Your Kitchen: Find the Right Remodeling Recipe

There are a wide variety of improvements and upgrades that can bring beauty, value, and performance to your home. However, when it comes to a difference your family will be sure to notice, kitchen updates are the cream of the crop! Kitchen updating is one of the best (and most popular) ways to improve appearances while simultaneously making your home more efficient. From low-budget to high efficiency eco-friendly updating, just about every homeowner will find a project that will fit not only his or her wallet but lifestyle and aesthetic taste as well.

Low-Budget Kitchen Updates
Let's face it: many of us are simply not able to spend a ton of money on high-end kitchen remodel upgrades. Fortunately, there are many small, inexpensive projects that can make a world of difference in just about any kitchen space! If you have tile counters, floors, or backsplashes, a simple re-grouting job can go a long way for a very meager investment. Another popular low-budget kitchen upgrade is painting or staining cabinetry. While it won't do wonders for how your kitchen functions, a little sanding and a fresh coat of stain or paint can breathe new life into nearly any kitchen!

Low-cost kitchen upgrading is, of course, a bit limited in nature, but by choosing small projects wisely, you can get a lot of bang for your remodeling buck in this versatile, unique room. Remember, the biggest costs in kitchen remodels are often avoided by keeping all of your projects focused on surface features. Moving the sink area, running new wiring, and changing the layout of islands, counters, and cabinetry are costly endeavors. By keeping everything in the same spot and changing only surface appearances, you can have a kitchen that looks brand new at the fraction of the cost of a typical kitchen remodel!

Energy-Efficient Kitchen Upgrades
In many cases, energy efficient kitchen upgrades are focused almost entirely on replacing older appliances with new, eco-friendly models. This, of course, can add up to a very sizable investment. Thankfully, most eco-friendly kitchen upgrades are also money-savers in the long run. That old electric stove, dishwasher, and refrigerator are literally costing you money every day in the form of utility bills. Though buying new ones (preferably ones that carry the government's Energy Star label) is going to set you back initially. Much of the additional costs can be made up in lowered monthly bills though.

Along with electric stoves, water heaters and clothes dryers are some of the biggest drains of electricity in the house. While an environmentally conscious kitchen update is certainly a good start, don't forget that upgrading these other appliances can also lead to large savings and reduce the amount of energy your household wastes. While you're at it, don't forget your lighting! Not only is replacing your old bulbs with new, compact fluorescent ones easy, it is also one of the cheapest and most effective energy savers on the market.

High-End Kitchen Updating
While most of us are very careful about stretching each and every dollar we spend on a home improvement project to its fullest extent, if ever there was a place to splurge, it's your kitchen. Though there are certainly no guarantees that any one item will be worth more than the cost of its installation, much of the data and many expert opinions suggest that kitchens are the place where higher-end materials are likely to bring the best resale values.

Of course, if the rest of your house is strictly mid-range, installing a built-in refrigerator, a professional cooktop, and finishing the room off with marble floors is probably going to look out of place and do more harm than good if your house goes on the market. However, when placed a little higher than the price range of the materials in the rest of the house, your cabinetry, counters, and flooring will hardly seem out of place and will do wonders for appearances, performance, and resale value should your home ever go on the market!