Kitchen Remodeling in Bedford, Ohio

What Bedford kitchens usually look like before we start

Most Bedford kitchens sit at the back of the house, between the dining room and a rear door. The room measures fine on paper. Then a doorway, a radiator and the basement stair take three of the four walls, and one usable run of counter is what is left.

Homes on the blocks around Broadway Avenue and Public Square tend to have the tightest layouts. One narrow pantry cupboard, no obvious place for a dishwasher without giving up a base cabinet, and a fridge that blocks a drawer when the door swings open.

Houses further out toward Solon Road and the Bedford Glens area usually have more floor area, but the same problem shows up in a different form: traffic cuts straight through the work zone on the way to the back door.

So the first thing we do is measure the room and mark where people actually walk. That decides the layout long before any door style comes into it.

The changes that make the biggest difference

Storage comes first. Deep drawers in place of low cupboards recover everything that gets lost at the back of a shelf, and a full height pantry cabinet usually replaces the single narrow one the house came with.

Then the run. If the wall between the kitchen and the dining room can open up, the counter gets longer and the room stops reading like a corridor. If it cannot, we borrow depth from the rear landing instead and put the storage there.

Countertops matter here for a specific reason. A long uninterrupted top makes a narrow Bedford kitchen read as one room rather than three short sections, so we plan the seams before we plan the edges.

Resale is worth saying out loud. Bedford buyers are comparing your house against listings in Bedford Heights and Maple Heights, and a kitchen that reads as finished does real work when the sign goes in the yard.

What to sort out before the first cabinet arrives

Bedford handles its own building permits, and anything touching plumbing, electrical or a structural wall will need one. We tell you which parts of your job need a permit while we are still drawing, not halfway through the install.

Living through the work is the other thing to plan. Most Bedford houses have a basement with a laundry sink and room for a spare fridge, which makes a serviceable temporary kitchen while the real one is apart.

Bring numbers when you come in. Bedford lots are narrow and the rooms are rarely square, so a rough sketch with a few real measurements on it saves you a second trip.