Kitchen Remodeling

 

The Kitchen Remodeling Process

Kitchen remodeling is a complex process that requires a professional kitchen remodeling contractor and designer with a proven track record, especially true if you have a busy work and family life. If done well, a newly remodeled kitchen can add value to your home and allow you to carry on your life in a normal fashion. If the project is poorly executed, you may not see an increase in home values, not to mention the time wasted in “managing” the contractor, redoing bad workmanship and hassling over warranties.

The first step to getting a beautiful kitchen remodel and an excellent customer service experience is to have a well thought-out plan at the outset that can be tweaked as needed, but that provides a clear road map from beginning to end of the remodel process.

If the remodeling project is poorly executed and the outcome is bad, your home may actually decrease in value. From a time management perspective, you will waste countless hours managing the contractor, attempting to redo poor workmanship and then eventually fighting over warranties.

Planning in Detail

Every detail, from the demolition phase to the final coat of floor stain, is fully planned by our installers and designers in lockstep fashion. This thorough design phase, all done under OUR roof, eliminates costly change orders and keeps the project on schedule. Carlsen Design & Construction takes full responsibility for making sure that your dream kitchen remodel becomes a reality. There is never any finger pointing. If you prefer to hire your own architect and designer, we are very flexible and more than willing to work with this arrangement also. You will receive the same excellent work product, warranties and attention to detail that we bring to all our projects.

Our team members love what they do and take pride in their work. Our construction personnel are all masters in their trades and hold themselves to the highest quality and ethical standards. Our designers and architects are all ASID and AIA certified; they are committed to giving you the kitchen of your dreams within budget.

Let’s walk through an example kitchen remodeling project to illustrate our process.

Kitchen Remodel Problem:

How to adapt existing ductwork to accommodate an open, well-lit, high-ceiling kitchen remodel without compromising the ductwork performance.

Background:

An existing client hired us to do an extensive kitchen remodel in their upper Northwest DC home. Our design called for an open, airy kitchen that would accentuate the high ceilings running throughout the home.

The old kitchen was gutted back to the floor joists and wall studs and then all new plumbing, HVAC, and electrical were installed. High-end windows, doors, cabinetry, appliances and flooring were to come.

Several obstacles stood in the way of this kitchen remodel including: the location of existing ductwork in soffits and cabinets; the height requirements of the 10-inch round vent for the new range hood; where to daylight the vent and how to get it to that point… all without taking storage space, creating the necessity for more soffits, or impeding ductwork performance.

The quick solution for the new layout of the heating/cooling ductwork would have been to install it inside the top 6 inches of the cabinets…at the expense of valuable cabinet space. The easy answer for the layout of the range hood would have been to run it to the closest point on the exterior wall. … and if the window were to be left open on a pleasant spring evening while dinner was being made, odors would likely make their way back into the house. According to the homeowner, these were solutions that two other contractors proposed.

Our lead carpenter and Greg Carlsen, who has a wide breadth of knowledge across all the building trades, met with our designer and came up with solutions that preserved all the cabinet space, improved the performance of the heating and cooling system, and eliminated the risk of re-circulated odors from the range hood…all of which guaranteed the open and airy design that the designer had envisioned for the space.

Our Solution

1) Range hood vent:

We contracted directly with one of our sheet metal fabricators who made a custom-sized rectangular range hood vent 16 inches wide and 6 inches high (based on a conversion calculation from round to rectangular shape). The height of the vent was reduced by 4 inches, so that sufficient room was left for the vent to fit comfortably in the space between the cabinets and the ceiling joists. The new section then ran to an empty ceiling bay (space between the ceiling joists) where it was converted to 10” round that then ran to day light through the wall eight feet away from the kitchen sink window. We then concealed the side of the vent with two-piece crown molding which beautifully hid our HVAC engineering!

2) Heating and cooling ductwork:

Once again, we fabricated custom ductwork complete with transitions of varying shapes and sizes for the forced heating and air conditioning system. Our focus was to create a layout that would bury all ductwork in empty wall, ceiling and floor cavities to ensure our design of an open, airy kitchen and simultaneously maintain HVAC performance.

Here is the route we followed: Two sections of ductwork passed up through the floor at either end of the kitchen, entered into empty wall cavities and then into empty ceiling bays; one boot/register was located over the bay window and the other one was placed midway over the opposite wall.

Did we achieve our objectives?

Yes! As you can see from the photograph, the kitchen is very open, has maximum ceiling height and lets in tons of light! The HVAC performance actually improved because we located the new registers up high, flat on the ceiling without any obstructions around them to impede air flow; the register above the bay window created the perfect buffer against the cold in the winter and heat in the summer.

How much did the client pay for the new ductwork?

Their cost was $900 for professionally engineered and installed ductwork, approximately 1/3 the cost of what our competition would have charged. How were we able to deliver this value to the client? By working in historic structures over many years, we have developed in-house knowledge and skills that allow us to pass on savings to the client. We take this approach across all the trades to provide our clients the best kitchen remodel value possible.