The Kitchen Upgrade That's Worth Splurging On In Your Own Home, According To HGTV's Jenn Todryk

HGTV's Jenn Todryk regularly transforms homes without major demos or reconstruction on her popular show "No Demo Reno," proving that even smaller changes to a home's design can have enormous impacts. She recently helped a family create a dreamy kitchen with an unusual layout, taking it from drab and dated to stylish and bright. Faced with grown children out of the house, the homeowners were looking to reimagine their home of 16 years into something that better fit their needs. Todryk began with their spacious kitchen and what she saw as an absolute necessity for the renovation — custom cabinetry.

The kitchen's unusual layout wasn't working with all the possible space it possessed, and included dated orange-ish darker wood cabinetry that had seen better days.  By creating custom cabinetry that better fit the kitchen's footprint, Todryk was able to form a more functional space that worked for the couple going forward and maximized the unique shape of the kitchen. 

Jenn Todryk's decision to invest nearly 1/4 of the total renovation budget on custom cabinetry was an easy one. Todryk often reinforces the importance of custom cabinetry when doing a remodel.  While it can be more costly than pre-fab cabinets, it pays off in beauty, functionality, and greater potential resale value. It also allows you to create exactly the kind of storage you need.

The custom cabinetry, now in a crisp white, was reconfigured, with drawers in lieu of cabinets on either side of the stove, following Todyrk's motto, "drawers over doors any day of the week" (via The Dallas Morning News).   Drawers are a better way to achieve deep and accessible storage for pots, pans, and cooking utensils. By moving the dishwasher further away from the corner, the new design allows that space to be used more fully with the drawers and a single cabinet. The upper cabinets were extended higher toward the ceiling, giving a look that is both more contemporary and allows greater storage capacity. These higher cabinets lift the eye toward the high ceilings instead of cutting it off horizontally.

While not all kitchens require custom cabinetry to maximize storage and functionality, Jenn Todryk emphasizes the importance of considering them as a great place to invest your budget during a remodel. The designer also encourages homeowners to think creatively about their own needs and ways to move beyond the traditional cabinetry of yore. This may mean a combination of drawers, traditional uppers and lowers, tall pantries, open shelving, and racks. It also may include bars for hanging, glass cabinets to display dishware, and hidden appliance garages. 

While many new homes come with builder-grade or pre-fab cabinets, swapping them out for something newer and better designed could pay off in big ways when you decide to sell the home down the line. Buyers will be looking for storage that maximizes all the potential of the space to its best advantage. It will also make your kitchen a far more livable space, eliminating wasted space, general clutter, and cramped cupboards in favor of a spot for everything.