uses of space in proximity to exits and entrances.No design decision should be made without careful consideration of its impact on both day-to-day (which really means moment-to-moment) and long-term care and maintenance. Kitchen cleaning is an ongoing and essential task which can be made more bearable by thoughtful design and furnishing.The final arrangement must be generally acceptable to reasonable people so that, in the longer term, potential buyers of the property are not discouraged.Should you buy or build?Except in the ultra-expensive world, buying means acceptance of the currently fashionable modular 'cabinet' system, which is probably the easiest solution but is rarely entirely satisfactory because of the limitations imposed by the building, and because of personal preferences. The cabinets are one part of the deal and the fronts are another. A view, not based on research, and perhaps rather biased, is that there are two or three manufacturers of cabinets, all of similar quality, which are taken up by kitchen retailers who design their own range of fronts and pile on the price to make what profit they can having due regard to the fashion of the moment. A major disadvantage of this modular 'cabinet' system is inadequate drawer capacity; even purpose designed cutlery drawers tending to be too small and, in particular too shallow, for their intended purpose. The resulting concentration on cabinets rather than drawers results in some drawbacks in use. All of the following are items to be considered:When mom or dad is at home and in the kitchen, children may be more conveniently supervised or educated, or both, while 'helping'. Ask the willing child to get something out of a cabinet and the result in early years is that, while the child grasps the required item in its hand, it clears the shelf with the elbow it has not yet learned to control. If mom is pregnant, she will need to avoid the often complicated contortions involved in extracting this and that, including heavy stacks of plates, from the back of the low shelf in the cupboard. Most older people are not at their best searching for things in the bottom of a cupboard.Consider the changed situation if easy-running drawers are used instead of cabinets: a child can see and extract the required article; both the pregnant mom and grandmother can lift heavy items directly to the worktop without undue stretching and twisting.Building from scratch offers a greater degree of freedom in design and layout, and allows the inclusion of some tricks that may not be done as easily with standard modular cabinetsNext time we will talk about floor considerations.
