Split finishes are in vogue in everything from plumbing fixtures and appliances to door and cabinet hardware. We’ve seen ear-to-ear smiles when we present combination black and gold finishes to our clients. Specifying gold refrigerator pulls on a matte black refrigerator creates a dramatic and refined focal point in any kitchen. We also have had an extremely positive reception pairing black and silver tones in all design motifs – traditional, transitional and contemporary.

Mixed materials is another trend in new kitchens and baths. Combining metal, stone, wood and glass are on point for many homeowners and builders. Imagine an island that features an engineered stone top contrasted with two-tone wood paneling and a matte black sink with gold-finished faucet. Simply gorgeous.

Similar to mixing materials is specifying contrasting colors. Different colored upper and lower cabinets continue to gain in popularity.

Functional furniture is also making a new home in kitchens and baths. Homeowners warmly respond to suggestions for desk space, separate storage cabinetry and pantries, open shelving and other solutions that are more reminiscent of furniture found in other places in the home than traditional kitchen cabinetry.

White kitchen cabinetry continues to rank as the number one preference. However, we see white trending in other materials and fixtures beyond cabinetry. White finished appliances, split chrome and white faucetry and split white toned lighting make for a dramatic statement in any kitchen. Other trending colors for finishes in kitchens and baths include champagne, bronze, gray, gold and black.

Smart appliances and fixtures also continue to gain in popularity. Many homeowners like having the ability to preheat their ovens from a smartphone app. Smart technology for the kitchen helps make homeowners’ lives easier and more enjoyable. Smart technology also enables homeowners to react to potential maintenance and malfunction issues immediately. For example, a smartphone alert can notify a homeowner that a refrigerator door may have been left open or that the dishwasher is leaking.

The kitchen plays a critical role in connecting it as the most important room in the home with other spaces. That helps to explain the popularity of open floor plan kitchens. Your new kitchen has to look out-of-this-world and serve multiple purposes and functions, spanning from the space where meals are prepared to a central gathering place for family and friends. A well-designed kitchen combines stylish aesthetics with durable and functional finishes and materials.

How can you capitalize on new trends and technology to create the kitchen or bath of your dreams? Give us a call at (407)629-9366 or stop in to our showroom at 935 Orange Ave in Winter Park.

Review and refresh how you use your kitchen. Do you need to take a deep dive into your refrigerator? Has your cutlery drawer become a tangled web of utensils that you rarely, if ever, use? Make a plan of attack to refresh your kitchen to help it function more effectively and simply make it more enjoyable to use and be in the space.

Clean out your fridge. Take everything out of your refrigerator and freezer, shelf by shelf. Throw out anything expired as well as anything that you haven’t used for more than three months. You know what we are talking about – that jar of pickles, jellies, salad dressing, etc.

Clean other appliances. Run your dishwasher with nothing in it. Rinse your waste disposer with white vinegar. Ten minutes later, pour boiling water down the drain. Then run your waste disposer with ice cubes and lemon rinds. Degrease your cooktop. Use the self-cleaning function on your oven. Empty the crumb tray on your toaster. Clean your microwave. Replace the filters on your coffee maker and refrigerator. Run only water through your coffee maker. Clean other countertop appliances used regularly.

Declutter drawers and cabinets. Tackle one drawer and cabinet at a time. Remove everything, and wipe down the drawer and/or shelves. Determine the contents that are used regularly, used rarely or not used at all. For the later, either dispose of those items or donate them to a charity. For rarely used items, e.g., the turkey roaster used only on Thanksgiving or Christmas, consider another location in your home to free up counter or cabinet space. Donate or toss duplicate items – how many peelers and melon ballers do you need? Inventory your knives. Sharpen those that you use frequently, and consider a new home for those that you rarely use.

Tackle the pantry. Pull out each item and ask, “how does this item make me feel?” If the response is not positive, either toss the item in the trash bin or donate it to a food bank. When you restock the pantry, replace items in a logical order. Put all canned goods together. Designate a separate area for baking ingredients, spices, grains, nuts, etc. Reorganizing your pantry by category not only will help you to eat healthier, but it will also save time for meal preparation and cooking. When you empty your pantry, it’s a perfect time to clean shelves and containers.

Take care of your sinks and faucets. Wash your sink and pay attention to joints and seals where grime can accumulate.

Clean countertops and open shelves. Take everything off your open shelves and countertops. Do a thorough curation. For each item, ask if this is something that you want to look at every day. If not, donate or relocate.

Don’t ignore windows, walls and floors. Vacuum your ceiling, walls and the floor. Wipe down walls and cabinet exteriors with dish soap and warm water. Send your window covers to a launderer or dry cleaner, or if they are washable, throw them in your washing machine.

If you would like additional tips and tricks for making your kitchen look, function and feel the best it can be, please give us a call at (407) 629-9366 or go to our website for a virtual tour of our showroom. https://www.centralkitchen.com/central-kitchen-bath-design-studio-virtual-tour/

Almost all of the new kitchens and baths renovations that we undertake are managed by either a project manager, designer or general contractor. We ask our clients how often they would like to receive updates on progress and scheduling. Some of our clients want updates daily, others are happy with weekly summaries, and there are those who are content to be informed on a need to know basis. We not only ask how frequently the client want progress reports, but also in what format (phone call, email, other) and from whom.

Renovating your home requires you to make several decisions. We encourage clients to make as many decisions as possible before the renovation project begins. The goal is to have a plan in place and an understanding that we will stick to the plan unless something unforeseen occurs. Developing a solid plan allows for the timely ordering of the various components and more precise scheduling of each phase of the project. It also helps to keep the project on budget and on schedule, because there is less of a possibility of changes occurring or being requested once work begins.

Advanced planning is key to minimizing the unexpected with any renovation project. The design phase is the time to be actively involved with your project, explaining to your showroom consultant how you want your new kitchen or bath to look, feel and function. What makes for a good renovation plan? Please give us a call at (407)369-9366 or visit our showroom at 935 N. Orange Ave. Ste 102 in Winter Park and let us show you how to turn your dreams into realities!

A recent Bureau of Labor Statistics survey found that 43% of men cook at home. This is the highest percentage in the past three decades. Not only are more men cooking, they also are spending more time in the kitchen, an average of 49 minutes per day, which is the longest time in the last half century. Conversely, 70% of women report that they cook, but that number has been declining from 95% in 1965. Women who do cook also are spending more time in the kitchen cooking, an average of 71 minutes per day, which is the longest time period in 20 years.

Cooking has gained in popularity for a number of reasons. One is the dramatic increase in the number of cooking shows from Food Network, the Cooking Channel, Public Broadcasting Service, the Travel Channel, CNN and others. For many of our clients, especially where both adults in the home are gainfully employed, cooking has become a way to relax and relieve the stresses of the day.

Designing kitchens for two or more cooks usually involves creating distinct zones that feature multiple islands or cooking areas, hidden refrigeration drawers, dual ovens and six to eight burners on a cooktop or range or dual ranges, dishwashers, sinks and matching workstations. The reason for separate workstations is to avoid the feeling of “having too many cooks in the kitchen.” There is another practical reason for separate workstations for more than one cook in the kitchen. It helps prevent two cooks from interfering with one another.

This two-cook trend also reflects that many of our clients prefer a larger space for cooking. The average size of the kitchen has grown 53% since 1992, according to the National Association of Home Builders. A larger space does not mean our clients have to compromise intimacy. Larger kitchens require a new take on geometry to help assure that there is easy access for multiple cooks to the refrigerator, cooktop and sink. If the concept of a her and his kitchen brings a smile to your face, please give us a call at 407-629-9366 or visit our showroom at 935 Orange Ave in Winter Park, FL.

Paul Greenspan is a 30 year Veteran of the Kitchen and Bath industry and has been published in a number of local and national magazines. He has taken leadership roles with the National Kitchen & Bath Association, Bath & Kitchen Buying Group, and others. He is currently the General Manager for Central Kitchen and Bath in Winter Park Florida. If you would like more information on Kitchen or Bath remodeling check out his website: centralkitchen.dev or call 407-629-9366

A story about a stove:
Today’s consumer does not make quick decisions to remodel their kitchen or bath.
Often, it involves a longer process or an ah-ha moment. This is a story of one such a moment. A clients was having problems with their oven. After nearly 25 years of dutiful service, the oven started to fail. A technician had been to our client’s house on four previous occasions and worked his magic. On the fifth trip, he read the oven its last rights.

The client initially thought the demise of their oven was an opportunity to upgrade their equipment. They like to cook and entertain. It’s a way they relax and cooking for them is a family affair. After researching different options, they purchased a commercial quality range from a well-known retail appliance chain. That’s when the challenges started to emerge. The appliance retailer outsourced its installation to a third party as is custom in many parts of the country. When the installer visited the client’s home, they found that they could not simply replace what was there with what they had purchased. They needed to buy a different range hood for proper ventilation and the new hood would require reconfiguring ductwork. There was a strong likelihood that the countertop would need to be shaved to place the oven in the available space. The gas line also would have to have been relocated. That typically is not a problem, but it was in the case because the line would have to be drilled through a concrete ceiling and the current configuration did not meet code. The lesson learned was, nothing is as easy as it may seem and that’s the reason why our showroom professionals ask our clients lots of questions not only to help direct you to the best solutions for your projects, but to explain that a simple replacement of X with Y needs to account for other factors that our clients may not be familiar with.

The client took stock of the situation. The other appliances in their kitchen also had more than a quarter century of service and appeared to be on their last legs. Their cabinets were also the same vintage as their appliances and showed their age. That’s when our client had the ah-ha moment. They decided that it was time for a complete kitchen renovation. But that’s not the end of the story.

The range they purchased from the appliance retailer was not right for the new design that we developed. Our client asked if they could exchange the range for one that would fit and if so, they would purchase other appliances for their new kitchen. The appliance retailer responded by saying that the client would have to pay a hefty restocking fee, which came as a shock because our client never took delivery of the range and wanted to purchase a more expensive range than the original one and other appliances. After considerable negotiation, our client agreed to pay a reduced restocking fee and source all of the appliances for their new kitchen from our showroom.

The experience is not uncommon in our industry. While often it is easy to replace one appliance for another provided that the replacement is of the same size and configuration as the original. If you purchase a 30-inch range to replace a 30-inch range it might not be an apples-to-apples swap, especially if you move from a standard residential model to a commercial grade. Ventilation is another consideration. In the case of dishwashers and refrigerators with icemakers, you need to account for the location of water lines.

Always ask what the return policies are on products that you purchase and when those policies take effect. Our client was miffed because the appliance retailer wanted to initially charge nearly $1,000 to restock a range that never left the appliance dealer’s warehouse. More significantly, the appliance dealer never provided a reason for the restocking charge, only commenting that it is standard procedure. Our client acknowledged that the salesperson they dealt with was a really knowledgeable and nice person, but was powerless. That often happens when dealing with big chain operations. There’s not a lot of flexibility even if the policy appears to make no sense. In this case, our client was willing to spend more and buy additional appliances if the fee was waived. Standard policies did not allow that to happen.

Our showroom has direct lines to senior executives at the manufacturers whose products we specify. Those executives are not restricted by “company policies” and understand common sense is often better than corporate compliance. Our showroom also reviews numerous what ifs and other considerations many of our clients don’t factor into their decision making simply because they don’t design and oversee the installation of kitchens and baths every day. Not that we have seen everything, but we understand that there is always more to a renovation than meets the eye. That’s why we ask the questions that we do not only to help ensure that the design and products specified are the best solutions for your dream kitchen or bath, but also to help avoid unpleasant surprises or mitigate the consequences of the unknown. From a simple appliance replacement to a complete renovation, we can make the job so much easier and less stressful. Want to learn more? Check out our website: centralkitchen.dev

Paul Greenspan is a 30 year Veteran of the Kitchen and Bath industry and has been published in a number of local and national magazines. He has taken leadership roles with the National Kitchen & Bath Association, Bath & Kitchen Buying Group, and others. He is currently the General Manager for Central Kitchen and Bath in Winter Park Florida. If you would like more information on Kitchen or Bath remodeling check out his website: centralkitchen.dev or call 407-629-9366