People buying the most expensive custom cabinetry, or very expensive professional appliances often have surprisingly poor kitchen designs. Expert kitchen designers know that it makes NO SENSE to be paying for huge material upgrades without first making layout improvements like moving plumbing, walls, doors and windows to create the best kitchen design.
Unfortunately, good design is often overlooked with homeowners considering the most expensive cabinetry and appliances.
This is true for a number of reasons. See below:
- Homeowners aren’t kitchen designers with experience, and usually only expert kitchen designers will be able to create the best designs.
- Unfortunately, non-designers usually don’t realize when better designs are possible.
- When customers have big budgets and want expensive kitchens, they can insist on being in charge and be less likely to accept advice.
- Unfortunately, many designers are wary of alienating high-end customers and jeopardizing a huge sale.
- Lastly, customers with large budgets buying expensive kitchens often start the design process with architects and get off to a terrible start. See why below:
All kitchen designers will tell you that the poorest designs and the most expensive kitchens we see come from architects.
This is because “a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing”. It takes many years of exclusively designing kitchens full time to get good at it. Architects have very little kitchen design experience when compared to even novice kitchen designers. Architects know little about kitchen cabinetry, since they don’t design in a cabinet line or sell cabinetry.
The best kitchen designers learn quickly to be careful and to worry about the details.
Architects are encouraged in most colleges to value their own ideas above cost and tradition. Because of this their training actually impedes their ability to create sensible, functional, and aesthetically pleasing kitchens.
Architects love to draw on paper and let others figure out how to make their drawings a reality. They learn in school to be bold. This philosophy coupled with little kitchen design experience often results in designs with too much cabinetry, impossibly tight seating, and appliances too large for the space. For the kitchen designers that design and sell cabinetry, the functionality and esthetics of the design is what we focus on.
As a kitchen designer, it is rare to see a good design from an architect.
Homeowners understandably become frustrated when the poor design decisions they made with their architect need changing. Telling a homeowner that the design they worked on is bad, will not only upset the customer, but the architect will never bring the cabinet dealer any more business.
Kitchen designers working in showrooms catering to the builder, contractor, and architect trade, are in a lose/lose situation. The kitchen designers that work at these companies can risk their jobs if they correct the mistakes of the professionals that bring their clients to the showroom. This got me into hot water at the last showroom I worked at, before starting my own company.
This is why Main Line Kitchen Design works with professionals that send us their customers early in the design process. The builders and architects that we work with accept that they are not kitchen experts. As a result, homeowners get much better kitchens. And the expensive kitchens that we sell are always good designs.
At Main Line Kitchen Design, we wish that our customers would come to us sooner, rather than later. And so . . . we hope to see you soon 🙂
Paul
