Never Too Early to Sweat the Details

Home Depot really stinks! I'm talking mostly about their customer service, or lack thereof. Lowe's seems to do a much better job of recognizing that you play a vital role in their receiving a paycheck.

Now that the blueprints are being created, I recognize that there are details I need to think about now that I thought could wait until further down the road. Maybe it's not vital that I settle them now, but it will give me a greater comfort factor. My kitchen is one of those areas where I decided to work out more details before the blueprints are finalized. To that end, I decided to take advantage of the service offered by both Home Depot and Lowe's to design a kitchen on a computer by selecting cabinet modules. Then they print 3D views for you.

This is going to give me a better idea of the spacing of the appliances and the overall size of the room. I want to have a window in one wall of the kitchen, and an archway pass-through in the other wall that will be an opening into the family room. I wanted to be sure that I could arrange cabinets around these openings using the stock sizes available. The resulting sketch from Lowe's is shown here.

If you go to one of these home improvement stores for this purpose, be sure to bring accurate dimensions of your kitchen. I made the mistake of printing a portion of the blueprints showing my kitchen without preserving the exact scale of the drawing. So it wasn't exactly 1/4 inch or 1/8 inch scale. This forced us to guesstimate on the exact dimensions. I was still able to learn enough to space things correctly, but it's not exact. Then again, the blueprints could change before they finalize, so it wouldn't have been exact anyway. If you go to have this done, a close-up view is better, such as 1/4 inch scale, because it lets them get more precise.

My complaint about Home Depot comes from the shocking attitude I got from the employee who I got stuck with. (But then again, this is New Orleans. Maybe I shouldn't have been too shocked!) I called ahead to make an appointment, just as they ask you to do. They said no customers were there right now, and I could just come in. Well, I wasn't planning to drop everything and go (that's why I was making the appointment), but I wrapped up a few things and went in anyway.

When I got there, a customer was with one of the kitchen designers. The supervisor on duty lead me to the second guy at the next desk. The first words out of his mouth were "well, somebody else (another employee) was supposed to come in today, but I guess I can help him". So I knew the general direction this was going to take. He asked if I was interested in stock cabinets or custom cabinets. In my mind, anything you order out of a catalog is stock inventory, so I said I was here about stock cabinets. He asked another question I didn't understand, and I said I was interested in using KraftMaid stuff. "Oh, well that's custom cabinets," he said with an irritated tone. "You got a drawing or something?"

I showed him my paper with the kitchen blueprint. He complained because it was too small. Then when we determined it wasn't to a scale he and his ready-made scale ruler could decipher, he was more frustrated. He asked me more questions about my preferences and showed frustration when I told him I was here to learn about my options. For example, when I didn't know the exact model of refrigerator I plan to buy 8 months from now, he asked me how he was supposed to draw the opening for it? After all, every model has different dimensions. Using all the strength I could muster to hold back a slew of sarcastic and angry remarks, I said, "Why don't we just assume we need a generous sized opening for a full sized unit then?"

After an hour or so (that's how long it takes for one of these appointments, I'm finding out), I left with some 3D sketches, and I had learned some things. Mostly, I learned how to get a customer to leave and chose to go elsewhere. So I went home and scheduled an appointment with Lowe's. The woman on the phone actually gave me an appointment, and I asked if I would be meeting with her personally. I prefer to have a woman's input in designing the kitchen anyway. The next day, I went for my appointment, and it went much better. I could tell the woman was busy and being stretched in several directions, but she was still courteous and helpful.

Click on the sketch shown above for a larger version. Yeah, it's a pretty big kitchen! It seems like so much activity in a home centers around the kitchen these days. I wanted lots of cabinet space, and I guess I've got it! :) The opening in the wall on the right is the pass-through into the family room. The window would go on the left wall, between the stove and the corner. However, the architect tells me that parish code won't allow a window close to a stove, so I might need to do without this.

The space to the left of the fridge is a computer desk. In the corner, I've got an appliance garage. That's the little garage-door looking thing on the counter. I'll have electrical outlets inside there, and I can keep appliances plugged in, like a toaster, blender, etc. I can keep them plugged in and just pull them out when I want to use them. On the right, that's a cabinet that comes all the way down to the counter. It has a space for the microwave. I like the symmetry of it: the fridge forms a column on the left. The microwave cabinet has the same weight on the right, and the appliance garage balances out the center.

Originally, I had the stove by the archway opening to the next room, but the idea of having a wall between the rooms is to keep noise from spilling into the room with the TV. If the stove was by the opening, noise from the boiling pots and the exhaust fan would defeat the purpose. So I moved the sink & dishwasher to the island and put the stove where the sink used to be. This may mean I need to give up the window, but I have a lot of windows nearby in the breakfast area that will bring light into the kitchen.

Today, I plan to visit a window store to get a better idea of window sizes for the different rooms. More on these details later...