What buyers want in kitchen and bath design

[audreyh1]

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Originally Posted by REWahoo You really have me curious as to what it was you guys were sticking down there to cause problems. When we built our house back in 98 we specified a higher-end (as in more powerful) disposal and haven't had one problem with it in the 15 years we've been here.

I really don't think we were abusing it! Just the two of us, no kids.

It was probably a cheap unit. But DH hated it, hated the noise, thought it smelled, and really hated repairing it.

[Tyro]

Everything I've ever read about it claims that redoing a kitchen isn't worth it because unless it's unworkably out of date, you'll never get your money back in sales price. That and the fact that its impossible to tell what the next buyer will want for sure (regardless of charts) and they may as likely rip it out and redo it to suit themselves anyway.

Granite countertops are gorgeous, but some can leach radon gas. Well ventillated homes reduce the risk, but many newer homes (particularly in areas with high heating/cooling costs) are being built tighter, allowing the radon to build up. Tread with care.
granite countertops radon - Google Search

Tyro

[foxfirev5]

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Originally Posted by audreyh1 I really don't think we were abusing it! Just the two of us, no kids. It was probably a cheap unit. But DH hated it, hated the noise, thought it smelled, and really hated repairing it.

Thanksgiving morning we discovered our disposal housing had rusted out and was leaking inside the kitchen cabinet. I found an old can of Bondo body filler from a '67 Mustang project, punched out and sanded the area. I then took some old screen made a patch and fixed it before most of the guests were up for the day.
Also, I wouldn't solely invest in a kitchen for future buyers. We have a huge kitchen which is very functional and can prepare food for a couple dozen people. However, since my DW retired there is literally no FOOD in the house other than the time around Thanksgiving and Christmas. Then there's the issue of the Dining Room, Front Living Room and other Bedrooms that nobody uses. But it was our dream home in 1995 and we're going to stay here no matter what. Beside's the downsized homes we've looked at are more expensive!

[obgyn65]

My answer will surprise you but I really don't care what my kitchen looks like. I never cook. I spend less than 10 mins a day in my kitchen. And that's the truth.

[rodi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tyro Everything I've ever read about it claims that redoing a kitchen isn't worth it because unless it's unworkably out of date, you'll never get your money back in sales price. That and the fact that its impossible to tell what the next buyer will want for sure (regardless of charts) and they may as likely rip it out and redo it to suit themselves anyway.

I agree, Tyro.

Accept if your kitchen is so far out of date it actually detracts from the home.

Example - home across the street from my house sold for $749k about 6 months ago. It's the same model as our house. A few modest updates to the bathrooms and kitchen in the late 80's... a little dated, but not bad. Didn't detract from the home.

Home a block away - same model, sold for $577k a few weeks ago. Had the original kitchen (that ours had until this past year). And original baths.
That's a big difference in sales price. The second one is being gutted/rehabbed. I suspect the new owner is flipping it - putting in about $50k of work and hoping to get $750k ish.

(Keep in mind this is San Diego, where real estate is obscene. These are 2000sf houses... not mansions.)

Doesn't matter about resale in our case. We changed to suit our needs/tastes/function, and aren't planning on selling, ever.

[jazz4cash]

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Originally Posted by Lazarus I hate open floor plans! Unless I was single. Noise goes everywhere. My house has two living areas and a kitchen and dining room open to each other. It really limits what you can do with the space when you can hear everything all over the house. Why not open up the bathrooms too so we can hear whats going on there?

Yup!

[ERD50]

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Originally Posted by Midpack We're planning on: [*]Same footprint

That simplifies things.

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[*]New natural cherry Shaker style cabinets

Sounds nice - if you want to save $$$ and are reasonably handy, installing cabinets is not really a hard job at all. You really just need to know how to find the high spot in the room, get a level line to work from, and shim to the floor so that everything remains level w/o 'racking'. And shim to the wall to keep plumb and fill any gap so you don't pull the cabinet out of square pulling it against the wall. And clamp, drill and install 'cabinet screws' (small heads) to tie each cabinet to the next. Plenty of info on-line.

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[*]Quartz countertops, med-dark grey or tan/black

Nice, they have some advantages to granite (but you don't get the 'veining' available in some granite - personal choice.)

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[*]Porcelain or ceramic floor tiles

Look into bamboo or cork. We have porcelain, it holds up and cleans well (a few hairline cracks), but it is hard on your feet, and anything dropped breaks. But if you're not living there long, then resale is more important (and I don't know which is preferred on average).

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[*]Stainless steel appliances (though I've heard many owners say 'never again')

Yes, I've heard people complain that everything shows, but I see rodi has a 'solution' (pun intended).

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[*]Misc new glass tile backsplash, double SS sink, disposer, brushed nickel faucets & hardware, moldings, light fixtures, receptacles, wall paint

Backsplash is another DIY consideration. That's a pretty easy tile job.

I'll add to W2R's recc for a pull out faucet. If you don't have GFCI, put 'em in now.

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I haven't gotten any bids yet, but I'm sure I'll be unpleasantly 'surprised'. DIY for some work may come into play... I hate doing this knowing it won't be for us for long. Our choices are driven by resale and reasonable cost first and foremost.

-ERD50

[scrinch]

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Originally Posted by audreyh1 But DH absolutely refused that they put in a garbage disposal. He made them take it back out. I think he had two many bad memories of garbage disposal maintenance in our previous house. We use the disposal switch to turn on a little night light under the sink

We took our garbage disposal out too. Now we have a deep handled strainer bowl in the drain assembly of our sink which gets emptied into the compost pile at least daily. That keeps our old drain pipes from getting clogged with organic gunk every few years.

[Ronstar]

We have a kitchen remodel planned. Take out cabinets, new engineered hardwood floors, put cabinets back, new stainless appliances and granite counter tops. DW wants to get our cabinets glazed. It may be easier to get new cabinets because it may be difficult to find appliances to fit the current cabinets that are almost 20 yrs old. I would like to keep the current tile backsplash if possible.

[JOHNNIE36]

Just thinking about the lower cabinet drawers instead of doors. My wife wanted something like this for our remodeling project and the cabinet maker suggested we have drawers built into our lower cabinets,which we did, but we still have the doors. All the lower cabinets have drawers on rollers. The drawers make it so much easier to see what is at the back. Just a precaution with the pots and pans drawer; keep the heavier things in the bottom drawer.

With the upcoming remodel to go to the open floorplan, we are going to lose overhead cabinet space and I know my wife isn't going to like that. I would prefer to stay just like we are. This remodel crap keeps me awake at night. The biggest problem is the wife stays awake at night thinking up these remodel projects. I hate HGTV.

[modhatter]

Agree on the draws. Most useful upgrade in my opinion. I also like pull out double garbage bins in cabinet.

[Accidental Retiree]

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Originally Posted by Ronstar We have a kitchen remodel planned. Take out cabinets, new engineered hardwood floors, put cabinets back, new stainless appliances and granite counter tops. DW wants to get our cabinets glazed. It may be easier to get new cabinets because it may be difficult to find appliances to fit the current cabinets that are almost 20 yrs old. I would like to keep the current tile backsplash if possible.

I think the glazing idea is a good one. We had our original mahogany cabinets refaced about 25 years ago, with nice golden oak doors.

Well, nice for 1987 wasn't so nice for 2010, and I got sick of looking at oak, so what did I do? Got HGTV-itis and painted the darn things. Bad move on my part. I regret it every day.

A few months ago, I went to an open house and saw oak cabinets like mine that someone had glazed and made a bit darker. They looked great, and I wish I'd known about glazing as an option.

[omni550]

Midpack,

Have you seen the latest touchless faucets and soap dispensers for kitchens? I think they'd be a nice feature for the messy hands that are ever-present in kitchens.

omni

[Katsmeow]

In the past couple of years we sold one house, worked for months on a house design to build a house and then decided to buying an existing house that was about 6 years old. I can say that I agree with the article that kitchen and master bath were important to the prospective buyers of our house and to use in building or buying a house.

As a seller - our master bath was fine. It had cultured marble countertops and we were advised to change them to granite for resale. I was surprised to find that it only cost $600 to do it and so improved the room. We had a huge bathroom (larger than some secondary bedrooms in our current house) and people generally liked it. However, the kitchen while nice enough in terms of countertops and such didn't have a breakfast room (we had put in a small breakfast bar) and that was a deal breaker for a lot of lookers. The kitchen was a big part of what made the house hard to sell. It also wasn't huge (smaller actually than the master bathroom) in a 4500 SF house.

As someone wanting to build - Builders play these games. They give you a price based upon a standard kitchen for them. Around here that was usually a basic granite and maybe maple cabinets and lower end stainless steel appliances. To get a kitchen that you would actually want in a new house you had to upgrade pretty much everything. I spent a lot of time working out clearances and walk paths and storage, etc. Although we decided not to build I learned a lot just working on that kitchen design for months (and it was the centerpiece of the design)

As a buyer - Houses seemed to fall in a few categories. I knew I wanted a kitchen open to the living area. I made that something that I wasn't going to compromise on. So there were some houses we just ruled out based upon layout. Then I looked at the actual kitchens. There were kitchens that were just awful. They had cheap cabinets and counters of a material I didn't want. To me, I would maybe buy one of those but I would have to figure in what it would cost to basically gut the kitchen.

Then there were houses that weren't awful...but not to my taste. For example, there were houses that had granite but I hated the color. There was one house we almost bought where the kitchen counters were Corian (I didn't like it), the cabinets were not horrible, but not very good. The layout though was pretty good so we priced replacing the cabinets, countertop and all appliances.

The house we ended up buying had a great layout...almost exactly what I wanted. It had a huge kitchen with a great granite (actually the granite that I had in my office at my old house - Blue Pearl). The cabinets were...adequate. Not my first choice if I was building but they didn't make me cringe. It did have a prep sink, which I had never had before. At first we never used it. 11 months later, we use it constantly....

The master bath on the other hand has the dreaded cultural marble and an odd cabinet layout. However, the overall layout of the space is fine so we bought the house knowing we will eventually replace the vanities, linen cabinets and counters.

FWIW, DH always wanted us to buy a house that wouldn't require kitchen or bath remodeling. The agent said this was a common thing -- the husband doesn't want to remodel them going in, while the wife is bringing in contractors the day after closing....

[Mulligan]

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Originally Posted by scrinch We took our garbage disposal out too. Now we have a deep handled strainer bowl in the drain assembly of our sink which gets emptied into the compost pile at least daily. That keeps our old drain pipes from getting clogged with organic gunk every few years.

Mine is now 10 years old, and doesn't stink. I regularly throw ice down in it and some orange and lemon peels. Leaves it smelling clean. It's ironic, that I can barely hit nails into wood successfully, but was able to change a garbage disposal unit 15 years ago in my old house, the one time I tired. Miracles happen I guess. Due to the wonderful concept of LBYM I discovered and actually having money in the bank, if it ever happens again, I will pay to have it done.

[freebird5825]

An inside cabinet feature that is often forgotten is the multi-shelf lazy susan device. Homes built in the 1950s had these as a standard feature.
For corner cabinets, upper and lower rotating layered shelves should be installed. It makes life so easy!
I use the top one for my spices, and the lower one to store small sized, infrequently used appliances. In my case, both compact and medium size food processors, a spice grinder, a "boat motor" hand blender, a hand grater, etc etc live in my corner cabinets. I use the extra space on each side of the lower rotating shelf to store glass jars and bottles, one deep along the walls of the cabinet. No wasted space.
Some people use them for lightweight canned goods.
The options are endless as long as the spacing between shelves is generous and the device is sturdy.

One spin and you get what you want.

[MBAustin]

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Originally Posted by Texas Proud Are your pull outs a spring loaded thing My sister had her kitchen and has some of her appliances mounted on spring loaded shelves so all you do is pull them up and use them... she really likes this for her heavy blender...

I didn't go for the spring-loaded shelves due to the layout of the kitchen and my inventory. My SIL has her KitchenAid mixer on a spring load and loves it. I don't even have a stand mixer - my pull outs have a Cuisinart, small and large crockpots, a blender, a spice grinder, and a waffle/sandwich grill. Not really pullout material.