Cost Versus Value - A Delicate Balance

As a homeowner you're probably curious what projects provide you with the best return on your investment (ROI). Or maybe you want to spruce up your home to help with its resale.

As an architectural professional, questions I'm often asked are: What are my options? Is this project worth the time? Is it worth the money?

Fortunately, there's information out there to help you understand what the costs and ROI will be for typical renovation projects.  It's often surprising to learn bigger is not often better.

Let's take a look at a kitchen renovation as an example.

A major kitchen remodel may cost you anywhere between $40K to $60K. A minor kitchen remodel will be in the price range of $10K to $20K, maximum. If you, the homeowner, are thinking the major kitchen remodel is going to give you a 100% ROI you're sorely mistaken. Same goes for the smaller kitchen remodel.

The ROI for the major kitchen remodel tops out at 74.2% and the ROI for the smaller kitchen makeover is 82.7%.  So if you're looking to add value to your home for resale, fixing up the kitchen may not be the best project to undertake.

Here's what I mean.

Let's say you're thinking of selling your home in the next year or two and your home renovation budget is $15K. Your goal is to make your home sell faster, since the time it spends on the market just eats into your profit margin.  Your second criteria is you want as high a ROI as possible.

What projects should you consider? 

For a budget of $15K, here are a couple of scenarios you may want to consider to help improve your home's curb appeal, saleability, and the ROI you will experience.


Scenario 1

• Entry Door Replacement (steel) 
• Your cost: $1,162 
• Your return: $1,122 
• Your ROI: 96.6% 

• Wooden Deck Addition
• Your cost: $9,539
• Your return: $8,334
• Your ROI: 87.4%

• Garage Door Replacement
• Your cost: $1,534
• Your return: $1,283
• Your ROI: 83.7%

This first scenario will cost you $12,235 and your ROI will be $10,739.  The difference is a loss of $1,496.

Scenario 2

If you want to switch things up a bit, consider what this scenario offers:

• Entry Door Replacement (steel) 
• Your cost: $1,162 
• Your return: $1,122 
• Your ROI: 96.6% 

• Window Replacement (vinyl)
• Your cost: $9,978
• Your return: $7,857
• Your ROI: 78.7%

• Garage Door Replacement
• Your cost: $1,534
• Your return: $1,283
• Your ROI: 83.7%

This second scenario will cost you $12,674 and your ROI will be $10,262.  The difference is a loss of $2,412.

Both home improvement scenarios are below the $15K margin, which is a good thing, because you give yourself some wiggle room for any unforeseen complications with the work.

Scenario 3

Let's compare these two scenarios to a bathroom remodel:

•  Bathroom Remodel
• Your cost: $16,128
• Your return: $11,688
• Your ROI: 72.5%

The bathroom remodel will cost you $16,128 and your ROI will be $11,688.  The difference is a loss of $4,440.

When we compare the bathroom remodel to Scenario 1 and Scenario 2, the bathroom remodel is over budget and provides you with much less return.  Not to mention the disruption and inconvenience you will encounter while the project is underway.

The conclusion is: pick your projects wisely. If you have a limited budget for your home improvements and want to maximize your return on your investment, going big is not always better.

Kitchen Planning and Primary Work Centers

Kitchen Planning - Primary Work Centers

You may find your kitchen is cluttered, there never seems to be enough room to cook or prepare meals, and someone always seems to be in someone's way.  There may be more than one reason your kitchen design may not work for you. Since the kitchen is the "heart" of the home, it's important to get it right.

As a lay person, how do you know if the kitchen you're looking at works or not?  Are there rules good kitchen design needs to follow? Templates even?  I mean, where do you even start?

To help you better understand how your kitchen works, you need to learn about some fundamentals about kitchen design and layout. It all starts with what are called the Primary Work Centers. The importance of Primary Work Centers are they impact the kitchen’s layout, restrict what can or cannot be done in the kitchen, and set the design criteria needed to create an efficient, comfortable, and well planned workspace.

Understanding what the Primary Work Centers are, what they're composed of, and the types of activities that occur enables you to evaluate your current kitchen layout with a more practiced and pragmatic eye. Not only will a good design appeal to you aesthetically, you will know why it makes the heart of your home a very comfortable place to be.

Primary Work Centers

The idea behind Primary Work Centers is based on a rather simple premise.  Group activities in the kitchen into distinct areas and then identify the tools and space needed for these activities. 

That's it in a nutshell really.

Whatever the activities are for each area it only makes sense to ensure there is ample storage, enough counter space, and sufficient lighting for you to be able to carry out the tasks you need to perform.

OK, so what are these "activities"? How granular do you get anyway?  

Let's keep the count down to four activities and they are: cleanup, mixing, cooking, and serving. It also becomes evident that grouping these items might make more sense if you placed the cleanup area next to the mixing, the mixing area near the cooking, and the serving area, well, it can be left to float around a bit or put close to the clean-up area.

Needless to say, identifying these four areas allows you to see there are some relationships between the work centers that are stronger than others.

So, How Does This Help Me?

Circles Keep It Simple

If you look at the diagram provided the arrangement of the work centers fits within the layout of the room and they either create new circulation paths or accommodate existing ones.  

As shown in this example the clean up area is located between the mixing and serving work centers.  The cooking work center is floating up there at the top.  Maybe it's an island, or perhaps it's located on exterior wall? Who knows?  This layout looks like it can accommodate two entrances into the space too.

What we do understand is the work center layout needs to fit the space available, provide the work centers with context to one another, and moving any one center to a new location impacts what is done where and the flow through the space.


The simplicity of designing or evaluating your kitchen using the four work centers allows you to:

• Learn how activities relate to one another on a macro rather than micro level 
• Understand how moving one work center to a different location affects the entire layout
• Quickly create numerous layouts by something as simple as circles
• Choose a layout that works for you
• Determine if the layout works for the space available.