Kitchen Dreams Blog

Our friends at Blum compared traditional storage solutions
with their new modern and more functional storage accessories

My recent trip to the Kitchen and Bath Industry Show (KBIS) in New Orleans was a visual feast. I took all sorts of notes for talking points with my clients. Storage was a consistent theme at the show. As a Kitchen Designer, one of the most common fears I notice amongst my clients in the design phase is “Storage”. Everyone wants to make sure they will have enough room in their new kitchen to store all their gadgets and dishes.

If you have decided to undertake a kitchen remodeling project, you have most likely already noticed that there are an abundance of choices for kitchen cabinets. While a quick trip to a kitchen design showroom may help you with the aesthetic choices, a more thorough study will be helpful to discern the true value in cabinetry choices.  We are often asked for a price based on a lineal foot calculation. Prices can vary greatly, from $150 per foot on the low end on up to $700-$800 and beyond. What is the difference from the low end to the high end? There are many. While comparing cabinetry prices per foot can be like comparing car prices by the pound, it can be a useful exercise to establish a starting point.

Last weekend S&W Kitchens landed in force at KBIS – the home renovation answer to ComicCon or CES.  This year it was held in New Orleans – a great town for history, design, culture and food!  The Kitchen and Bath Industry Show immersed our designers, managers and owners in all of the new product offerings and updated them on new ways to serve our customers.

If the kitchen truly is the heart of the home an outdoor kitchen can take it to the next level.  This is best time of year for enjoying the outdoors.  It's warm enough to be outside into the evening and cool enough that the traditional Florida bugs haven't arrived.

The latest extended recession has had consequences for people at every social and economic level.  According to a new study from the Pew Research Center, 47% of adults in their 40s and 50s have a parent aged 65 or older and are also either raising a young child or financially supporting a child aged 18 or older.  The new term for this situation is the "Sandwich Generation"!

S&W Kitchens is excited to tell you about our new product line:  Poggenpohl, a premiere cabinet maker from Germany.  From their website:

There are many ways to get lost in the ether these days - social networking, gaming or just browsing.  If you are planning a remodeling project, you can be a little more focused:  using Pinterest or Evernote or some other app to keep notes on what you like or don't like, grabbing images to sort through later or what appliances you need.

The flurry of "2013 Trend" lists is finally slowing and in an effort to digest and summarize the current kitchen trends as seen by the taste-makers of today I mashed about ten of the articles together to see what a word cloud of all of them would look like.  With just a bit of judicious editing, here it is:

Special cabinets can do more to enhance the functionality of your kitchen than pretty much anything else and can cut down on the number of cabinets you need.  More cabinets doesn't always mean better use of space - sometimes it just means more expense and more clutter.

Everything today seems to be going retro - home and clothing designs have been mimicing the 1950s, 60s and 70s for about a decade already!  But back in the day (not that I would remember those days), the future was all the rage.  Everyone from Walt Disney to Stanley Kubrick tried to predict what our lives would be like and how our work and homes would adapt to the many technology advances taking place.