Tuesday 7 April 2009

Easy Ideas for Updating Your Home

Increasing the value of your kitchen can be accomplished with a few easy steps. It can be done without over spending and without a lot of extra work. Proper planning and finding the right deals at the best places to shop are essential to making your project cost efficient and worthwhile. The best place to start is with a proper plan.

A proper plan starts with determining what is needed to improve your kitchen. Kitchen cabinets are the number one essential item to improving the look of any outdated kitchen. Fresh paint is an inexpensive, but sometime time consuming improvement to a kitchen as well. The other two remaining top things to improve a kitchen are the lighting and the flooring. (We are not counting appliances, because they can be put into a different category of home improvements).

First and foremost are the kitchen cabinets. Most people think they have to spend a great deal of money to get the kitchen cabinets of their dreams. Fortunately, there are now RTA kitchen cabinets. (RTA is not a brand name, but instead it stands for “Ready To Assemble” kitchen cabinets). RTA kitchen cabinets have taken over the home improvement industry in terms of value verse cost. You can now furnish your kitchen at about thirty to forty percent less (30% to 40%) than you would spend with traditional assembled cabinets. There is one catch, but it is not a bad one, actually it will make your project even easier. The catch is that the best RTA kitchen cabinets are sold online. Yes, RTA kitchen cabinets (and actually RTA bathroom vanities) are usually imported and then sold at a better price through internet sites. The reason is less overhead. Places like the big boxes retail stores do not actually warehouse these cabinets. (If they do, they do not carry a large amount). So even places like Home Depot or Lowe’s have to order these cabinets. This creates another step and thus increases the price of your kitchen cabinets. Instead, if you order these RTA kitchen cabinets online (do a “Google” search for RTA kitchen cabinets) you will essentially avoid a “middle man” and thus save your self money. Not to mention, you will save time and gas money by not driving to your local big box retailer.

Next on the list, paint, it is always a great idea to clean up any outdated kitchen. It does not cost much money, but keep in mind that it is a time consuming project and you want it to be perfect. In another words, if your not a good painter or do not have patience, then you should sub this job out. After that, the flooring and lighting; flooring is usually a tile or a hardwood. Most modern kitchens go with this look, but also a linoleum floor could work as well. Again, it is a job for a contractor so make sure you budget money for this part of the project. Finally lighting, move around your kitchen and find any dead light spots. If you’re adding lights, add one there (to any dead spot) as well. Make sure you consider under the cabinets, in corners, and above any hanging cabinets or fixtures. Put the lights on several different switches and you will create nice options for light in this area.

With these ideas you should be able to save some money and start planning for a great new kitchen.

About the Author

I have been remodeling house for 15 years, and I have the secret to getting high qualitykitchen cabinetry at an affordable price. Interested in finding out my secret? Follow these links to find out the secret to getting kitchen cabinetry at 30-40% below retail prices

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