First Things First

Even if you are just thinking about a new kitchen, here are some tips that will help you figure out how to best use the space available to you. Once you have the kitchen bug, you have to figure out if your present space will contain all of those ideas from the magazines. Many people see islands in these dream kitchens and want a similar one in their home. After the measuring is done, however, very few kitchens are big enough for islands. It's better to figure it all out now before you head off to a designer.

Grab a measuring tape and paper and a pencil. Ignore completely what is in the room now. Your present kitchen really has no bearing on your new kitchen, unless you are on an extremely tight budget. A tight budget will not allow for plumbing or electrical changes so you should keep these in mind when measuring.

The principle here is to make a drawing of your present kitchen. Start at one corner, it really doesn't matter which, and measure to the first obstacle. An obstacle is a door or a window usually, although there are lots of things that would count as an obstacle, such as vent covers, heating registers, radiators and so on. Generally, you have a room with doors and windows around it, and those are your first concern. Measure to the outside of the door/window frame. Then measure the door/window from it's outside frame on either side. Then measure from the outside frame again to the next obstacle. Continue around the room until you have the rectangle or square completely measured.

To check your work, add up the different measurements on your paper and then measure each wall from corner to corner. The two figures should match. Don't worry about eighth's or sixteenth's just yet, half inches are fine for now.

Once this is done, measure the height of the ceiling. If there is a bulkhead, measure how far it is from the floor and then measure the full ceiling height. A bulkhead is a lowering of the ceiling just over the cupboards, sort of a dip down to reach the top of the cupboards. In reality a bulkhead is a pain in the butt, and should be removed whenever possible. Without a bulkhead, a kitchen can have glorious, high cupboards in it that stretch almost to the ceiling, giving a room a tremendous feeling of grandeur.

After you have all of this done, check out some nit-picky things and measure them. If you're

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