Dream Kitchen DIY

Use your computer to redesign your kitchen

By Susanne Hasulo

When Vivian Aschwanden and her husband, Bernard, moved to their home in King City, Ont., two years ago, they knew the kitchen would need some work. A lack of cupboard space meant that small appliances and other kitchen items had to be stored elsewhere.

Everything was triple stacked, says Aschwanden. We had stuff in the cold room and in the laundry room.

Aschwanden also wanted to revamp an underused wall area in the kitchen with floor-to-ceiling cabinets, but she wasn’t sure how to start. So she went online and found design software that enabled her to plan the space on her computer.

Use a software program to help design your new kitchen.

Plan your renovation

If you’ve thought about renovating your kitchen, you can now use planning programs to help you do it. Working on your kitchen with design software is a great way to experiment and turn the kitchen of your dreams into reality before committing hard-earned money to the job.

Renovating your new kitchen with design software can help you

create a workable design layout,
experiment with and compare various materials and paint colours on screen, and
plan and visualize the finished product.

Canadians spent an estimated $17.3 billion on home renovations in 2006, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. According to U.S. Census Bureau statistics, home improvement projects accounted for almost 75 per cent of the $198.6 billion American homeowners spent in 2004 on their homes. And kitchen renovations were among the most popular projects in both countries.

A remodelled kitchen not only provides pizzazz to the most popular room of the house but also increases a homes resale value by as much as 10 per cent.

Create a blueprint of how you want your new kitchen to look.

Take measurements

Planning is the first step in successful kitchen renovation, says renowned Canadian interior designer and TV personality Brian Gluckstein.

Measure cupboards, walls and floors. Plug those measurements into your planning tool so you have a sense of the space you have to work with. It’s easy to get overwhelmed. People go out shopping and get excited by new furniture and appliances and forget to think about things like size limitations, says Gluckstein.

Create a virtual design of your kitchen so you can see what the finished product will look like.

Think about function

You should also think about how you would like your new kitchen to function. Ask yourself these questions:

How many people like to eat or cook in your kitchen at the same time?
Do you entertain often?
Are you looking for more storage space?

Analyze the space

Gluckstein suggests analyzing what you like and don’t like about your kitchen and then using your planning software to address deficiencies. Basically, you want your kitchen to match your lifestyle, he says. Some software programs feature design templates that may inspire you to fix problems or add new elements to your design.

Aschwanden found IKEA’s interactive kitchen guide online, downloaded the easy-to-use planner tool and started experimenting by dragging and dropping different cabinet configurations onto the design screen. It really helped to get a sense of the possibilities.

Another benefit of creating a virtual kitchen is you can show other people the specifications of your ideas, says Gluckstein. You’ll have a much more productive meeting with a designer or a cabinet company if everyone’s able to see what you have in mind.

To help visualize the end product, create a panoramic view of your whole kitchen using Windows Live Photo Gallery. If you don’t have Windows Live Photo Gallery, download it for free, here. Take a series of photos covering the whole space and import them into a new computer folder marked Kitchen. Click on the Kitchen folder in Windows Live Photo Gallery, click and drag your mouse over all the photos to highlight them, and then in the menu along the top toolbar, click Make > Create panoramic. Live Photo Gallery will stitch your photos together so you have a visual of your whole kitchen.

Aschwanden and her husband skipped the designer and installed red-lacquered, floor-to-ceiling cupboards themselves. Now they store all their small appliances and cleaning utensils in one beautiful new space instead of throughout the house.

Your brand new kitchen is complete. Welcome home!

Drag and drop design

Here are examples of kitchen design programs:

IKEA Kitchen Planner
Drag and drop items from the IKEA catalogue right into your layout, and view your results in 3-D. You can also print a shopping list of products before you go to the store. (This tool works on PCs only; it’s not compatible with Macs.)

Punch Interior Design Suite
If you’re more design and tech savvy, Punch lets you create professional-quality designs for any room of your home. Punch includes access to product libraries from manufacturers, so you can incorporate real-world materials and colours into your design. While you may need more time to master this application, you’ll find that the tools and room templates render an incredibly realistic picture of your kitchen-to-be.

RONA Kitchen Planning Guide
If you’d rather design on paper than online, RONA’s handy kitchen guide provides step-by-step instructions to help you plan your reno. Print out the grid paper templates and draw up your specs. The guide also includes handy tips on appliance selection and budgeting.