An Old Home Renovation Starting in the Kitchen Gives the Biggest Bang for Your Buck
The average American spends about 67 minutes per day in the kitchen, which equates to about 400 hours a year, according to a poll conducted by home appliance manufacturer Bosch.
What Bosch didn’t ask was, “Did you enjoy those 400 hours in the kitchen?”
Does enjoyment of spending time in the kitchen stem from a passion for cooking and food? Yes, likely. But we also posit that people love spending time in the kitchen when it meets their modern needs, is beautiful, and when its decor and style integrates perfectly with the rest of the house.
But what do you do when the kitchen in your older home isn’t meeting your needs? It’s likely that if your home was built in the 1940s and earlier, you’ll need help accommodating modern appliances and a layout that allows for the free flow of your household’s traffic – neither of which were necessary back then.
If you’re finding that your kitchen doesn’t bring you joy or work for your family’s lifestyle, it’s time to start an old home renovation with expert Kansas City contractors: Architectural Craftsmen.
Focusing on Your Kitchen in an Old Home Renovation
Even just since the 1980s, household refrigerators have grown in size, increasing by about 3 cubic feet of interior space. And although many 1940s kitchens have no problem accommodating a modern refrigerator and stove, there’s one major appliance that they couldn’t even conceive of back then: the microwave.
Because the majority of household changes in the last 80 years have predominantly been technology-driven, accommodating modern equipment can be a challenge for homes built in the 1940s and earlier. Logically, this means that the kitchen is the first room of the home to need help to make room for everything a home cook relies on.
It’s here in the kitchen that many homeowners see a major return on their investment. Remodeling Magazine reports that kitchen remodels have a national average ROI between 52.5% and 71.2%; upscale remodels were responsible for the larger returns.
These impacts – financially and technologically – are sound reasons to pursue a new kitchen as part of your old home remodeling project.
Architectural Craftsmen will listen intently to your pain points with your kitchen and come up with creative solutions to address your challenges, without compromising on your old home’s character, history, and charm. Request a discovery meeting today.
See Our Old Home Renovation Before and Afters
As the area’s premier old home renovation contractors near you, Architectural Craftsmen offers a large portfolio of award-winning work for your consideration, as you take the next steps toward updating your kitchen.
Our award-winning projects often include complete kitchen remodels:
- Roanoke Home Renovation: A kitchen layout reconfiguration makes cooking more expedient due to additional countertops and cabinets, including a beautiful island workspace. The new kitchen layout also opens directly into the dining area, when before it was separate rooms.
- Stickley-Inspired Kitchen Remodel: An old home renovation resulted in a brand-new kitchen that evokes traditional Craftsman-style design, including custom cabinets with period-appropriate hardware, and gorgeous wooden sliding doors to separate it from the main living space.
- Forward to the Past: A narrow, dysfunctional 1897 kitchen is transformed, using a back staircase for adding square footage to accommodate more modern use.
- Historic Kitchen Expansion: An 18-inch thick structural brick wall stood in the way of a large kitchen in this Colonial Revival. Opening up the wall and adding steel posts and beams wrapped in quarter-sawn oak allows it to blend into the home’s existing woodwork.
See more from our portfolio of work.
Remodeling an Old Home? We’re the Pros!
A 14-time NARI REMY award winner, Architectural Craftsmen is the premier old home remodeling expert serving the greater Kansas City area. Our team understands the language of your home’s unique architecture, and ensures renovations embrace your home’s history while leveraging modern upgrades to make living in an old home even better.
With our experience in design, history, and architecture, remodeling old homes is second-nature to us. Our goal is to create a final design that reflects your lifestyle and brings out the soul of your home.
To learn more about how we can turn your kitchen into a modern marvel without compromising its charm, request a discovery consultation with us. Get started by calling us at (913) 963-2246 or by sending us a message on our website.
