Kitchen Remodels

When you look at a remodeled kitchen, certain features stand out — stainless steel kitchen appliances, an open and light-filled design, the island or cabinets and hard-surface counter tops. In a recent survey of the choices homeowners are making in designing new kitchens and baths, two particular types of counter tops stand out among the options, "granite" and "quartz" counter tops.

Quartz counter tops are man-made of mostly ground natural quartz, also called engineered stone, mixed with seven to ten percent manufactured materials consisting of resins, polymers, and various pigments. Due to the pigments added to the ground quartz, the color and texture within a slab are consistent, giving quartz its uniform appearance from slab to slab within a batch.

Granite counter tops, on the other hand, are natural stone quarried from the earth in mines across the globe. Before it arrives at your local counter top showroom, it is cut to manageable-sized panels and polished to a mirror-like finish.

Granite is composed mainly of quartz and feldspar with a mixture of other minerals. The percentage of these ingredients combine to provide variations in color and pattern. Like a fingerprint, no two granite slabs will be the same. This natural variance makes it crucial to choose the exact piece you want installed rather than choosing from a sample, which may vary significantly from the final product. It is granite's natural variation that often leads homeowners to choose it over quartz since quartz is mostly uniform in color and consistency. On the other hand, quartz's consistency is something other owners appreciate. They see this as an opportunity to match their kitchen color scheme and design without fighting the natural busy pattern of granite.

For the budget conscience there are other materials for counter tops like Formica

Stoves come in a variety of configurations from glass cook tops to elaborate stove/oven combos, but most are powered in one of two ways, through electricity or gas. You may not have gas in a rural area so you only will have one choice. An alternative is to install a propane tank for gas cooking which needs to be refilled once a year.

During a power outage, a pilot-lit gas stove can still function because they only need a match to ignite. Some newer ranges, rely on electricity to ignite and, will not work safely in an outage.

Electric stoves do not work in an outage and need a backup supply of energy from a generator to function until electricity is restored. An alternative would be to use a camping stove in a power outage.

Both electric and gas ranges are available with a selection of options, but electric models may have more to choose from. Electric stoves may include grills, fans, warming drawers, and lights while gas models may have only warming drawers. Electric also has the option for using induction and conduction to cook your food.

Your kitchen renovation starts with..... a bright, open, room, beautiful cabinets and full of counter space. To add extra counter space, homeowners may choose a built-in kitchen island or peninsula. A peninsula juts out from an existing wall or counter, and an island stands alone in the kitchen. They each provide a dividing line from the kitchen to the next room without the intrusion of a wall.

Kitchen cabinets are the built-in furniture installed in many kitchens for food storage, cooking equipment, and often silverware and dishes for table service. Appliances such as refrigerators, dishwashers, and ovens are often integrated into kitchen cabinetry. There are many options for cabinets available at present.

Kitchen flooring comes in many choices: Hardwood, Bamboo, Ceramic, Porcelain, Cork, Laminate, Vinyl, and Marble for some examples.

There are few flooring types that can raise your home's value and get you a better return on investment than wood. Hardwood floors have been used for centuries for their beauty and durability. Newer materials to the market, such as bamboo flooring, bring a similar beauty with the added benefit of being a more sustainable product.

Tile is one of the oldest and more versatile floor coverings around. There are two different types of clay tile that most people use in their homes, ceramic and porcelain. Despite the fact that both are man-made and created from clay, they are very different materials in looks, and durability.