Many of us have traded in our old gas guzzling vehicles to help save the environment (and some money, too). After surviving a summer of ridiculous heat and rain, even I am beginning to believe that global warming may have some validity! So, in addition to owning a hybrid car, I thought a lot about how to do our part to help good Mother Earth and reduce our carbon footprint.
Then the light bulb (LED) went on above my head, just like in the cartoons, and I came up with the idea of ”Hybrid Kitchen Remodel”. It’s not just a siding and it’s not a complete remodel. It’s a clever combination of both processes that allows you, the homeowner, to get a whole new look for your kitchen by redesigning the cabinets and distribution areas you don’t like and reshaping the ones you do (so match the new one is).
Since national kitchen and remodeling organizations overcame pressure from the cabinet industry and admitted that relining was, in fact, a legitimate form of remodeling, relining has lost the stigma of being a poor choice for making cabinets existing ones look and function as good as the new ones. one is. But until now, combining new cabinets with refacing was a more complex and expensive undertaking. Very few companies offered this option because new cabinets had to be built from scratch and then ground to even out the balance of grinding work. This limited the number of new cabinets you could add to a regrind job due to the higher cost of building the cabinet and regrinding it to match. The old rule of thumb was that you could change up to 10% of your existing cabinets in a renovation project and still save money on a complete new version.
However, today there are companies that offer new cabinets and replacement fronts with refacing material, so it is much more practical to do a remodel where you can change up to 50% of your cabinets and still be better off. The selection of replacement fronts has expanded exponentially in recent years, however there aren’t as many options when you compare a hybrid remodel to a complete remodel or complete renovation. I suggest you visit a showroom to see what is available for the type of project you are considering. And don’t forget that you can add all the modern internal conveniences you’d find in any new kitchen cabinet to the hybrid system.
The three most popular reasons to refinish cabinets, rather than replace them, are the three “C’s”: convenience, preservation, and cost. With our hectic schedules, most of us don’t want our lifestyle interrupted any more than necessary. It’s hard enough to do everything we’re supposed to do every day without having a build going on for several weeks. While it’s true that a hybrid remodel will take a little more time than a regular remodel, it’s still less time than a total renovation, depending on the changes you select.
After all the times you’ve read my column, or heard me say, “you get what you pay for”, now (at least in this scenario) you can finally “get more than you pay for”. With a properly installed hybrid kitchen, you’ll end up with a redesigned room encompassing new and new cabinets for less than the cost of a completely gutted kitchen. So, it’s time to erase some of your carbon footprints on your front door mat and get yourself a new hybrid kitchen, saving time, money, and the health of our planet all at the same time. Talk about a win-win situation.
