THE RULES OF THE GAME

You can put anything you want into your kitchen, at whatever size you say.
Each thing you put in costs you money.

Try to make a combination of things which makes the best kitchen. The game will not allow you to go over the cost you set as your maximum: $10,000, $30,000, $5,000 -- whatever you say. You keep adjusting quantities, until you have the best kitchen you can figure out

Show yourself what is the most beautiful and practical kitchen you can make for what you can afford!!!

How large is your kitchen or the kitchen you want to build?
Type here the area you contemplate in  square feet
How much do you want to spend?
Type here the amount of money you want to spend  in  $ dollars     
Now start.   When you press the game begins

VERY NEW WAYS OF THINKING ABOUT MONEY

Wabi to Sabi. The rough with the smooth. What the Japanese call "rusty beauty."
The essence of true beauty, and adherence to life, is that the very beautiful and very careful comes hand in hand with the very rough and almost careless.

  • Think of a marble floor combined with roughly painted wooded shelving
  • Think of luxurious big windows and a gleaming polished walnut counter top, combined with old appliances and cheap utility shelves
  • Think of a very roughly painted concrete floor but a beautiful table surrounded by beautiful glass enclosed shelves, and bare light bulbs.
These things sound strange to our ears because we are used to developer-images of middle class homogeneity and "what the neighbors might think."

But the essence of life has always been a sober awareness that we cannot have everything, and that a worthwhile life will be lived if some of the things around us are precious, while others are very ordinary, even cheap. It is then that we shall be practically able to afford what we want. And it is then that we shall be made alive by our awareness of the common and ordinary, mingled with the supremely beautiful.

START WITH INTUITION
Decide how you want to spend your money according to your comfort and true desires

One of the craziest things about kitchen remodeling is that there are a few ferocious ASSUMPTIONS people make: "I must have expensive new appliances, lots of counters and cabinets... "
But these are not the things that make you COMFORTABLE, for God's sake! These are simply things that salesmen and magazines make money by PUSHING AND SELLING. Is that YOUR COMFORT????

There are far better ways to spend your money: Windows with beautiful daylight and sunshine. A comfortable table which you and your family and friends can sit around; a fireplace; a small garden; good practical lights; thick walls which make the kitchen truly feel like home;

Start by getting clear what means a lot to you, and what does not.

ASK YOURSELF ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS
WHICH THINGS IN THE KITCHEN WILL MAKE THE BIGGEST DIFFERENCE IN HOW ENJOYABLE YOUR LIFE IS?

NOW YOU HAVE SET A BASIS IN INTUITION
In rough terms you have decided how you want to spend your money according to your comfort and true desires

OK. Now you have an intuitive idea about roughly where in the kitchen you want to put your money, to make it the most beautiful and practical kitchen you can make for what you can afford!!!

You are ready to go on to start thinking about the detailed distribution of your money to match the feelings you have expressed

 

NOW FOR THE BASIC QUANTITIES
To lay a basis for cost you need to say VERY ROUGHLY how much of each thing you expect or want in your new kitchen. You can always change these numbers later, but for now rough numbers will give a basis for starting to calculate

Consider the items one by one, and make a guess about the amount of that item you may want to have in your kitchen. Pay attention to the units, as each item comes up, and make a rough guess about the size, or amount of the item, expressed in those units!

Write your guess about each item in the Amount box, then press NEXT to go on to the next item. Please do all fifteen items before pressing the NOW LET THE COMPUTER button below.

Item Units Amount

Now go on to work out a more detailed detailed distribution of money in your new kitchen, based on more careful analysis of sizes and QUALITY of each item

 

NOW FOR THE BALANCING ACT!
CURRENT STATUS TARGET BUDGET
CURRENT TOTAL
YOU ARE ON BUDGET
YOU ARE OVERBUDGET
Based on your sizes, your budget, and the relative emotional importance you have given to different items, the computer has tried to balance things out to meet your budget. It has achieved this by using higher quality items for the items you care about most, and lower quality for the items you care about less. In some cases items you care about enormously have been given a luxury kind of quality. In other cases items you care about very little have been given an almost rudimentary quality.

Obviously the result is mechanical, and not as good as you can do yourself. Also, no effort has yet been made to change quantities, another powerful way of changing the distribution of money within your budget and achieving balance.

THIS IS NOW ALL UP TO YOU
Now adjust quantities and levels of quality, until the grand total meets your target total cost, and also try to match the actual percentage of cost spent on each item, to the intuitive guides you have set in column 2  
ITEM HOW PERCENTAGES OF TOTAL MONEY ARE TO BE SPENT
YOUR
INTUITIVE
GUIDE 		CURRENT CALCULATION

QUANTITY
QUALITY
UNIT
PRICE		CURRENT
TOTALS
Kitchen floor Importance % SF $/SF $
New Windows Importance % SF $/SF $
Kitchen table Importance % SF $/SF $
Counter top Importance % LF $/LF $
New walls Importance % LF $/LF $
Small Garden Importance % SF $/SF $
Fireplace Importance % # $/# $
Thick walls Importance % LF $/LF $
Appliances Importance % # $/# $
Cabinets low Importance % LF $/LF $
Cabinets high Importance % LF $/LF $
Lighting Importance % # $/# $
Wall surfaces Importance % SF $/SF $
New chairs Importance % # $/# $
Garden stuff Importance % LF $/LF $
TOTALS Percent Percent GRAND TOTAL $
THE BUDGET LIMIT YOU HAVE CHOSEN $
 

COMPARISONS

Percentages based on your chosen levels of importance.

Check back to look at today's standard ways of allocating percentages. They are not very enlighted.

Have a look at new ways of allocating percentages we have developed in the kitchens we build. They are closer to what people need to live ordinary, real-life, working lives.

Remember -- the point is to make a kitchen which you love being in, where you can be yourself -- not to impress someone with what the contractor or the magazines told you to do!!!!

NOT VERY ENLIGHTENED
Widespread common practice today. Disstribution of money in a typical kitchen remodel
Notice that many items have NO money spent on them and that most of the money is concentrated in cabinets ad appliances
kitchen table %windows %small garden %thick walls %fireplace %
new walls %wall surfaces %counter top %appliances %kitchen floor %
low cabinets %high cabinets %lighting %new chairs %garden stuff %
...
A MORE ENLIGHTENED APPROACH
Relatively more money is spent on things that truly matter to your comfort.
These are approximately the proportions we typically use in kitchens we build for our clients. People feel comfortable and happy in these kinds of kitchens. They can live in them.
kitchen table %windows %small garden %thick walls %fireplace %
new walls %wall surfaces %counter top %appliances %kitchen floor %
low cabinets %high cabinets %lighting %new chairs %garden stuff %
...
THESE ARE ROUGH PERCENTAGES BASED ON YOUR CHOICES SO FAR
THEY APPROXIMATELY REFLECT YOUR CHOICES ABOUT HOW IMPORTANT DIFFERENT ELEMENTS ARE TO YOU
Later you can refine your ideas about how YOU want to spend the money. These percentages show possible proportions of total remodel cost that are based on the 1 to 10 scores you gave these items on the last screen. You might use them for your own kitchen. Please adjust them until they reflect your EMOTION, your FEELING, about what is important and what will make you happy.
kitchen table %windows %small garden %thick walls %fireplace %
new walls %wall surfaces %counter top %appliances %kitchen floor %
low cabinets %high cabinets %lighting %new chairs %garden stuff %
sum of percentages %

You can always adjust these numbers later

STEP 1. PUT NUMBERS TO INDICATE THE EMOTIONAL IMPORTANCE OF DIFFERENT ELEMENTS
To get started, put one of ten numbers (from 1 to 10) opposite each of the fifteen items to indicate how important they are to you EMOTIONALLY on a scale of 1 to 10.
  • 10 for those things which are VERY important
  • 7 for things that are somewhat important
  • 4 for items which are vaguely important
  • 1 for items not in the least important
  • 0 for items YOU DO NOT WANT AT ALL
kitchen table ptswindows ptssmall garden ptsthick walls ptsfireplace pts
new walls ptswall surfaces ptscounter top ptsappliances ptskitchen floor pts
low cabinets ptshigh cabinets ptslighting ptsnew chairs ptsgarden stuff pts
Now the computer will generate approximate percentages from these numbers, put them on the next (purple) screen, as a guess at the percent of your total budget you may be willing to spend on each type of items in the overall kitchen project.