1. Save Time
When you hire a designer, you immediately eliminate an enormous amount of time you would otherwise have spent. No longer do you have to go to all the surrounding home improvement stores, poring over tiles and backsplashes, faucets and handles, stoves and fridges. There are so many decisions to make, after all: What colors match? What materials are best? How can you best balance price and quality?
All this confusion is unnecessary. Instead, a designer will present you with all your choices upfront. They can show you packages that have worked well for others, the right combinations of stone and marble, varnish and paint, metal and wood. Rather than searching through a city’s worth of supplies, you can pick from a few streamlined, well-made and affordable choices.
2. Save Money
Which brings us to money. When you have to pick items on your own, you’re likelier to pay too much or pay for the wrong things (which can be just as costly, as we’ll soon discover). It’s not your fault; you’re simply unfamiliar with the best stores, brands, materials and deals. Plus, you don’t have any bulk discounts or existing relationships to help you out.
A designer will help you avoid this fate. They have partnerships in every area, making it much likelier you’ll get significant price breaks. They also know which materials work well with which budgets, so you don’t have to figure it out.
3. Get the Best Vendors
When you’re on your own, you can’t guarantee you’ll find the best manufacturers. That’s a big deal because choosing subpar tiling, hardware, appliances or cabinetry can come back to haunt you big time. Maybe something breaks early (usually right after warranty, because, life). As the old saying goes, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. It’s possible that it just never works well, and you have to deal with those flickery gas burners for 10 years. Or maybe a component is just flat out ugly.
Designers know how to dodge such issues, mainly by working with excellent vendors and service professionals from the get-go. They know the best people to call for lighting, painting, installation and cabinetry. They can pass on that excellence to you without blinking an eye.
4. Match It to Your Lifestyle
The kitchen is the heart of the home. Most families spend more time here than anywhere else, which makes it critical that this room function the way you need. Perhaps it’s a homework destination. Maybe you eat weekday meals at the island or bar. Or, like many families, you might spend all Sunday preparing food for the week and need a bunch of counter space.
Whatever the case, there’s nothing worse than discovering post-remodel that you haven’t left enough elbow room for the activities that take place in your kitchen. A designer will ensure this doesn’t happen by taking a full inventory of what you currently use your kitchen for and what you’ll need it to accommodate in future.
5. Avoid Disaster
When you have a catastrophe in your kitchen – whether it comes at the beginning or middle of the process, or after the workers have “completed” the job – you’re in a real bind. Many a homeowner has discovered only after the fact that their faucet wouldn’t suit their needs, that the tile wasn’t appropriate for their kitchen, that the hood wasn’t up to the job of serious daily cooking.
This is, of course, closely related to saving time and saving money. Whether you have to fix the problem right away or just suffer through it for years, fixing the smaller secondary issues as they arise, you’re losing both time and money. Not to mention your sanity.
When you work with a designer, on the other hand, they’ll help you through the process from start to finish. You won’t get stuck with a component that doesn’t actually match your lifestyle or needs.
6. Match It to Your Vision
Many people fail to consider the fact that disaster can be as simple as not liking the finished effect because you just weren’t sure how everything would fit together. If you’re a novice at designing kitchens – and most homeowners are – then you don’t have the body of knowledge to know what cabinetry goes with what appliances, which cabinets complement which countertops, and more.
With a designer at your side, that’s not the case. You’ll think through every aspect of every choice, rather than shooting blind at the nearest big box store and hoping everything works out. And you’ll know you love the final look because a designer will be able to create a mockup for you ahead of time. Anything that doesn’t work for you, you can change … before the grout dries.
7. Create Serenity
Perhaps most importantly, working with a designer helps you keep your head on straight throughout what can be a long and gruelling process. A kitchen renovation creates chaos and disruption in your house when everything goes perfectly, let alone when something goes off the rails.
Don’t let that happen to you. Instead, hire a designer to see you through this process today. You won’t regret it … and neither will your kitchen!