Re. brands: either Grohe SUCKS, or hotel guests are the sloppiest people on Earth. Personally I’d say the first: I’m tired of seeing fancy bathrooms where the Grohe faucets have turned out to be painted-silver plastic rather than actual metal and are someplace between “half-peeled less than a year after the hotel’s renovation” and “bald with some silver fringes”.
Magnetic spice tins like in the picture are available at Ikea. It is from the Grundtal series.
Ikea kitchens consistently test good to very good for a very reasonable price. I love mine. They are very ergonomic. Many of the luxury features mentioned here are standard, like deep drawers for pans, rotating corner cabinets, soft close on drawers, and pull out cabinets in all sizes.
I forgot about the soft close drawers. We had those installed in our renovation and they’re seven kinds of awesome.
While I understand their appeal, soft drawer closers, seem the very epitome of 1st world indulgence to me. In an amusing, non judgmental, sort of way, to each their own is my mantra!
Since we are talking about faucets, I’ll add another “I love” for my faucet. Not so much because of the fixture, but because we installed it off center. I can spin the faucet and dump water all over my counter top. Obviously, I don’t do that, but for filling pots, it comes in quite handy!
If you have a pot filler over your cooktop you wouldn’t need this, but for us (who don’t) it’s a really simple thing that is quite useful. We put the faucet so that the base is about 25-75 split along the back edge (instead of 50-50 which would be centered).
Interesting! Something to check out. I’m a big fan of making things easier. This has potential.
That’s good feedback. I haven’t even started to think brands, but I know it’s just around the corner. Good to know.
I’m leaning way towards glass top electric. I haven’t dropped anything on my stove top the last ten years, so I hope I’ll be ok.
I saw some at Ikea today, too. I’m not totally sold, but they have potential. I think I have an option for built in spice racks in one of the cabinets, too - I want to see what they look like before I decide.
Yep! I was wandering around there today looking for ideas. Saw some nice stuff.
I’m hoping for the pot filler over the cooktop. I have a water line on that wall already for my fridge, so I think I can do it. I’ll discuss it with my contractor tomorrow.
I think I forgot to quote the person who talked about moving the structural wall. I’ve thought about that - I’d have to kill or at least wound my dining room. I’m going to discuss that tomorrow too. I’d LOVE to do an island, but I just don’t have the room right now. We’ll get a tentative plan together soon..to discuss here and at garden web.
Thanks again, all!
-D/a
Re: the glass top stove. Just make sure you never use an abrasive cleaner or even the back of a scrunge, for that matter. Also, it pretty much needs cleaning after every use.
Lots of good ideas here. A second or third to outlets, outlets, outlets. There are even some nifty ones with USB jacks to use for recharging electronics I may install on our island.
We have a tall skinny cabinet for cookies sheets and the like. Comes in very handy.
Undercabinet lighting is nice - we use it when entertaining, sets a nice mood as folks gather around the island. Nothing fancy, just a couple of 48" fluorescents.
I’d say forget the fancy electronic faucets, just a point of failure. We have a Chicago ‘lab faucet’ with wrist handles. Very handy when your hands are dirty from slicing etc. Ours also has a spray head.
If you like to watch TV during breakfast, think about the height between counter and bottom of cabinet - and the fact that you need to use a cable box these days. Think about how to tuck it away behind or below the TV area and plan for cable access to it.
Oh while we’re on the subject of Ikea and cabinets - we chose Nexus cabinets for the kitchen and I love them. There are no nooks or grooves to catch the greasy dust crud that flies around the kitchen. I was a little worried they would be too plain but they look amazing. We’re planning to take them out and bring them along when we they’re ready to tear our little house down. Depending on where they’re needed they’ll either be for one of our home offices, basement, garage or the BIL’s cottage but they’re too good to leave behind to be tossed in a bin.
I think those five gallon LP tanks hold more than you think they do. Unless you’re cooking 24/7, two tanks would probably last a week, if not longer. In fact, I bet you’d use less than one tank a week. They are propane, not natural gas. You’d have to get them filled at a service station that caters to RVs, and honestly, if you are in Florida, I’d think that would be every service station around you!
Since we’re in AZ, South Florida is really not doable. And since Hubster is not a beer drinker, you’d have to bargain with something else, LOL. (he drinks regular Coke, FYI…)
Talk to your contractor. I swear, cooking with gas burners is incomparable to a damnable electric rangetop.
~VOW
Five gallon propane tanks will last much longer than a week. We have a 23 gallon propane tank for our gas stove, which needs to be filled about every 15 months or so. I’d say I use the stove about an hour a day, average. I’ve had a glass electric cooktop before, and would jump through considerable hoops not to go back to that. I absolutely hated it.
I hated my glasstop stove. Slow to heat up, slow to respond to temperature changes, slow to cool down, slow slow slow. Pans took *forever *to come to temperature, so I was constantly cooking at too low of a heat. (On the plus side, I rarely burned anything.) Refiring things sucks.
It should also be said that my stove was circa 1990s, so that’s a factor. It’s possible that newer stoves would be more responsive. The only thing good about it was that it was easy to clean.
We’ve since replaced it with a new all-gas Bertazzoni that I love love love.
Newer models are very fast indeed. The burners on mine would be cherry red within seconds of turning them on.
My contractor just came over, and we chatted and measured for an hour and a half.
Undercabinet lights are in. Skinny cabinet is probably in, although we haven’t worked out all the cabinet details.
We’ll probably double or triple the number of electrical outlets. I currently have two on each side of the kitchen.
I’m a big fan of being able to turn the sink on and off without my hands…espcially when I’ve been handling raw meat! Definitely something to keep in mind when I select fixtures.
I do watch TV in the morning, but that’s typically on the sofa. I don’t want to pay U-Verse another $7/month to get cable in the kitchen. 
Good to know. I completely forgot to ask about propane options..but it’s good to see the glass top is still viable. 
The really good news is he went through my to-do/wish list, and thinks we may be able to do ALL of it in my budget. I’m not convinced yet..but he’s working up a price sheet.
This would include
[ul]
[li]all this kitchen stuff (wood cabinets, granite counters, new appliances)[/li][li]1000sqft hardwood floor (all of downstairs)[/li][li]partial to full reno on three bathrooms, including a new Jacuzzi tub for the master that’s big enough for me to recline in[/li][li]a built in wet bar for the game room[/li][li]new lighting, fans, etc all over[/li][li]update railing on the stairs[/li][li]new carpet on the stairs[/li][li]remove popcorn ceiling from whole house, replace with knockdown[/li][li]maybe put knockdown on walls[/li][li]remove the old intercom system from the house and path the holes[/li][li]do window treatments for the whole house[/li][li]buy patio furniture[/li][li]put in a stand alone hot tub with cabana outside[/li][/ul]
Sounds fun, doesn’t it?
-D/a
Is it safe to use propane in the house? They always tell us not to grill inside after a hurricane because of dangerous gases.
Getting propane is easy here. They do sell it everywhere. I have a propane grill, and already stock a few 5 gallon tanks for it.
-D/a
In some areas, that’s all they use. My brother had a propane tank connected to his house for many years. The bottle stays outside, of course. And I’m pretty sure you have to use hard pipe once you’re inside the house instead of rubber tube.
I like my kitchen and it’s infinitely preferable to the original kitchen. It would, however, never make it into a magazine. There are a couple of standout things that I love about it. I love my pull out spice rack. It’s a 6" wide base cabinet that holds all my spices out of the way, very handy and I much prefer it to a magnetic rack.
The other thing I love about my kitchen is my monster cutting board. It’s actually the recycled top from a portable dishwasher. When we remodeled my husband took the top off the old dishwasher and I set it up on the counter next to my stove, which just happened to be 24" wide.
Make sure as you are planning the kitchen out you do it according to your needs. We could have had a large island in our kitchen but we chose to go with a long peninsula instead. it’s not fashionable but it works better with our needs and space than the more fashionable island. We also chose to go with a counter top height bar rather than a stepped bar. I love to sew and I can now spend an hour painlessly cutting out a project on my 8’x3’ bar instead of stooping over my table and getting a sore back. For a lot of people the stepped bar is better because it hides the counter top on the other side. For me, this way works better.
To sum up: Make your kitchen fit your needs, not the needs of some vague future buyer or magazine editor. Consider all the trends thoroughly before you decide to use them in your project.
love a kitchen challenge!
Instead of planning for future residents do what works for your life in that space,and it’s just a fridge.
Can you utilize the window space as is? Place shelves (glass) in front of window instead of cupboards, to hold plants or stoneware kitchen stuff.
make use of cabinet/butcher blocks on wheels for counter spaces or bakers cabinets or racks to hold dishes, canned goods.
In our past kitchen remodels, we used “office furniture” and steel shelving units to keep it operational. Sinks was up on sawhorses, my countertop was plywood.
Yes, should put your needs first. I think on the re-sale front you want to avoid putting in deal killers. Buyers can come in and say “not a fan of this kitchen but could make it work.”
In other words, sanity check some changes. For example, if one wanted to put a urinal in the corner, that might be really convenient and fit your lifestyle, but future buyers would probably run away screaming. For example, in our new kitchen we are going with an induction cooktop, but also putting in a gas line just in case in the future a buyer (or if we have remorse) decide the induction cooktop isn’t for us. Then could swap out for gas relatively easily. I think this is the kind of stuff you want to consider for possible retail rather than if the house will sell more if it’s a Sub Zero walk in versus the Miele.
I miss mine! Not sold here that I could find in the US. But mine had a foot switch for the vacuum, another foot switch for the lid, as it was also a garbage can with removable bucket inside. I loved it, my friends loved it, the contractors loved it. I miss that thing…