Host: Joining us in the studio this morning is Mike of Edge Construction. Mike, how are you doing this week? Mike: Great, Sean. It’s good to see you. Host: Always great to spend time with you and catch up on all the cool things going on in the world of construction. We’re going to talk kitchen remodeling this week, but before we get to that specific conversation, we were just talking about comfort and how, after years of working hard, raising kids, and putting them through college, a lot of people reach a point where they want to enjoy their home a little more. We’ve done shows on additions and whole-home remodels, but for some people, the trigger is simply, “We want this.” It’s not always because something is falling apart. Sometimes it’s because they’ve reached a point where they can finally do what they’ve always wanted. Mike: Yeah, I think if you’re at a point where you can swing it, that’s part of life. If people only bought the things they absolutely needed, our economy would look very different. It’s like buying a car. The car you buy when you’re twenty is a lot different from the car you buy when you’re older, more established, and maybe have kids. Do you really need heated seats? Maybe not. But once you have them, it’s hard to go back. Host: For me, the big one is the heated steering wheel. I can’t even imagine grabbing a freezing-cold steering wheel anymore. Mike: Exactly. And that applies to remodeling too. A lot of homeowners are in that place where they’re saying, “This is my dream. I love to bake,” or, “This is how I’ve always wanted my kitchen to work.” Host: And I’m guessing you hear a lot of that at Edge Construction. Mike: We do. A few homeowners have said lately that they saw our work through friends, family, acquaintances, or online. Houzz is a great place to let your fingers do the walking. Sometimes people look around and realize their home really could be that nice. I’ll pick on builders a little bit here. New construction often moves fast, and I understand why. There’s a system, and a lot of houses need to be built every year. But that system usually isn’t spending four or six months in design. It’s more like, “Pick a plan, pick a kitchen, make a few modifications, choose the finishes, and go.” Remodeling is different. The homework and design process set the tone, and if you let that process do its job, the end product can’t help but be better. A lot of people have been through a fast decision-making process before and later thought, “I wish I had done that differently.” That’s why Houzz, Pinterest, and other resources are so valuable. We looked at a house a couple of weeks ago that really needs a remodel. It’s a beautiful home, mostly updated from the early nineties, but the kitchen was left behind. The house is a nice size, but the kitchen still looks like every kitchen from that era—small, closed off, with a U-shape and a breakfast bar that really doesn’t fit the house anymore. Host: I remember breakfast bars when I was a kid. They seemed like such a cool thing at the time. Mike: They were, but form and function didn’t always come together there. They were kind of the stepping stone between older closed-in kitchens and the open kitchens people want now with islands. And from a carpenter’s point of view, we hated building breakfast bars. They were awkward. You had counters on one side, seating on the other, a taller wall in between, and if things weren’t lined up perfectly, you’d end up with weird gaps and messy finishes. Islands are just a much better solution. Host: Homeowners clearly love islands too, not just for looks but for how they function. Mike: Absolutely. They give you valuable workspace and prep space. When we’re designing now, we’re always thinking about how to create useful stretches of countertop. In a lot of homes, especially older or smaller ones, we still have to make compromises, but if we can get an island in there, almost nobody says no. It gives people a place to work without facing a wall, and it opens the kitchen up to the rest of the house. If you’re the cook, you can face out toward your family instead of staring at drywall. Host: And it helps eliminate those awkward corner cabinets too. Mike: It does. Corner cabinets have always been a pain. When lazy Susans first came out, we thought that was the height of technology. Then there were blind corner cabinets where things just disappeared into the void and nobody knew what was back there. There are better accessories now, but if we can go from a peninsula to an island, we can usually eliminate one of those problem corners, and that’s almost always a win. Host: One of the things I love about the kitchens you do at Edge Construction is that the islands don’t all look the same. Each one really feels designed for that specific home. Mike: That’s true, and it’s a place where the designers and homeowners can really let their ideas shine. Sometimes we make the island feel more like a piece of furniture than a run of cabinets. We’ll use decorative panels, corbels, posts, bench seating, shelving, spice storage, or cabinets accessible from the back side. We’ve even built bench seating into islands when a house didn’t have enough dining space. Those are the fun touches that make a kitchen feel unique. Host: And islands can do more than just hold seating. You can put sinks there, beverage stations, all kinds of things. Mike: Yes. In most houses, if we’re getting an island in, one of the major elements ends up there—a sink, a cooktop, something like that. The easiest of those is usually the sink. A cooktop introduces venting issues, and that gets more complicated. There are workarounds, of course. We can hide ventilation in the ceiling, run it through the floor system, mount the fan remotely, or use other strategies depending on the setup. But if we’re ranking the easiest island feature to add, it’s usually the sink. Host: We were talking earlier about downdraft vents, and I saw one on a show recently where the host was completely fascinated by it. He was lighting matches and watching the flame get pulled toward the vent. Mike: Downdrafts can be pretty impressive. JennAir was one of the first companies I remember doing that well, and now most manufacturers offer some version of it. Usually, if we’re doing a downdraft, we try to separate the noisy fan mechanism from the actual venting so the system works better and the kitchen stays quieter. It can be a really smart solution in the right house. Host: One of the things I’ve noticed in newer kitchen remodels is that sinks are still common under a window, but the windows themselves are getting bigger, and sometimes people are even removing upper cabinets to make that wall feel lighter and more open. Mike: That has changed a lot. If you look at older kitchens, even up through the nineties and early 2000s, the goal was usually to pack in as many cabinets as possible. You’d run them right up to the window. Now people are much more willing to give up a little storage for a better feel. We’re putting in bigger windows on a lot of projects, and people are open to taking down some uppers and replacing them with open shelving or just more light and openness. It changes the entire room. Host: It really does make the kitchen feel bigger. Mike: It does. You go from a cave-like feeling to a space that’s much more welcoming. That doesn’t mean we strip out all the storage. It still has to function as a kitchen. But there should be a balance between storage and atmosphere because people spend so much time there, and now that kitchens are more open to the rest of the house, they need to feel like part of the house, not just a utility room. I’ve said for years that every time we remodel a kitchen, we’re helping that space join the rest of the house. Host: Has CAD helped homeowners get more comfortable with those kinds of changes? It seems like removing cabinets or changing layouts used to feel like a huge leap, but being able to actually see it must make a difference. Mike: It makes a huge difference. I started out building from blueprints, and even for me now, looking back at some of those old drawings, I wonder how anybody made sense of them. For homeowners, it must have been almost impossible. CAD changed that. One of the biggest benefits is the renderings. They let homeowners see where the design is going in a very realistic way. I like to compare the final renderings to the finished project, and it’s amazing how close they are. You really can get a very good sense of what the kitchen is going to look like before work even begins. There’s still a feeling aspect you don’t fully get until you stand in the finished space, but the renderings take you a long way. Host: And you can also do walk-throughs now, right? Mike: We can. We don’t do a full VR experience very often because it’s still pretty cumbersome and expensive, but we can create walk-throughs where you move through the room on screen and see the design from different angles. There are some very advanced tools out there now, even warehouse-scale systems where you can walk around a projected version of your future home with goggles on, but that’s a major investment. Still, the technology is moving fast, and we’re getting closer to using more of it. Host: It’s amazing how far things have come. Mike: It really is. Another great thing about CAD is that designers get this top-down view of the whole room. Once they know the elements going into the space, they can move things around in a way that’s hard for anyone else to visualize. That’s incredibly valuable. Host: One thing we were talking about too is that a lot of kitchen projects happen because they’re just overdue. These aren’t casual decisions. Most people put kitchens off for a long time. Mike: Absolutely. Most people are not doing this on a whim. It’s a hassle. You’re without your kitchen for a couple of months, and it’s a significant investment. So people think carefully about it. Kitchens, baths, and master baths especially tend to get pushed off. When the economy gets shaky or interest rates jump, those projects get delayed even more. Then when things settle down a bit, people say, “Okay, it’s time. We really need to do this.” By then, the kitchen is usually pretty worn out. People paint cabinets, make small updates, and buy themselves a few more years, but eventually you run out of ways to keep patching it. Host: You mentioned earlier that one of the things you really pride yourself on is respecting the style of the house, especially older homes. So if someone has an old Victorian and wants a modern kitchen that still feels true to the house, they don’t have to compromise, do they? Mike: Not anymore. This is actually a great time in construction because there are so many options. If you could go to the International Builders’ Show with me and see the innovation happening in things like range hoods, lighting, cabinetry, and all the little supporting elements, it’s pretty incredible. There are products for just about every style. Sometimes homeowners bring us something they found online, and we’ll say, “That’s interesting, but let’s find a version from a manufacturer we trust, with support in this country and a clear line of responsibility if something goes wrong.” That’s the sweet spot—finding a product that looks right and works well, but also comes from a source we can stand behind. And if the exact look doesn’t exist, we can often build something custom to make the modern elements visually disappear into the style of the home. Host: And cabinetry is a big part of that too. You can get modern features—soft-close drawers, smart storage, custom interiors—while still matching the look of the house. Mike: Exactly. Our main cabinet supplier now offers a huge amount of customization, which is especially helpful in older homes where nothing is quite standard. They can modify cabinet dimensions in very small increments without the kinds of extra charges that used to make that impractical. That’s a huge help in design. Old houses don’t fit the mold, so we need those workarounds. It lets us get the look we want and still make the kitchen function beautifully. Host: And that matters even more in those old houses where the cabinets you’re taking out may not have been standard size in the first place. Mike: Right. We’ve taken out eighteen-inch-deep cabinets in some older homes downtown. Nobody wants that anymore, but we also have to be thoughtful about how we redesign the room. Maybe we narrow cabinet depth slightly in one area so we can fit an island. Maybe we shift proportions to make the room work better. Those details matter. Host: Before we wrap up, we should talk about lighting because that is such a huge part of a kitchen, and maybe something people take for granted until they don’t have enough of it. Mike: Lighting is a big deal. The challenge now is not relying too heavily on one thing. Years ago, kitchens often had one central fixture, maybe a couple of surface-mounted lights, and that was that. Now we layer lighting. Under-cabinet lights, recessed LED fixtures, decorative pendants over the island, accent lighting, background lighting—we use all of it together. Decorative fixtures still matter, but they’re doing less of the heavy lifting than they used to. The basic lighting package we build into kitchens now is so much better that most homeowners don’t even have to think too hard about it. LED technology has made a huge difference. It’s better quality, longer lasting, and much more flexible in terms of brightness and tone. Host: And that ties back into CAD too, because you can actually show how the light will affect the room. Mike: Exactly. We can place the lighting in the design, set the time of day, the season, and even adjust how the lights are dimmed or how daylight is coming through a larger window. That makes it much easier for homeowners to understand the space before it’s built. Host: It really is amazing. If folks want to learn more about Edge Construction or see some of those projects, head over to EdgeConstructionCompany.com. That’s EdgeConstructionCompany.com, or call 608-636-3343.