The Cost Of Living with An Oudated Kitchen
Almost everything in our homes has to be updated sooner or later. Most major appliances have 15 year life space and even the kitchen cabinets need replacing eventually. The cost of remodeling is well known but not a lot of people consider the cost of not remodeling an outdated kitchen.
What does an outdated kitchen cost you?
We can break down how an outdated kitchen can cost you in to three basic caterories: Your health, your happiness and money. There are 5 or 6 ways an outdated kitchen can affect your health and happiness. It can also cost you money at resale or when you finally are forced to remodel.
Let’s take a look at each of these issues and what can be done about them.
Worn surfaces that are hard to clean, inefficient appliances and layouts that don’t work for the way you live today are just a few of the things that cause everyday stresses.
We Often Don’t Realize How Outdated Our Kitchen Is
It’s amazing what we can get used to. One of the most common phrases we hear from clients at the end of a remodel is “I wish we had done this sooner ”.
The costs of working in an outdated kitchen are insidious. They can be small and sneaky so we don’t realize how they are making us unhappy or causing us undue stress. But costs are real.
Far too often we find people remodeling their kitchen (or bathroom) after years of dealing with problems, because they need to sell the home. So not only do they spend a lot of money, they don’t even get to enjoy the space for long before someone else takes over.
Most Common Ways An Outdated Kitchen Is Causing You Unneeded Stress
Here is a list of the most common complaints we hear and how to address them.
Unhealthy Conditions
There are few ways an outdated kitchen could be hurting the health of you and your family.
- Worn out countertops, dirty grout, damaged materials can hold bacteria and other contaminents.
- Poorly funtioning range hood can lead to bad air quality, especially for asthma or allergy suffereres
- Eating out more means less healthy meals (and more expesive ones).
Unhappy Conditions
The way an outdated kitchen can affect your health is pretty easy to understand. But the way it can affect our happiness can be harder to grasp.
- Clutter makes it hard to clean
- Less likely to invite people over
- Poor lighting makes cooking and cleaning harder
- Lack of space makes family time harder
Money
An kitchen that is outdated can also just cost more money.
- Lower home value
- Money spent eating our instead of at home
- more expensive to update when something breaks
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Options for Udating Your Kitchen
If you’ve been dealing with some frustrations due to an outdated kitchen here are some options to help take care of it.
Custom Remodel
A full custom remodel where you can update the layout, plumbing, lighting, cabinets and counters etc.. is obviously ideal. A well done remodel is something you can enjoy for decades.
Refacing
If a full remodel is not in your budget cabinet refacing might be a good option. Refacing allows you to update you cabinet without removing them. The doors and panels are repalced so you can change color and style.
Refacing also allows you to make modifications like adding drawers or organizers. Refacing is faster than a full remodel, about a week for most projects. It also allows you to remodel in stages. You can replace your countertops on year, reface the next etc…
Simpler updates
If a customr remodel or refacing are not in the cards for you there are still some things you can do.
- New Countertops. Options include Quartz, granite, Corian or Thinscape (a new but very good budget countertop option).
- Add Organizers – many of these are easy to DIY
- Paint cabinets. You can do this yourself but we recommend hiring a pro for the best results.
- Move out of the kitchen, do a deep clean and move back in. Sometimes just removing everything out, assessing it and putting it back can make a huge difference.
