So You Think You Can Cook

So you think you can cook do you? Family meals a breeze, weekend entertaining an absolute pleasure – but how about dinner for 200 produced out of your very own kitchen – no? well why ever not! These days even ‘amateur’ chefs are a very serious breed. We are as a country food obsessed from the diet queens to the faddie foodies to the down right greedy monsters! Cooking is a national pastime and has become the ultimate hobby to show off.


Photo: massdistraction

The kitchen is fast becoming the most remodelled room of the house, and the demands on our food preparation spaces are increasing all the time. Kitchen worktops are no longer just the surface above our cupboards, they are an essential area on which to hone our craft that needs to be made of the right material and lit perfectly! Storage is also an issue due to the number of culinary gadgets the average household possesses and kitchen designers are forever having to come up with ingenious ways to maximise space.


Kitchen cabinets are the least of our worries too. Along with most remodelling projects there is a requirement to upgrade appliances and this can be a huge headache in its own right. Making sure you stick to your budget, achieve all the desired elements and find something which quite simply you like the look of is never an easy task. On a positive note there is a huge amount of choice out there if you can take the time to do your research properly – and try to enjoy the process. These kinds of purchases are often only made every few years so treat the decisions with appropriate importance.

Whatever the direction of your kitchen remodelling project, a chef-like kitchen where dinner for 200 would actually be achievable is within your reach so happy cooking and get planning that menu!

New Kitchen, No Clue How To Cook

So your brand new kitchen is freshly installed, you have a beautiful array of state-of-the-art appliances and shiny new work surfaces – and absolutely no clue what to do with any of it! A can’t cook, won’t cook attitude is never more apparent then when someone has a new kitchen and the rest of the family is waiting for Michelin star style food to start emerging. Newsflash – just because we bought a new oven doesn’t mean we are any better at cooking!


Photo: limonada

The panic starts to set in and the excuses you have been living off whilst the builders were in – bliss – for eating out or microwaving ready meals in the front room have exhausted themselves completely. The kitchen cabinets are crying out to be stocked with culinary delights, and the tape on the new hob has got to come off sometime. Well, take a deep breath and see if any of the following can help you.


First of all, don’t run before you can walk. No-one is expecting your maiden voyage around the kitchen worktops to include you producing a complicated soufflé. Try and master some basic dishes which the family will enjoy and build up your repertoire from there. Mostly getting it right is about not panicking and preparing the elements of the meal in the right order. If in doubt ask for a competent friend or relative to work with you the first time and guide you along your way.

To get you out of having to run the kitchen gauntlet every night then cook in large quantities. Freezing portions of casserole, bolognaise or curry for example will not spoil the enjoyment of the food and will mean that you only have to prepare the accompanying vegetables, rice or pasta in order to produce a complete meal.

If you can plan menus and shop accordingly you won’t go far wrong, and at the end of the week I think you will definitely deserve a meal out to celebrate!

Building Your Dream Kitchen

There is nothing like owning your own home. After months of searching for the perfect home, you found the one that most closely fit in with your dreams with a few caveats. The one thing that you really didn't care for that much was the kitchen, the cabinets were old school and the entire layout just did not feel right to you, but the rest of the of the was exactly what you wanted.


Photo: Jeremy Levine Design

So you bought the house with the idea that one day you would get around to completely remodeling the kitchen and building it your way. At first the plans had to be put on hold as you were getting moved in and trying to recover from all the expenses of buying a home that left your bank account pretty well drained.


This was followed by a period of complacency as you started to raise a family and were just as happy to leave well enough alone. The idea of tearing your kitchen apart with little ones running around somehow did not appeal to you so once again your dream kitchen got place on a back burner in the hopes that someday you would finally get around to the complete kitchen remodeling project you have been dreaming of since the day you bought the house.

The only other possible excuse for not remodeling your kitchen can only be the cost of buying the new kitchen cabinets you are going to need to create the space and the look you are after. This one reason has stopped more people from being able to complete their kitchen remodeling project than any other reason.

While cost is always going to be a factor, you need to learn how to shop for your new kitchen cabinets and to take advantage of everything that is available to you to help you with your project that can help you pull it off. Not only to pull it off, but to do so inside of your budget and get the exact look and style you had in mind when you bought your house in the first place.


Photo: palindrome6996

One thing that you need to keep in mind is that the biggest part of any kitchen remodeling project is the planning. The more time and effort you spend in the planning phase the more money you can save and the more likely you are to be satisfied with the end result. This cannot be stressed enough as far too many people end up dissatisfied with their final results because they did not take the time to fully plan and visualize the final results of their remodeling project before the tore out the first cabinet.

Toda you can actually work with your cabinet supplier and use their software to help you see a three dimensional view of how your kitchen is going to look when you are done. You can do this with any of their cabinets and your choice of colors. You can rearrange everything on the screen so that you can see how different plans are going to look before you spend a single penny.

There is nothing better than being able to see how different kitchen cabinets will make your kitchen look on computer screen. It gives you a chance to see every choice and option for your new kitchen and how they are going to affect the way it will look when completed, long before you get started. This has become the most popular way to plan a kitchen and is used by many professional remodeling contractors to show their clients what their kitchen will look like and to make any changes needed.

The most important part of any kitchen remodeling project is of course the kitchen cabinets. Other than new appliances, your new cabinets are likely to be your biggest expense. Even so there are ways that you can save money and still get superior quality cabinets that are going to make you dream kitchen come true after all these years.

At Cabinets to Go we offer a complete range of kitchen cabinets that are made from real woods, not particle board. You can get 10 feet of upper and lower cabinets in a range of woods and finishes starting at just under $1,900 and going up to $2,400. You can pick them up at one of our stores or use our online kitchen planner and have your new kitchen cabinets delivered directly to your door so that you can finally complete that kitchen remodeling project you have been putting off for far too many years.