Kitchen remodeling entails patience, prep

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Real Estate Kitchen Remodeling Entails Patience, Prep

It's no secret to Realtors that fabulous kitchens sell homes. Improve the room used primarily for food preparation, and the entire house will feel homier to residents, guests and prospective buyers alike.

The appeal of a modern kitchen is so powerful that Robert Criner, president of Criner Remodeling, a home remodeling company in Newport News, Va., says homeowners should consider remodeling an outdated or dysfunctional kitchen regardless of how long they intend to keep the home.

"A lot of people think they aren't going to sell for two or three years," Criner says. "Then they realize right before they decide to sell: I have to put a facelift on the kitchen. Why not do it now, and enjoy it for three or four years, and then it's modernized and ready to sell when you get to that point?"

The first step in a major kitchen remodeling project should be an inspection by a structural engineer, says Gary Henley, president of Henley Homes, a home remodeling company in Liberty Hill, Texas.

Some homeowners are tempted to dive right in, tearing out walls themselves to save time, but Henley says proper investigative work upfront is crucial to ensure the remodeling work is structurally sound.

Patience is required as well.

"You see these programs that do a kitchen in three days," Henley says. "People in the real world know that's not practical. A set of custom cabinets takes about four weeks to get built from the time you put them in production. You can buy off-the-shelf cabinetry, but it probably won't fit the space the way the homeowners want it to fit."

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Kitchen remodeling entails patience, prep