Episode 1358
Top 5 tips to Prevent Kitchen Remodel Disasters!
Eric G has been known as one of the top kitchen and bath designers in the United States and he gives his top 5 tips to consider that people dont talk about in your upcoming Kitchen Remodel. This show will help you from landing into the unspoken landmines that are strewn across a project like this.
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Mentioned in this episode:
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Baldwin Hardware
Transcript
[00:00:20] Eric Goranson: Our big builder customer that that does $2 million a year with us or $500,000 a year with us has a damaged fridge. And we need one. I've seen this happen. This happens ever. Oh, take it from the, go take it from Eric gons and stuff. He doesn't need it in three weeks. I'll we'll just reorder it.
[:[00:00:37] Caroline Blazovsky: I went in, I wanted to buy one immediately. They had somebody's order sitting right there. They're like, this is Mrs. Jones. She's not gonna come pick it up for two days. You take it
[:[00:00:55] Eric Goranson: Welcome to around the house with Eric G and Caroline B, where we talk [00:01:00] about everything around your house, every single weekend. Thanks for joining us. Hey, Caroline. What's new with you. Hello
[:[00:01:09] Eric Goranson: We're gonna dive into something that I've done for 30 years, which is kitchen design. This is gonna be fun today, and this is
[:[00:01:19] Caroline Blazovsky: Cuz I'm gonna get all the secrets. Like I want the nitty gritty secrets. I don't want the stuff that everybody knows. I want the stuff that nobody knows.
[:[00:01:41] Eric Goranson: You might not know. And maybe even if you've done a couple remodels in the past, you might not know these things. So we're gonna dive into those today.
[:[00:01:52] Eric Goranson: know let's jump right into the first one here. Hire a kitchen designer. I don't care if you've [00:02:00] done three kitchens before in the past, you should hire a kitchen designer, cuz it's going to save you money every single time you do this.
[:[00:02:25] Eric Goranson: don't people do it? You know, it's funny a lot of people go in there and they'll walk into the home center and they'll talk to the person in there, the kitchen bath person, cuz it's, you know, the people in the, in the home center are hourly employees.
[:[00:03:01] Eric Goranson: They transferred me to the kitchen department. I'm now a quote designer. And I'm kind of really starting to like this kitchen design thing. So that's where kitchen designers are born. And I also say it's where they go retire because the ones that can't sell or have lots of problems end up going there, cuz they kind of burn out of the independent kitchen of bath designers out there.
[:[00:03:32] thing
[:[00:03:39] Caroline Blazovsky: Okay. Steam pipe fitter, but I heard her say. I just think I'm gonna do this myself. I have so many things around the house that I'm gonna do. And I was like, no, mm-hmm . I said, don't do it. She's like, I need a kitchen remodel. She's like, why can't I just do it? She goes, half these contractors don't know what they're doing.
[:[00:04:01] Eric Goranson: No, exactly. No. Well, and here's what happens. So what a designer does, and this is what happens and I, and I'll back up here, cuz this is a, this is a big one to talk about here.
[:[00:04:31] Eric Goranson: They're really performing flawlessly. So that's maybe 15, 20, 30, 50 kitchens they've designed before they get good. And you as a homeowner with no education in it, maybe having one or two under your belt, it's gonna get expensive. Cuz you're making mistake. With your wallet and most of the time, good point.
[:[00:05:13] Eric Goranson: That's. Four bank of drawers is I'm gonna do it exactly how I had it, because you don't have any experience of looking in the space going, oh, we gotta do this way differently to make this functional. So all you do is recreate the same bad design with new pieces by putting the exact same thing back in it.
[:[00:05:28] Caroline Blazovsky: do in my kitchen, cuz I'm being lazy and I'm like, oh, I don't wanna redesign it. You know, a design's okay. See, I'll just put new stuff in, but Eric's advised me that that is not a
[:[00:06:02] Eric Goranson: Places or, you know, walking into Creighton barrel or one of these places that had all these really cool accessories that you put in your kitchen. I mean, you might have a big mixer. You might have, you know, some spoons and stuff, but you didn't have all the little blenders and mixers and all the cool little tools that you have today.
[:[00:06:25] Caroline Blazovsky: all of it. And even like my kitchen. Was redone in, you know, 1990. So it's not that old, right. It's not ancient, but everything's changed. Yeah, technology's changed.
[:[00:06:40] Eric Goranson: And the other thing is many times when a homeowner jumps in, on this stuff, even when they've done two or three kitchens in their past, There's a lot of mistakes are made where they made a decision and it was the most expensive way to do it. Or they made a mistake that they have to go back to the store and buy two or three more products.
[:[00:07:13] Eric Goranson: I mean, great example. I've seen there's a contractor used to work with ref construction here in Portland. I was his designer for years, big kitchen, a bathroom modeler in the area, and he would only mark up his materials in this contractor would only mark the materials up 15%. For him handling it, managing it, all that stuff.
[:[00:07:54] Eric Goranson: And I was gonna
[:[00:08:14] Caroline Blazovsky: So then it became a problem how they were gonna redo that those little things get
[:[00:08:33] Eric Goranson: They don't tell you if you have that up against an end wall that you need 5, 6, 8 inches to open that up beyond 90 degrees. To get the crispers out. and I mean, I've had to call manufacturers like in the past, like LG, Samsung guys, like that, that make good quality products. I'd have to get on the phone and call them and go, okay, what is the offset of that refrigerator?
[:[00:09:14] Eric Goranson: Right? Exactly. So to fix that is you get this kitchen done, the appliances show up at the end, slide it in the hole. You go to load the thing up and you're like, well, I can't put anything in these bottom crispers cuz the door won't open all the wax you got, you got granite countertops in. All right, we come back.
[:[00:09:48] Eric Goranson: be loud, be so hot, hot. So many people.
[:[00:10:17] Eric Goranson: Hey, before we get into this topic here, what we're talking about? Those top secrets before you start designing that kitchen remodel. Wanted to say, Hey, make sure you follow us on social media, around the house show just about every social media platform and then on the podcast, make sure you're following us.
[:[00:10:53] Eric Goranson: Right. And you're
[:[00:10:57] Eric Goranson: the secrets. This is the fun stuff to me, cuz you know, I've got [00:11:00] 30 years of kitchen and, and bath design experience from owning my own company to turning around, uh, kitchen cabinet shops and that kind of stuff. So I've, I've kind of seen it and done it all with that, which was a lot of fun.
[:[00:11:27] Caroline Blazovsky: do this, I'm raising my hand. I actually do this. Yeah.
[:[00:11:38] Eric Goranson: Not bad. It's a big one, especially with kitchens, because I can't tell you how many times in my career I've had a husband walk in, not knowing what they're doing. Hey, I demoed the kitchen today.
[:[00:12:13] Eric Goranson: So getting the materials, especially today where we have product shortages, lead time issues. I mean, many of the brands in the home centers now are three and four months out from the day you order a cabinet. For it to show up at, at your doorstep. So if you're
[:[00:12:41] Caroline Blazovsky: No, I want it at the job site. Oh, do you, so where are you supposed to store that? If you have to store it in your house, so you don't have
[:[00:12:58] Eric Goranson: In my career, [00:13:00] four kitchens that were either being on their way delivered to the dealer, which would be the kitchen, a bath showroom or whatever you're working with or home center or on the delivery to the residence where the truck got into accidents. No way four times. I ha that's a lot. Yeah. Four times.
[:[00:13:47] Eric Goranson: Stuff and see what was in there. Some of the tile was good. Cabinets were,
[:[00:13:54] Eric Goranson: through like, well, it was, this was a old, this was an, this, you know, this was an accident. They [00:14:00] brought it over there because it was the company's warehouse truck that was bringing it there.
[:[00:14:23] Eric Goranson: You know, you're delivering the pantry cabinet and the guy out there is scooting around and he loses it on the back lift and it goes falling off and lands on his side, seeing that happen, a dozen dimes on delivery. Um, so those are all things that I wanna see it there. I wanna see, you know, the appliances that are at the.
[:[00:15:03] Eric Goranson: You'll order your appliance package from either a home center or a, you know, reputable, large retailer appliance store. What happens is yeah. Any one of those appliance stores they show up. And you're like, okay, I'm gonna need those. Now in three weeks, what can happen is, is that you've got your appliances there with your name on 'em shrink, wrapped up.
[:[00:15:38] Eric Goranson: I'll we'll just reor. This
[:[00:15:53] Caroline Blazovsky: See,
[:[00:16:11] Eric Goranson: So get it at the job site. Good point.
[:[00:16:17] Eric Goranson: garage was packed full. Oh man. It was a joke. I had it. I had appliances in the living room. I had cabinets in the garage. I had it stacked up everywhere because I wasn't gonna get into that.
[:[00:16:38] Caroline Blazovsky: See, but that's why people dread like construction. I dread it because I know at my whole life is gonna be in disarray during this time period. Yeah.
[:[00:16:52] Eric Goranson: I wanna slide this one in right here, cuz this is gonna be a big one. Number three, you will need plumbing and electrical upgrades. [00:17:00] When you do a history model, 90% of the time, this is huge.
[:[00:17:12] Eric Goranson: right.
[:[00:17:34] Eric Goranson: Here's why in most seventies and eighties homes in the kitchen, the outlets in the lights were on the same circuit that doesn't meet national code anymore. Outlets have to be on one circuit. The lighting has to be on another. Is there
[:[00:17:49] Eric Goranson: thing? Mm-hmm well, I mean, if you're, if you're using a mixer or something and it kicks the outlet, the, the power off and you're cooking and it kick takes the lights out with it, that could be a safety hazard there mm-hmm[00:18:00]
[:[00:18:24] Eric Goranson: Mm. Garbage disposal. It's on breaker. Oh my gosh. And here we go down the list and the more things you add. And there's a few other, when we come back here, let's talk about the other hidden things on the electrical side of things. Before we get to plumbing, we'll do that just as soon as a round, the house returns.
[:[00:19:12] Eric Goranson: Welcome back to the, around the house show or we are your home improvement answer every single week. Well, Caroline and I have been talking about kitchen remodeling, designing that kitchen out.
[:[00:19:32] Eric Goranson: All right. So we're talking about electrical here and which is number three in our list.
[:[00:19:58] Eric Goranson: When you put that new [00:20:00] kitchen in, because every appliance like your microwave, your dishwasher, can't be sharing circuits anymore. They have to be on their own dedicated circuit. So now you have to run home, run electrical all the way back to your panel. And of course you have to have room in that panel to.
[:[00:20:23] Eric Goranson: flipped out. Yeah. I mean, if you have an Insta hot or a wine fridge or anything like that, many times Insta hot, who would
[:[00:20:31] Eric Goranson: Well, think about that thing could be pulling 10 or 15 amps just by itself.
[:[00:21:06] Eric Goranson: And I'm gonna put in an island. well, guess what? You now have to run one or two outlets over to that island, cuz you have to put electrical outlets in the island for that if it's a permanently mounted island. So if it's fastened into the floor, you now have to have outlets. Mm-hmm like every, you know, check your local building code, but every three or four feet, you have to have an outlet there.
[:[00:21:51] Caroline Blazovsky: guys, girls get a kitchen
[:[00:21:54] Eric Goranson: see that's the key right there.
[:[00:21:58] Caroline Blazovsky: So you'll never know this
[:[00:22:17] Eric Goranson: So sometimes you have to do like popup ones in the, in the, in the countertop that pop up that you can plug into. Sometimes you have to put in, in, you know, on the face of the cabinet, which I think is the worst option. Where you have to lose a drawer front and put an outlet there. So there's, there's a lot to that, getting those correct outlets in the right spot.
[:[00:22:46] Eric Goranson: Now plumbing's the same way when you go add. That sink in there. Maybe you've got, you're adding that prep sink in the island now.
[:[00:23:18] Eric Goranson: Good time to do all those things. Mm-hmm
[:[00:23:29] Eric Goranson: you know, HVAC. Oh, my house, it was a nightmare. Cause I have a 1200 CFM hood and I had to run that through the ceiling and I had plumbing and cuz the bathroom's above it.
[:[00:23:52] Caroline Blazovsky: your registers and all of your, you know, conditioning spaces, everything has to get moved.
[:[00:23:59] Eric Goranson: [00:24:00] things. Mm-hmm absolutely. So that's, that's a big one right there. That's a big one right there. So those are things you gotta be really careful of. You know? I mean, this is one of those things that it can be very expensive and let's go into one more thing on electrical that you and I talked before the show on you're starting to see ovens that are coming from Europe, like Mila or even I haven't seen this exactly with this brand.
[:[00:24:50] Eric Goranson: So if you go, Hey, I wanna put a Mila double oven in it's the same electrical, it's a 40 amp circuit. I'm putting a 40 amp oven thing. I'm good. Installer [00:25:00] shows up and goes, ha. You got three wires, you need another neutral to run all the way back to the panel. And that appliance will not work with a three wire setup.
[:[00:25:37] Eric Goranson: It was on the waterfront to get that wire back to the main panel to have that extra wire. And
[:[00:25:46] Eric Goranson: by itself. It's thousands of dollars he spent. Mm-hmm just to get that wire run back there. Because they were opening up walls and rooms that were finished. It was very expensive all from that [00:26:00] appliance.
[:[00:26:22] Eric Goranson: And with plumbing, this is the time to fix it. You know, so many times people put that ice maker in, and maybe it came out of the basement with the old, like saddle tap that they tapped into the half inch water line that was going to the sink and they. You know, MacGyver did to go up to do that. Now this is the time that you put that box in the wall with that that's plumbed up there and done, right?
[:[00:27:02] Caroline Blazovsky: To call the electrician, like when you're doing a project like this, and I'm confused even on doing my hot tub, swim spa, like when does the electrician come out? Is it first? Yeah, I wanna a design
[:[00:27:19] Eric Goranson: So if you've got a, a remodeler, that's doing it for you. So if you're working with a kitchen designer and a contractor, they're gonna bring 'em out first thing. So once you get the design hammered out and they know what's gonna happen, You're foolish to come in and do it, do it before then. Cuz you're not getting numbers on something equally.
[:[00:27:52] Eric Goranson: That's the key right there. Gotcha. That's the key. So you're good at that point and that'll get you where you're lined up and you can get those numbers. [00:28:00] So like with your kitchen, you get the designed out, you have the plumber, come in, you have the electrician come in, you know, maybe you have your HVAC person come in for ducting, that kind of stuff.
[:[00:29:07] Eric Goranson: Hi everybody. I'm a man from Apolis band and you are listening to around the house with Eric G and the beautiful Caroline. Welcome back to the round, the house show, or we talk everything about your home every single week. Thanks for joining us. If you're just joining us, we've been talking about my five tips you should be doing when you design out that kitchen.
[:[00:29:47] Caroline Blazovsky: why do we wanna listen to Eric?
[:[00:29:55] Eric Goranson: There we go. Okay. Just tell us. Yeah. So I'm a certified kitchen designer [00:30:00] through the national kitchen of bath association. If you're, we probably should have talked about this in the first segment, but that's a great place to find kitchen designers that is where people in north America.
[:[00:30:30] Caroline Blazovsky: until you need that experience.
[:[00:30:47] Eric Goranson: Yeah. There's nothing that really surprises me anymore.
[:[00:31:12] Eric Goranson: It's gonna be more expensive than you think it is. Yeah. So great example across the country. Here's some average. A minor kit tree model, which I call fluff and buff. You're just kind of cleaning stuff up. The average job cost of that is $28,279 to kind of take what you have there and clean it up. Maybe upgrade it a little bit.
[:[00:32:04] Caroline Blazovsky: Well, I told you my dad completely, my dad, the home with beach Delaware, he called me, his mind was blown. They quoted him 179,000 to do the kitchen. And this was not anything extravaga. But he did have some, you know, he had a move event fan and he had well, actually install event fan, but you know, that's not, he was not doing anything crazy and he couldn't believe it.
[:[00:32:33] Eric Goranson: No, I get it. I get it. You know, and a, in an upscale one, the average upscale kitchen remodel, this isn't like your 10 million home. This is your average upscale tree model. 150, $8,000. That's it across the us.
[:[00:33:05] Caroline Blazovsky: working.
[:[00:33:08] Eric Goranson: See, sorry. it's never gonna happen. Well, it's, it's just, it's what it is. And there could be stuff hidden. Now, one thing I want talk about that's the hidden stuff out there, and this is gonna be a little sidebar for, it's gonna be more expensive when you're talking to a contractor.
[:[00:33:56] Eric Goranson: Guy, the guy at 70 gives her the pitch. Oh, I do this for a living. [00:34:00] It's great. They're just overcharging you. She goes with him. The problem with that is, is there is a business model for some kitchen and bathroom modelers out there that our, I call the, the change order Kings. Oh, we pulled the permits on it.
[:[00:34:41] Eric Goranson: These guys end up being more money. Then the top guy that you said no to that you thought was ripping you off. Now, Caroline number five is a big one here, and this is one that we gotta hit on because it's just so important. Those new appliance requirements, great example, let's say, and this happened to my house.
[:[00:35:22] Eric Goranson: Not gonna work. You need a big, not gonna work, not enough BTUs. Maybe you need a three quarter inch. Maybe you need a one inch. And now here's the other part of that. The distance to the meter matters longer. The distance. The bigger the pipe. Mm-hmm, interesting because some of these things, if you turn on five burners and, and even worse, if it's got a gas oven, you're gonna need so much gas in there.
[:[00:36:15] Eric Goranson: So now you go to call the gas company and have 'em come out and replace that meter. Or
[:[00:36:33] Caroline Blazovsky: And that's another. $3,004,000, or maybe they'll do it for free in my case, they wanna, but
[:[00:36:53] Eric Goranson: We don't want the carport. Cause we don't have to have our guy go in there. Mm-hmm or lady go in there and walk through the carport to go get [00:37:00] that because there's a car in the carport. They don't wanna walk past the car cuz there's a liability. They don't wanna scratch that. So that's the other part when they go manually read that meter.
[:[00:37:32] Eric Goranson: Instead of having that range. Mm-hmm mm-hmm I want the built in look. So instead of having a 30 inch range, they want the oven that's separate and the cooktop above you have to find specialty appliances that will let you do that. You can't just go get any cooktop in any oven and stack 'em on top for each other.
[:[00:38:02] Caroline Blazovsky: then that's two appliances. So each one needs their own
[:[00:38:17] Eric Goranson: So there's a lot of different things that run into that. So be careful with those things. And now when you get into specialty appliances, especi, So for instance, if you've got that steam of it, are you getting one that has a water supply to it? Are you filling up the little thing, like your coffee maker to put into that?
[:[00:38:37] Caroline Blazovsky: It's a lot, like people don't, that's why I'm saying my girlfriend said the other day, oh, we're just gonna do it ourselves. I was like, no, don't do it. Yeah. I'm gonna make her listen to this episode cuz she'll, it's like a mind blow.
[:[00:38:53] Eric Goranson: Did you do yours when
[:[00:38:58] Eric Goranson: I did it all myself. [00:39:00] Oh see, the only person that helped me on that kitchen was of course the guys putting in the slab countertops. And of course I had William over helping me with the tile, uh, cuz I, you know, he's I know how to do tile, but he's so, so good at it.
[:[00:39:28] Eric Goranson: And you've been listening to around the house,
