[00:00:00] Eric Goranson: It is around the house. Another trick that I see that becomes problematic is not having a payment schedule written into the contract. How much goes down? And here's where this issue comes in. And a lot of times it's that original, you know, putting the order in for cabinetry. So let's say you sign up with a contractor, they now need the money to put down on the cabinet package.

[00:00:30] Eric Goranson: Because 20 years ago, many contractors had lines of credit with lumber yards and other places like that, paid by the cabinets, and by the time they got invoiced, they were getting installed and they were fine. That is very rare now where many contractors were having to ride at $20,000 check for cabinetry first.

[00:00:50] Eric Goranson: So this is where you want to make sure that you've got things really dialed in because two, when it comes to remodeling and renovating your home, there is. [00:01:00] But we've got you covered. This is around the house. Welcome to the Around the House Show, the original 35 years in running. This is where we help you get the most outta your home through information and education.

[00:01:14] Eric Goranson: Thanks for joining us today. Well, I wanted to talk, since we're coming into, uh, late summer as August is, we are starting to get into the time when people start thinking about designing that kitchen. So they have it ready for Thanksgiving and the holidays, and right now it's almost too late to get that done in time.

[00:01:36] Eric Goranson: But if you're good and you've got a plan, you might be able to knock that out. So today we're gonna talk about planning for that, uh, for that kitchen. Maybe even get into a little bathroom if we can make time. But, uh, we're gonna start out trying to make sure we cover the kitchen carefully here, because this is one of those things that, um, Really, really hard for people and there are so many moving pieces, and I wanted to talk about those today [00:02:00] because there are things you can do out of order that will cost you a lot of money, even if you're hiring a pro.

[00:02:09] Eric Goranson: So here is where I start. I can wanna come up with a 30,000 foot plan of what the project is and define that before you go talk to a designer, before you go talk to the contractor. Before you even plan to do this as a D I Y, spend the time and say, okay, I wanna do a white painted kitchen, or I wanna do a black walnut kitchen, or I wanna do a cherry kitchen, or whatever you want.

[00:02:39] Eric Goranson: Get that to find out first before you drag other people into it so you know what your plan is. Now, if you can't figure out the colors and you don't know which direction to go, that's okay. That is where you lean on your certified kitchen designer to do that for you. And here's the thing, [00:03:00] a designer, unless you have done dozens of kitchens, that certified kitchen designer is going to save you money in the long run, almost every time.

[00:03:11] Eric Goranson: And here's the thing, when I'm hiring a designer or training a designer, and I've done this for 29 years, so I, I've done this, I've managed screws. All of this, I've trained designers from never designing into heading off to college to get their degree, and I've turned into be great designers. Here's the thing, it takes a kitchen designer about two years to really get decent at what they're doing, and that's working 40 hours a week and not making mistakes and really getting things dialed in.

[00:03:49] Eric Goranson: So when you look at the thousands of hours it takes you as a homeowner because maybe you've designed one other kitchen, you are going to be [00:04:00] missing out on good design ideas. You're probably going to make mistakes that are gonna cost you money. You're going to get things out of order, whether it's a D I Y project or a contractor, and that could cost you money.

[00:04:16] Eric Goranson: Our worst case scenario, you're gonna order stuff that doesn't fit and that can cost you tens of thousands of dollars. So we're gonna talk about that here today about what some of these best practices are. And so let's back up at your 30,000 foot level of this kitchen project. If you go, Hey, I'm gonna open up this wall, or I'm gonna go over and do this, or I'm gonna do that, this is kind of where you need to stop and you needed to have a solid conversation.

[00:04:46] Eric Goranson: With a certified kitchen designer, and I say certified kitchen designer because they're the only ones out there that have taken an education curriculum through the National Kitchen of Bath Association. [00:05:00] That assures you that these people are trained and you don't get that with many different organizations, and I'm gonna make some interior designers mad right now.

[00:05:09] Eric Goranson: But that is the only group out there that is teaching residential kitchen design to that level. The A S I D is great for commercial projects, in my opinion. They do not train people to be residential kitchen designers. They don't it, they don't get into that technicality. And uh, it is one of those things that if you are looking for that qualified designer, Now there are great designers out there that are not certified, but the ones that are certified, you know, you have someone with a test proven skillset to tackle your project.

[00:05:46] Eric Goranson: Now, if you're going to be moving walls and stuff like that, this is where that designer are contractor and a structural engineer are gonna start to define this project. But I want you to have [00:06:00] these conversations first with your, with your team or potential team. Because really you need to design this kitchen out and have a plan of what you're going to do before you go get competitive bids.

[00:06:12] Eric Goranson: If you're gonna hire a contractor to do it, if you bring in three different contractors with three of their own designers and you have nothing to measure off of, you are wasting your time. Now. If you wanna interview kitchen designers and see who can come up with the best plan, that's great. Usually if you call in three contractors that have designers they work with, you're gonna have apples, oranges, and bananas.

[00:06:42] Eric Goranson: You're trying to to compare on equal terms, and you can't do it that way. So this is why I want you to do a lot of your homework on the front end so you can know who's giving you a fair price. And who's trying to lowball you to get [00:07:00] in the door and go, oh, I didn't know you wanted real metal handles for the cabinets.

[00:07:06] Eric Goranson: I got these dollar Home Depot ones. And that's where you wanna make sure that you've got that plan done. And if you're moving walls, I wanna make sure that you've got a, a contractor and or structural engineer involved in doing that. So if you know it's a wall and you're gonna remove it, A quick conversation of, Hey, is this gonna be a $200,000 remodel that I only have a hundred thousand dollars for?

[00:07:36] Eric Goranson: So this is where these things really start to pay off is understanding what your budget is before you start the process. Two, seeing if you are rough plan might fit in that budget. I know plenty of people that go, Hey, I got a $60,000. Remodel budget. I'm gonna live, I'm gonna take out these walls. I'm [00:08:00] gonna put in hardwood floors and stone countertops, and you can't afford it.

[00:08:05] Eric Goranson: Not gonna work. And in our next, next segment here, I want to talk more about this because it's not just replacing cabinets and putting 'em back in. It's not just doing a, a fluff and buff like that. There are a lot of things that have changed when you do this right. It's something we've talked about in the past, but it's something I wanna make sure we understand, is that if you're designing a 19, taking a 1970s kitchen that hasn't been remodeled, you're gonna probably have 3, 4, 5 new electrical circuits that gotta go in there because each appliance needs to be on its own circuit.

[00:08:46] Eric Goranson: And then second. Can your electrical panel handle that? Do you need to do a service upgrade? That could be 3, 5, 7, $10,000 depending on what has to happen? So these are where these things compound, [00:09:00] and you need to understand the entire scope of it, especially if you're on a budget that's under a hundred thousand dollars.

[00:09:09] Eric Goranson: This is where you gotta be really tight to navigate this. Now, if you're gonna be doing this as a D I Y project, great. You might save as much as 50% doing it all yourself, but I'm still gonna say if you have a lot of electrical and plumbing work, unless you're really good at it. It might be better to have the plumber do it once, do it right, and it's quick and easy way of having a professional.

[00:09:33] Eric Goranson: Do it More about kitchen remodeling and kitchen design just as soon as a round the house returns.

[00:09:57] Eric Goranson: What's up? This is Stick and Satchel [00:10:00] from Steel Panther and you are listening to Around The House with Eric G. Yeah, we love Eric G and you should too.

[00:10:22] Eric Goranson: Welcome back to The Round The House Show. I'm Eric G. This is where we help you get the most outta your home through information and education. Thanks for joining me today. I really appreciate you guys. We've been talking about kitchen remodeling and kitchen design right here. And right now I really want to talk about the pitfalls where things can go wrong, and maybe it'll be some tips here that can, uh, maybe help you learn how to navigate these, because I've seen so many times these things just go absolutely sideways.

[00:10:52] Eric Goranson: And so first I wanna talk about materials out there that go into these projects so you can fully understand what's happening [00:11:00] and so you can make informed choices on them. Now one of the biggest pieces in this whole thing are cabinetry. Where's the cabinets coming from? And I tell you what, I've got, uh, a friend of a friend who I'm gonna help navigate through this process of really trying to decide how to fix this battery remodel that he paid a contractor do, and got absolutely taken advantage of this guy spent.

[00:11:33] Eric Goranson: 120 grand or so, 140 grand I think actually. And it all has to get thrown away. So that is a worst case scenario for you as a homeowner. And let's talk about how to navigate that. So with cabinetry, you know, I'm concerned when the contractor is going to build their own cabinets unless they are fully functional.[00:12:00]

[00:12:01] Eric Goranson: Fully custom shop where they are designed build and they build their own cabinets. Maybe I've also seen like that house that I was talking about earlier where the contractor thought he'd make his own cabinets for the first time and it looked like a four year old's erector set, gone sideways, and it just horribly wrong.

[00:12:25] Eric Goranson: I would much rather see in many cases, That contractor go down to the home center and buy cabinets because they're gonna have a warranty versus them trying to build it out of their garage. And that's where you gotta be very careful. Here's some reasons why, and this is one of the reasons why I think you should pay attention to what cabinetry they're proposing for your project.

[00:12:55] Eric Goranson: Or what cabinetry you are going to put in, if you're gonna be doing this as a D I Y project. [00:13:00] Now, there's lots of different levels of cabinetry out there. If you wanna talk about the low end, kind of the entry level, that is going to be the import cabinetry places, which now the prices have gone up due to the tariffs, which is quite fair in my mind.

[00:13:19] Eric Goranson: You're at Kias where you have to put things together and the RTAs are ready to assemble land or any of the other kind of more builder, basic companies that build very low entry level cabinets. That's kind of where things start. The next step up is going to be what I call the big box store companies, the home centers, and I'm talking the.

[00:13:46] Eric Goranson: Craft MAs though, American Wood marks, um, the Schuler, all of these different companies out there that make cabinets that you see in the home centers that are national [00:14:00] brands, brands out there now, that is what I call kind of the entry to entry, middle of the line. So the highest end cabinets in there is kind of what the mid grade is.

[00:14:15] Eric Goranson: So if you go into the craft made and pick out the plywood, construction, all the cool things, the soft clothes, all that stuff that is now in kind of the entry level, mid-grade stuff. And then to get anything higher out of that, you have to go to a kitchen design firm, a kitchen of bath retailer to get it.

[00:14:41] Eric Goranson: Now let me talk about the numbers here and then we'll get into the kind of the higher end stuff as well. When it comes to cabinets, let's say you're looking at a a $7,000 cabinet package at a Kia, it might cost you 10 or 12 at the home centers. [00:15:00] You get up into the upper end stuff that could be 14 or 16, and now when you move up into.

[00:15:09] Eric Goranson: The mid grades. Now you're getting to companies like that aren't in the home centers. The crystal, the Dura Supremes, the different companies out there that are out there, that are in that solid mid grade, that will build you a custom cabinet that will make that cabinet 22 and three sixteenths if you need it, or custom heights and and custom finishes and that kind of stuff.

[00:15:36] Eric Goranson: Now you're into that solid mid. To mid upper range where they can make things, things for you and come up with it for you. And then you get into the higher end stuff, which is your specialty retailer. And you'll see these in major market cities. Um, there's a few in Portland, but really Seattle, San Francisco, LA [00:16:00] to get into these places.

[00:16:01] Eric Goranson: And these are brands like from Italy, ine, this is the. Down's view, the William O's, all of these brands that if you open up an Architectural Digest and you see on the inside, generally these are your $1 million or $3 million and up home kitchen cabinet companies, and those are their own thing where you can spend on the entry level that was seven, you're now spending maybe 40 or 50 for that cabinet package.

[00:16:36] Eric Goranson: That's kind of the flavor of the cabinets out there. But the prob, what makes these things different is one finish. So if you look at what's done in a Kia, you know the, the wood panels aren't all the way wood. Many times there's wood around the edge of the cabinet box, but in the middle it could be cardboard.

[00:16:57] Eric Goranson: So it's not a full plywood or [00:17:00] particle board. There's a mixture of cardboard and particle board. To make it lighter, to make it more cost effective. The stuff coming in from overseas could be filled with chemicals and uh, and formaldehydes because a lot of it has kind of gotten around that. And then when you get into the mid-grade stuff, you start to get into quality finishes where they've got a conversion varnish baked on finish or into the middle stuff where you got a, uh, a two-part urethane finish.

[00:17:32] Eric Goranson: Or some of the UV cured waterborne finishes that are nice. So that's kind of where you start to get into the good finishes, where you get into the higher end stuff. Maybe you have a, a, a gloss door that is lacquered that has now got 22 coats of hand rub lacquer, or hand stained or specialty woods. And so this is kind of what you need to really pay attention to when a contractor or a designer is talking about the [00:18:00] cabinet lines.

[00:18:01] Eric Goranson: That durability going forward, you don't wanna have to spend five, six, $7,000 to have somebody come repaint a kitchen that was poorly done by their local custom shop. Just because someone tells you that something is made custom doesn't mean that that word custom means higher quality. Custom could be much lower quality than what you just found at the home center.

[00:18:29] Eric Goranson: It's sitting there and that's where you gotta be careful. Don't be dismayed by the word custom. Custom just means they're making it for you.

[00:18:59] Eric Goranson: Hey, [00:19:00] this is Ron Keel, the metal cowboy from Keel, the Ron Keel Band and Steeler. We are rocking around the house with Eric G. Ray is your best. Welcome back to the Round the House Show. This segment is brought to you by our friends over root quencher and root quencher.com. If you're wasting a ton of water trying to water on that slope, and the trees and bushes aren't getting any water 'cause that's running down, you should be talking to Root Quencher where they put it underground and right to the roots.

[00:19:31] Eric Goranson: So that's gonna save you a ton of money and have healthier trees and bushes. And who doesn't want that? Root quencher.com. We've been talking about kitchen remodeling today and uh, we talked about design a little bit earlier, but. We'll talk about that in more detail in the next segment of some of my design tricks.

[00:19:50] Eric Goranson: But in this one, I wanted to talk specifically to you that are gonna hire a company to come do that remodel for you. And I wanna let you know on some of [00:20:00] the unscrupulous contractor tricks that I see out there that I want you to be fully aware of. Now, 90% of the, of the kitchen and bathroom remodelers out there are really great high quality people.

[00:20:15] Eric Goranson: I want you to not grab the other 10% that are out there doing low quality work and are maybe new, trying to get better or don't care about the job that they're working on. So the first thing it starts with is when you're talking to them is to get a very detailed estimate. Now, here in the Portland area where I live, I've worked a lot with, uh, R E F Construction over the years.

[00:20:38] Eric Goranson: They're a local construction company. That I designed hundreds of kitchens and bathrooms with over the years, and I love the way that he did his estimates. He went through and gave allowances for everything. So in a kitchen remodel, he would say cabinetry, buy, craft made, [00:21:00] and would have a plan for that and a budget.

[00:21:03] Eric Goranson: He'd have the flooring, he'd have the faucet, the sink, the garbage disposal, the electrical work, the plumbing work, the lighting, even what the costs or anticipated costs of the handles or knobs that would go on the cabinets. All of that was spelled out in the estimate long form. So this estimate in a kit model can be anywhere from three to six pages really quickly.

[00:21:30] Eric Goranson: And that to me, Is about where it can be if you have enough things on a large project, if it's a small kitchen, maybe two pages, maybe three. But nonetheless, I wanna see that level of detail out because one of the tricks for the bad contractors out there is that they won't put any details on because they don't wanna be held accountable for that later on.

[00:21:53] Eric Goranson: And here's where that makes a difference. You can spend, if you've been eyeballing this $25 or [00:22:00] $30 a handle knob, that's gonna be the jewelry on your cabinetry and they priced out something that was literally $2 a piece and you didn't catch it, well, it was in the estimate. Everything in that over that is an overage.

[00:22:13] Eric Goranson: So these are things that I want you to make sure that you've got dialed in because this can get really expensive quick. And so that's what I wanna make sure that we get you dialed in and get that taken care of because, Those numbers can be so far off, and I've seen it happen so many times. They'll say, kitchen cabinetry package $3,000 or $10,000, or whatever it is.

[00:22:36] Eric Goranson: I wanna see it laid out. I wanna see the brand, I wanna see the budget. I want see what the framing costs are. I want to see every little piece of that job spelled out so you know what those costs are. And then some of the other things that I see that are sideways, that go sideways is making sure that.

[00:22:54] Eric Goranson: Contractor has pulled all the necessary building permits and will also [00:23:00] guarantee that they're gonna get the final inspection on that. And lemme tell you a horror story that happened a few years ago. It's probably seven or eight years ago, actually more than a few. But this was like 2019, I think is when this was.

[00:23:13] Eric Goranson: So it was a little bit ago maybe contractor went in, gave a complete budget on the whole project. Design was done, ready to sign the contract, went down to go get a building permit and make sure there were no issues as a major remodeling company that is well known in my area, did the remodel on it, but the contractor failed to get the final inspection on that project, so it was never signed off at the end, and nobody ever got ahold of them to have it signed off.

[00:23:48] Eric Goranson: The problem was 25 years later, it's ready for the remodel to be done, to remodel that addition that was done under that original remodel. They were gonna [00:24:00] have to take that addition and get it up to would've been 2019 standards. The problem was, is in the addition, they would've had to reinsulate change the electrical.

[00:24:12] Eric Goranson: This Now, kits remodel had doubled in price and was over $200,000 because they had to go through and remodel work. That was beautifully done, but no one had signed it off and building codes had changed and they would not grandfather it in because it had never been signed off on. So these are things that I wanna make sure that you follow up, that when this project is done that those have been signed off on, and then you're good to go.

[00:24:40] Eric Goranson: So those are things, and yes, you, you generally need a building permit for a kit model, especially if you're doing structural, especially if you're doing electrical, plumbing, moving things around. That's all gonna be fit under there. So do you need it for tile? Usually [00:25:00] not. But when you're changing lights, adding lights, changing plumbing, that's where stuff comes in.

[00:25:06] Eric Goranson: You wanna make sure you get those permits pulled so you're covered. Another trick that I see that becomes problematic is not having a payment schedule written into the contract. How much goes down? And here's where this issue comes in, and a lot of times it's that original, you know, putting the order in for cabinetry.

[00:25:28] Eric Goranson: So let's say you sign up with a contractor, they now need the money to put down. On the cabinet package because 20 years ago many contractors had lines of credit with lumber yards and other places like that, paid by the cabinets, and by the time they got invoiced, they were getting installed and they were fine.

[00:25:53] Eric Goranson: That is very rare now where many contractors for having to write a $20,000 check for cabinetry first. [00:26:00] So this is where you want to make sure that you've got things really dialed in because two things can happen. One, you wanna find out if they're prepaying for this cabinetry, and if they're dealing with a local cabinet shop.

[00:26:19] Eric Goranson: I want you to be in communication, 'cause this is where things can go badly. You don't wanna have to, and I don't wanna scare you here, but this is just something that you have to be careful with. And this is liens and leann releases because if you're contractor, this is gonna be a worst case scenario, but I've seen it happen.

[00:26:37] Eric Goranson: So it doesn't mean that it couldn't happen to you. And this is the education part of this. If you write a check to a, b, C construction that I'm making the name up on, so sorry, a, B, C construction, if that's your name. And they go over and put on their line of credit the cabinetry order, [00:27:00] and they pocket that money, spend it on the last project they're trying to get finished up 'cause they misquoted it.

[00:27:07] Eric Goranson: And your contractor now doesn't pay that bill. They're coming after you and could put a lien on your house until that bill gets paid. So from major manufacturers on this stuff, you wanna make sure you have a discussion and have lien releases to you. The homeowner ask for one to make sure that the ability to lean has been released, if that makes sense.

[00:27:40] Eric Goranson: So you wanna stop another company from not getting paid on your project. Now if you can pay the cabinet shop directly, that can be okay. The only thing that can be bad with that is that when you buy those things to the contractor, in many states that [00:28:00] warranty is covered for replacing it. So if you go buy a faucet and give it to the plumber, for instance, the plumber might not warranty coming back and having to fix it.

[00:28:09] Eric Goranson: If it's defective, you might have to pay them twice to do it, versus if you bought it through them. They have to have it covered. So things to think about when doing that remodel. We'll wrap it up in the last segment as soon as around the house. Returns don't go anywhere.

[00:28:49] Eric Goranson: Alright,

[00:28:59] Eric Goranson: [00:29:00] news Trunk. It's the end of the show. The drinking down people, it's time to go. It's that. Its last call. Welcome back to The Round the House Show. This is where we hope to get the most outta your home through information education. Thanks for joining us today. We've been talking everything about taking on that kitchen project and what are some of the pitfalls and dangers that you should be looking out for.

[00:29:23] Eric Goranson: And now we're gonna talk a little bit about design as well, and what's hot and what's not, and something to really consider whether you're on a budget. Or not, and these are all quality things you should pay, be paying attention to. One more thing that I want to see when you're doing your research on the contractors, and I say this all the time, but it's an important one.

[00:29:44] Eric Goranson: When you're talking to that contractor, do your research. Are they licensed, bonded, insured? Do they have a great portfolio of projects? Do they let you talk to some previous project owners and you could go take a look at the project, maybe [00:30:00] understand who their customers are. Uh, don't distrust everybody, anybody, because I know people out there with big names that are in, uh, ah, in the northwest here.

[00:30:10] Eric Goranson: That, uh, the chance of you getting ripped off even under that big famous name could be, uh, could be dangerous. And you could have some very unqualified people going out to your job site. And so these are things to be very careful with, as well as some of the home centers here too. Some of the home centers, if you buy it through the home center and have their.

[00:30:30] Eric Goranson: Remodelers come out, that can be problematic as well because there are some communication breakdowns that happen between the contractor who's an independent contractor working as a subcontractor under the home center. And, uh, this gets to be a lot of problems there because you have a lot of different interests going on and um, there's a lot of people getting involved and I've seen that go sideways more times than not.

[00:30:54] Eric Goranson: So be very careful on who's doing the work for you. Many times there are [00:31:00] plenty of contractors that are working for the home centers that are brand new and less experienced because they need to have that home center, bring 'em the leads, and uh, that can be problematic for your project as well. So, another thing to be careful with, but design-wise, and I wanted to talk about this because this is a common mistake that people made.

[00:31:20] Eric Goranson: One of the, probably the biggest common mistakes that people make when designing out their new kitchen. Is they copy their layout they had before. Oh, I liked it before. It doesn't mean that you can't upgrade it. Maybe you're not moving the window or moving the sink or that kind of stuff, but you think about it, if that kitchen was put in 1980, how much a kitchen has changed since then and what we put in it now, we have, you know, steam ovens, we have soys, we have.

[00:31:53] Eric Goranson: The correct ventilation. We have microwaves that aren't on a cart in the [00:32:00] kitchen, so there's a lot of different things, including what we store in that kitchen. I mean, back in the eighties you went into the JC Pennies or Sears or a couple other specialty retailers to buy your kitchen goods, but there wasn't a ton of stuff on there.

[00:32:18] Eric Goranson: Now you walk into. Williams Sonoma or one of the other major brand retailers, or just jump on Amazon and you can order 200 different things for your kitchen that you didn't know you needed. So our storage needs in 30 years have completely changed, and the farther back we go, the more they've changed. So these days what's hot are lots of drawers.

[00:32:46] Eric Goranson: So drawers which are much more expensive than doors and adjustable shelves are very important. It's much more efficient and it works out better. The style of cabinetry. In the [00:33:00] United States, we have what we call an American face frame construction, where we have kind of a one by two that goes around the box that is much less efficient than a traditional European or frameless cabinet where there is no face frame around the front.

[00:33:14] Eric Goranson: That face frame is structural in the one, and when you go to a more European style cabinetry in a cabinet run, you can gain another cabinet of storage space. And then with those drawers, we're seeing lots of accessories and pullouts. But even with a lot of drawers, you do want to have one cabinet, probably at least 21 inches wide, that you can put tall things in and, uh, stand up in there that won't fit into a drawer.

[00:33:41] Eric Goranson: So these are things that are really hot and will continue to be hot because you can get more in there. Another trick to look for in the design process is open up the drawer of the kitchen cabinets that you're looking at and see how much space is behind them. [00:34:00] Some cabinet companies put in shorter drawer boxes to save a little bit of money, and that can leave three or four inches of space behind that drawer box.

[00:34:11] Eric Goranson: So when in doubt, walk over to a drawer bank. Take the drawer out and take a peek and see how far those go back. If they're anything over about three inches, I would see if they make fuller length drawers that you can use the most outta that, because that is usable square inches of storage that you should have managed.

[00:34:32] Eric Goranson: And now some of the other mistakes that I see happening come around with refrigerators, for instance, in the design. French door, upper French door refrigerator with the pullout freezer below is one of the biggest problems in the world of design. These things cause more headaches, especially if it's up against an a wall.

[00:34:59] Eric Goranson: There [00:35:00] are times that these refrigerators, some models might need six inches of filler space over there, just so you can get the door open wide enough to open the crispers inside. Because the doors don't open up at 90 and then they have a handle that sticks out two inches. So there's, let's say that's two and a half inches, but a lot of these doors have to go another 15 or 20 degrees open to get into them.

[00:35:27] Eric Goranson: Then you need 6, 7, 8 inches of space. And if you have an end wall or a, a, um, double oven or a microwave or something that's flush with it there or another pantry, you need to make sure that you have the proper space for that. French door refrigerators, although they are nice, can be problematic on the design as well as corner cabinets with appliances up against them.

[00:35:53] Eric Goranson: If you put in a lazy Susan and you have a dishwasher on one side up against it, or you have a [00:36:00] range up on the other side against it, this is where collisions happen between handles, so make sure that you've got that plan worked out. So that you have things that open up. Sometimes those lazy Susan cabinets aren't always the best corner option I've actually had in design where it actually made the most sense to eliminate that corner cabinet and not even use it and use a corner filler and get more drawer space that can be used because many times that blind corner cabinet that you have to go reach in around the corner to get stuff that's getting lost back there.

[00:36:38] Eric Goranson: Ends up being much harder to work with and sometimes you don't have access because of appliances in the area. So sometimes in tight kitchens, not using the corner is going to be your safer alternative. So that's another key one. And another big mistake that people make is ventilation. You need to have a properly sized hood [00:37:00] that ventilates completely to the outside in no circumstance.

[00:37:05] Eric Goranson: Should you have a vent hood that releases back into the kitchen? 'cause that is a health hazard every single time. Now, on top of that, if you really like to cook and if you like cooking stuff, such ethnic foods as anything from Asia, Italian, or anything where you're cooking meat a lot inside on a griddle or something like that, having a hood that is three inches or a total of six inches larger.

[00:37:35] Eric Goranson: If you've got a 36 inch cooktop, maybe a 42 inch hood that is over 400 C F m, that can really move that air, that is a good choice. And remember, if you're doing a decorative wood hood, that wood hood has to be probably at least six inches wider than the cooktop or oven down below it because you can't have any wood [00:38:00] hanging over that cooktop.

[00:38:01] Eric Goranson: It has to be the full liner. Make sure your designer understands if you're doing a wood hood, that it has to be much wider and you'll lose six inches of cabinet space, uh, by doing a wood hood on the sides because that hood has to go beyond the cooktop. So that way it's a fire safety, it's issue if you have a piece of wood over a cooking service that is under 30 inches and not protected by metal.

[00:38:27] Eric Goranson: That's why they do those wood liners. So if you ever have a fire, you have a chance of stopping it. Before it takes over your house, man, we could do hours of this. Topic because I tell you what, kitchen remodeling is such a big thing. We'll tackle it again in a few months. Coming up in another episode.

[00:38:45] Eric Goranson: We'll do this with bathroom as well and get you all those pitfalls. You gotta be careful for thanks for tuning into around the house today. I appreciate it. We'll see you next Saturday. And don't forget on the podcast the midweek special. Thanks for listening around the house. Have a great rest of your weekend,[00:39:00]