When looking for help with designing a custom kitchen, Chestertown homeowners can turn to architects, interior designers or kitchen designers. What expert do you choose? Let me explain where I see the differences.
Architect: “a person who designs buildings and, in many cases, also supervises their construction.” -Oxford Dictionary. Their specialty and training are in the entire building. You need an architect if you are going to make structural changes to the building, such as taking down a load-bearing wall or erecting a new space to house the kitchen. Architects can place cabinetry but very few have the expertise or the time to become an expert on cabinet lines, appliances, countertops, hardware, and plumbing fixtures that comprise a kitchen.
Interior Designer: “the art or process of designing the interior decoration of a room or building” -Oxford Dictionary. Interior designers are experts at coordinating an entire house to look seamless or consistent in design. How the kitchen fits with the entire home is very important and interior designers specialize in this; but they are not experts in how a room functions, and that is very important in the kitchen. For example how many btu’s should the vent be so that it rids the kitchen of cooking smoke and smells, but not so many that is sucks up gases from the basement. Not all cabinets are created equal; you want ones sustainably made by manufacturers willing to stand behind their product-not all are, and how do you know?
Kitchen Designer: The Oxford Dictionary does not have a definition for kitchen design or designer. After a search, this is the best I could find. “Effective kitchen design is the process of combining layout, surfaces, appliances and design details to form a cooking space that’s easy to use and fun to cook and socialize in.” -Grundig. This means that the kitchen designer’s square-foot focus is smaller than either the architect or interior designer, but they need to understand details: that is kitchen design.
What are the details of kitchen design and why are they important?
The importance is that the details affect the Chestertown homeowner’s family’s satisfaction with their kitchen. The details of designing a custom kitchen include:
- Knowing the history and current state of various appliance manufacturers. Good kitchen designers can tell you the difference between GE Café and Décor appliances or why to choose Viking versus Wolf.
- What is the difference between granite, marble, quartz, quartzite, and soapstone countertops? Is one more environmentally friendly than the others?
- Is it important to coordinate your sink material and the faucet? Consider these questions: What is a sink grid and why would you want one? Is there such a thing as filtered hot and cold water spouts? What is the difference between Kohler plumbing fixtures sold at Home Depot and the ones kitchen designers supply? The answer is a big yes!!
- I hate cleaning grout lines so what kind of backsplash options are there? What is the difference between ceramic and porcelain tile?
- You may be wondering if you need custom cabinets. There are thousands of cabinet lines sold in the United States. Kitchen designers usually represent between 3 and 8 cabinets lines. Every cabinet line is unique so offering too few cabinet lines means you have few options for clients. Too many cabinet lines mean it is almost impossible to know all the product choices for all the cabinet lines. This is especially true of semi-custom and customized kitchen cabinetry and semi-custom cabinets in Chestertown.
Call Teknika Kitchens and Baths For Help Designing a Custom Kitchen in Chestertown
At Teknika Kitchens and Baths, we often work with architects and interior designers to adjust their kitchen plans to specific cabinet lines or to ensure that installation and cost are optimal. If our clients have building questions, we send them to an architect and if they have coordination questions with the rest of the house, we send them to an interior designer.
To answer any of the questions raised in this post or any other kitchen design questions you have, please call Teknika Kitchens and Baths at 410-778-2036 or go to our website for more information.
