Depends on how adept your architect is. He might have a kitchen designer/cabinet man that he consults with or he may contract out (or throw the ball into your court).

In my existing house kitchen retrofit my wife found the designer and pretty much sat down with his specification books and designed the thing herself. She pretty much did the same with the architect on the new house.

Having done one kitchen already in the past four or five years we're pretty certain what we want.

You should ask your architect first.

I see...thank you guys for the quick responses!!!

If the architect will not design it then I would work with a kitchen designer (or do it yourself) to at least get the appliance locations down before the plans are finalized. You might need to move a doorway here, a window there. There are many people on the Kitchens forum that designed their own kitchens, and some of these are spectacular kitchens.

The architect should design the kitchen in terms of its relationship to the other spaces, the work surfaces, the appliance locations, the kinds of materials, and the lighting.

A kitchen designer should layout the individual cabinets and offer you choices for the various features certain cabinet manufacturers provide as well as colors. The architect should review these choices and advise the owner about maintaining the original design intent of the space. Making it work as a whole is the most important goal.

Most kitchen designers are cabinet sale people and have no design training (sorry, no one is a competent designer without some training). The good designers work for the very expensive kitchen shops for obvious reasons and few people can afford them.

I have done it in every way possible, even giving my cabinet designs to a custom cabinet shop. The method used depends on the needs of the owners and their budget. The custom cabinets were the cheapest option and the most expensive was usually a kitchen design shop with the names of the owners as it's business title.

As Sue36 said, no matter who designs it, run it past the kitchens forum. The collection of minds of people passionate about kitchens and designing functional layouts is too great a (free) resource to pass up!

You guys are all so helpful. Thanks again!

happymom

make sure you pick a cabinet supplier who provides kitchen design services. ask to see a portfolio of work they have done. they should provide you with very detailed drawings, 3D renderings, as you work through the design process. They should be asking you a lot of questions about how you use the kitchen, do the food prep, cook and entertain and then offer suggestions on where certain cabinets, islands, bar counters etc. should go.

If you buy your cabinets at a Big Box store - then yes - they are just cabinet sales people who are probably not proficient at kitchen design. Note - you will likely spend a little more for the cabinets if you go the full service route - but I think it is well worth it. Don't expect to get bargain basement prices for the cabinets AND designer services too.

Our kitchen was designed by a kitchen designer - not the arhitect. The architect laid in general areas on the plan where cabinets, island, and bar would go - but the kitchen designer helped us with the detailed cabinet layouts, the drawers, sink placement, etc. My DW and I designed the bar ourselves - with the help of GW posts and our trim carpenter. We had to integrate columns and our granite counter top and nobody could get that right with design software. The concept had to be worked at the site.

Even after you have you have the kitchen design "done" - make sure that you have the cabinet people come to the site to take measurements after the framing is completed. We found a slight issue with wall dimensions after framing and had to make some adjustments to the design.

Don't expect your architect to know all - especially about kitchen design. There are a lot of little nuances about cabinets - many options are available that will vary by cabinet brand - and the kitchen designer will have all of that detail.

By the way - the other key to a great kitchen is the cabinet installer. I would not skimp on that step. The surrounding walls will most likely not be true and the cabinet installer has to make adjustments to make things fit and look right.

Thank you, Sniffdog, for your input. I think I have a better understanding of what the relationship between architect/cabinet designer is now.

happymommy I am at the same point that you are at. But I am concerned not only about my kitchen, but the entire design: both exterior and interior. I need help with all the details.. down to the trim molding. I get overwhelmed by all the choices and really need someone to help me narrow it down.

So far my architect has designed more of the placement of things on and in the house, but he is not getting into specific details of color or materials. He has been using me for that. I think I need someone else to help me with more of the overall details. But not sure who to hire. So where do I go for this kind of help?

Our plans are not complete at this time, but have a builder giving us an overall cost estimate based on the design so far. We have stopped doing anything with our architect for now. But eventually our architect will be submitting our plans to a structural engineer for final plans. I really want to have as many exact materials picked out ahead of time before we build this house.

So who should I hire at this point? Or should I just pay my architect more for design work. Somehow I feel that he will still be leaning on me for design direction and I would rather have someone to bounce ideas off for specific materials. He is building our home exactly the way we want it, which is good because he truly listens to what we want and the design reflects that. But he is almost too open ended. Now I want more direction in picking materials to go with the style of home we have chosen. I want someone to narrow down my choices on the details to go with those I have already chosen. So I am stressing a bit right now over all the choices.

Is this making sense.. and where do I go next?

Oh, gosh, Zoe, I wish I knew what to tell you. I unfortunately am in the same boat as you, as I am in the very early stages of planning and design. My thought is that if you want to consult with someone, I would think an interior designer would be perfect. S/he would give you some help/direction on designing the details in your house, I would think. However, I am a novice too and if anyone else has a better idea, please weigh in. Good luck with your build!

One of the confusions about kitchens is the use of the term, "kitchen design" to refer to all aspects of the design of a kitchen.

As an architect, I consider my part of the "kitchen design" to consist of where the kitchen is located in the house, what windows serve it, how it relates to the other spaces, the location of the work surfaces & appliances, where people might sit, where food and equipment are stored, and the task lighting.

What many owners and cabinet suppliers mean by "kitchen design" is the appearance of the cabinets & counters, the sinks and faucets, drawers vs doors, range vs cook top and other special cabinet features.

Generally I have little interest in the second design category since it is such a matter of taste and am happy to have a cabinet & counter supplier make suggestions to a home owner. Of course, I offer my opinion when asked.

Regarding the first design category, I find kitchen cabinet suppliers to be unusually inept at this kind of design and do everything I can to get that part of it completed before they get involved. Of course, there are exceptions but even talented designers find it difficult to pick up the thread of the house design so late in the design process.

zoe

Your dilema is not uncommon - there are a gazzilion choices to make. It's all about budget and time.

If you had unlimited time and budget, you could have the architect draw evey detail onto the plans - taking inpputs from your interior decorator and other design staff. This is probably how the Vanderbuilts did things. Unfortuately - most of us don't have Vandy money.

We tried to limit the amount of detail that the architect did to only those elements where it was absolutley critical that the design be done on paper first. There are obvious darwings like floor, foundation, roof etc. Then there are deatiled drawing like our pegola/decks, fireplaces and hearths, archways, front door - things like that. Things that had top be darwn and specified so the framers could do their jobs - that is the added deatiled we had the architect draw.

For trimmings like moldings, the architect just annotated what rooms got crown, chair rail, special box molding, etc.. But we did not have him draw that detail - we waited until the drywall was up and winged that a bit. In some cases - the trim carpenter would bring us samples and we would hold them up to see how they looked and where we wanted them placed.

When it came to interior decorating - the DW used GW to get many of her ideas. Paint colors, trim molding style, columns, lighting etc. You should be working those details in parallel with the build. If you try to have the architect put all of that onto the plans - then you will be in an endless loop and never start the project.

I think it is OK - and quite typical - to make some of these decisions down the road when you can see the structure and walls with natural light.

Here's what I did and it worked very well for us.

After the architect drew up our floorplan, I was not satisfied with the kitchen (it was tiny and closed off from living spaces). I communicated my thoughts to the architect and asked that he rework the laundry, dining, kitchen area of the plan for me. Still not satisfied with that area after three rounds of revisions, I took the entire floorplan to a kitchen designer. She drew up several ideas for the laundry, dining, kitchen space that were a bit more specific than a mere floorplan. I worked with the KD to come up with the perfect plan for us for that part of the space. Then, I took the KD's work back to the architect who incorporated this redesigned space into his drawings and finalized the plans for the builder to use. I am very pleased with how this space turned out. It's very different than the original plan that the architect drew up. The $500 I spent with the KD to do the redesign absolutely is the best $500 I spent in the entire build.

Now, the KD I used is not one of those KDs that works for a specific cabinet line and is focused only on what cabinets you pick for a particular layout. This was a KD independent of any cabinet manufacturer and was very talented in making me think about how I wanted to use the space and then designing it for our use.

I used an onsite custom cabinetmaker for all of our cabinets and our trim. None of our cabinetry or trim detail was ever reduced to CAD or other detailed drawings before he began building. That made me very nervous. I simply made him a book of pictures I had cut out of magazines (or printed off of this site) and he mimicked those pictures beautifully.

Good luck in your design and in your build! It's a long process, but worth it in the end. Our build was fraught with drama, but I've forgotten most of the negative stuff by now, and I've only been in the house four months!

Soonermagic...thanks for the GREAT explanation of your experience. I was having trouble understanding the inter-relationship of the professions, but what you did makes sense. Thanks!!! And by the way, I have seen pics of your home and it is ridiculously beautiful. I love the flooring. Anyway, I hope you are enjoying it!

HappyMommy...

Please, please, please, have your design checked by the folks on the Kitchens Forum before you finalize any structural kitchen plans/kitchen designs/cabinet order/etc. I do not want to start anything and do not intend to speak disparaging of architects in general, but we (Kitchen Forum) have seen some very poorly designed kitchens from architects...including appliance placement.

As with KDs, not all architects are the same...there are some excellent, some OK, and some "not so good".

Ditto for a kitchen designer because yes, there have been some very poorly designed kitchens from KDs as well.

I've seen you on the Kitchens forum lately, so I think you probably realize this already, but I wanted to speak up just in case!

Y'all making too much of a deal out of kitchen design.

Tour a few model homes, look at your current kitchen, check out demo kitchens, read a few magazines, read the kitchen forum, make up your own mind and enjoy saving $$$ by doing it yourself. It is _your_ kitchen after all. Why let someone (who charges a lot of money) else design it ?!

An interior designer can be of use before the architectural drawings are complete, too. Most can 'see' the rooms with a different eye than the architect's. A designer could assist with selecting mouldings and trim as well as placement of your furnishings -- making sure there's room for what you want.

Most designers, be it architects, KDs or interior designers, are predisposed to focus on EITHER the aesthetics OR the pragmatic aspects of the design. A kitchen, of course, has to satisfy both of these, especially with today's entertaining often focused around this room. If your bent is either aesthetic or pragmatic, I'd suggest ensuring that your designer is the opposite, so you have both basis covered. This is often hard to do because you'll tend to align better with someone who talks a lot about aesthetics when that's what your hot button is. But you're better served hiring your alter-ego.

BTW, we threw out our architect's design and hired a kitchen designer. My wife swears that was the best money spent on this house!

Bob

Montalvo, you offer excellent advice. As one of the pragmatic persuasion I knew exactly how I wanted my kitchen to work but was clueless on the aesthetics. Our architect was a big picture guy and not a cook either. By the greatest good fortune our KD (who we picked after getting three estimates and talking about design ideas with each designer) has turned out also to be the best investment we've made in terms of turning a well functioning kitchen into a beautiful one.

Thank you all for the great advice!!!