Question:
Have all the beautiful, expensive, kitchens on social media created a disconnect with some Potential kitchen Customers?
The designers and companies don’t usually mention what the price of the kitchen was completed.
The potential client finds a photo of a $200,000 kitchen remodel and has a budget of $10,000 for cabinetry.
It’s like they can afford a used Chevy but they want you to sell them a Lexus or a Bentley, for the price of the used Chevy. But they don’t want to change their expectations of the product.
So I had an interesting phone call this past week. Had an out of state couple contact me to just do a design for their kitchen.
House is gutted, wants the cabinets from an RTA line, I’m familiar with but it is extremely limited in cabinet choices and options. Wants to install themselves.
The wife found me on Facebook. (Interesting story there)
I was willing to consider helping them out but soon, realized they wanted the look of a $150,000 – $200,000 kitchen using NorthPoint Cabinetry. In a massive room, with 9 ft ceilings and stacked wall cabinets, ( some sitting on the countertop).
I decided to take the time to zoom with them to express that they need to explore using a more customized, comprehensive line of cabinetry, to achieve anything remotely close to the Studio McGee Custom Inset kitchen or the other Custom Inset kitchen photo she found.
How many times as designers have we seen this?
My process is there has to be measurements of the room. I design the space, using lots of questions and by looking at designs they send me on Pinterest, but I make the room work for them. I either work in semi-custom or custom cabinet lines.
I have a process I follow, and it works great, I’m happy with it, and my clients love their kitchens. I maintain control of the process.
I pulled the couple into a Zoom meeting this week, to go over their expectations and help educate them on cabinetry.
Client wants to control the process 100%. Only looking for a cabinet list and amounts of molding. Appliances already purchased, 1 is a panel ready Bosch dishwasher, that she wants 3 drawer fronts on, from a design she saw on Pinterest with a $200,000 custom inset kitchen. A 48 in Range, an ice maker, and a wall oven with a separate built in microwave above the oven. Northpoint has a 33 in wall oven cabinet so they would have to build 2 separate shelves to hold the oven, and the microwave and trim out with moldings and trims. They are installing themselves.
There was a plan done previously, with gigantic amounts of notes, doorways and openings with a few measurements, and they had no understanding of why anyone would need complete measurements of the room.
Sent a lovely email to them tonite that there are cabinet companies selling NorthPoint that could design them their space and sell them the drawings, and wished them well. They have a friend who’s a rep and is purchasing the cabinetry for them.
I am not a magician.
What I realized is that designers working in Home Centers are confronted with this a lot. Maybe designers in every type of company see this.
The average homeowner is perusing Pinterest, HGTV, Instagram and Facebook, seeing all these beautiful magnificent kitchens. They have no idea what the kitchens cost. But they want that look in their home.
25-30 years ago I did not see this in the kitchen industry. The expectation of homeowners I worked with was completely different and realistic.
So if you have a decent semi custom line of cabinetry you can do a kitchen that has some of the look of a custom kitchen, and make it pretty.
In this situation I would want a Custom Company to build the cabinetry. Or a good semi custom line with stacked wall cabinetry and lots of options, like Medallion.
Stock lines of cabinetry can be a little more difficult due to the extremely limited skus and sizes.
It reminded me of 25 years ago when semi custom cabinet companies had limited skus and we had to make drawings of how to build everything.
If you have any similar stories please share them.
Has HGTV and the internet caused this phenomenon?
