Why should I work with a kitchen designer?

A designer can pull all the pieces of your kitchen puzzle together. The design expert of Custom Designed Kitchens & Bath will keep you from getting bogged down in details that can throw your planning off track. You’ll be free to dream, while the designer thinks through all the measurements, material coordination, and construction logistics. 

You might want a recycle center, for example, but you can’t quite figure out where it would fit so you decide to go without it. If you were working with a designer, he might know exactly how to make the recycle center work based on his experience with similar kitchens and his specialized training. Or you may have always wanted a dramatic beamed ceiling but assumed that your house couldn’t support it. A designer could tell you that decorative beams often can be installed below the ceiling line without requiring any structural changes. 

In other words, a good designer will help you do it right the first time, see possibilities where you could not, and make the entire experience go smoothly. 

What process should I expect a designer to follow?

When you work with Custom Designed Kitchens & Bath, you don’t have to give up control of your plans or turn all the remodeling work over to other craftsmen. Think of yourself as the movie producer and of the kitchen designer as the movie director. You can be intimately involved in every detail of the project and even do some of the hands-on work. But when you do need someone to handle logistics, whether it’s ordering products or coordinating contractors’ schedules, the designer can step in.

A designer will typically:

• Visit your home to take measurements.
• Create a design and draft perspectives, elevations, and a floor plan.
• Develop a detailed budget and schedule.
• Order products and materials.
• Coordinate work with construction, painting, and other contractors.
• Oversee the installation and placement of the cabinets and other design elements.

Be sure to clarify up front who will be responsible for the contractors. Some design firms will coordinate the contractors’ work only after you have selected and come to separate agreements with each. The design firm may make recommendations for which contractors you should use, but it may not have its own employees who perform these jobs.