There are several different approaches you can take to having your new kitchen designed and built. Any one of the following approaches ( or even a combination of these options ) can be the path to a successful build  depending upon your budget, your personal preferences and the individual project in question.

Working with an Professional Interior Designer

The first option to consider is to spend some time gathering together your ideas and design concepts and then to engage a professional Interior Designer that will work with you to help to further develop those ideas and assist you through the entire kitchen design and remodeling process including the creation of construction drawings and establishing specifications.

The advantage of this approach is that you will be guided by a design professsional throughout the kitchen remodeling process. An independent professional Interior Designer will be well placed to monitor the process of the construction to ensure that the building contractor is performing properly and that you are getting exactly what you are paying for.

The disadvantage is that this approach can be quite expensive particularly for smaller projects.

Working with a Kitchen Design Center

Option 2 is to work with the kitchen designers that you will find embedded  within a kitchen specialty store or home design center.

You can often get so called  “free design services” if you are buying the kitchen cabinets, counters and appliances from these retailers. Generally this means that they will prepare simple drawings for you which you can then use to either hire a professional builder or to DIY.

The advantage of this approach is that it can certainly be less expensive than hiring an Interior Designer. The disadvantages are that you must constrain your choices to the items that they sell at that particular Design Center.

Working with a “Kitchen Builder”

Option 3 is to work directly with a “Kitchen Builder”. This type of builder will have drawings prepared for you and will then build from those drawings.

The advantage of this approach is that you can have the builder give you pricing as you work with them to design your kitchen. Also, you deal with one person from beginning to end. The disadvantages are that you cannot rely on a design builder to be creative. You will have to provide that part since usually (but not always) builders are not great designers.

Another disadvantage is that you will not get competitive pricing if you follow this route.

Drawing the Design Yourself

The final options is to do the design yourself and actually draw it using the techniques and the Kitchen Design Software we will be discussing in later posts then you can either have a professional check your drawings or give them to one of the design professionals described in options 1 or 2 above.

Always make sure you get competitive bids from at least 3 builders that you can also conduct credible references checks on. When comparing the different bids you must be careful that they are all pricing the same thing.

It is an often used ploy by unscrupulous bidders to try to substitute inferior products in their bid to be more competitive.

The obvious advantage of bidding is that you will probably get the best price. The disadvantage is that the drawings and specifications must be very detailed and fully descriptive of the work in order to get an accurate quote, the better the drawings are, the better the results will be in any of these 4 options.

Acting as the General Contractor

A word of warning; If you are not going to give the job to a “General Contractor” who coordinates the entire project and instead you want to hire out pieces of the work to various sub-contractors (such as flooring, cabinets, plumber, electrician etc…) your job will be significantly more difficult. This is because you will now have to coordinate everything and have to schedule when each trade can be on the job. It will make your life much easier if you hire a General Contractor.

Choosing the approach that is right for you

In summary, if you want to save money and feel that you have the ability to draw, option 4 is a good choice. If you really want someone else to take care of the design and drawings, go with option 1 or 2. If you know a good, talented “design builder” who you can trust and is open to your design ideas choose option 3.