The kitchen is the heart of the home and for the past 38 years Hometech Renovations has been helping clients bring their visions to life. With his extensive expertise, David Cerami has helped many families completely change their living experience and shared his thoughts on some central renovation questions in a recent interview.
When is the right time to start making big improvements to one’s home?
We have some clients who may call us that just moved into their home. Or, maybe they’re on a corporate relocation; they want to make some improvements but they don’t necessarily want to go to the extent of someone else who may make the home their lifelong residence. So we find that depending on where somebody is in their life cycle, working careers or retired, everybody puts different emphasis on what they really want to do with their home.
The Kramers, for instance, are really committed to their home for the rest of their life. The homeowners wanted something really special because cooking is their passion, their hobby. They wanted something that would serve as a chef’s kitchen while also fitting a lot of collectibles that the family had managed to acquire during their travels throughout the world. We integrated their pottery collection into this design to be able to put it more front and center in a room that gets used more than any other room in the home.
So, we not only brought the art that they both enjoyed into this environment, but we also made this a true chef’s kitchen featuring Blue Star appliances, which are probably one of the highest-performing pieces of cooking equipment available.
How do you help guide clients through the design/construction process?
Many times, homeowners don’t know what they want until they know what they want. I become that vehicle to help take them through the process of what those potential possibilities are.
The main thing is for clients to determine their wants and needs they feel are acceptable to them and then I become that conduit to say, “Hey, here’s kind of what you can get. Here’s how much value you could get based on my design expertise.”
You need a plan and with the plan you need materials and you need someone to [lead the project]. So, I’m the sort of orchestra leader that mandates what I believe to be important and coordinates the design and the build to actually come up with a process and a product that that customers really love in the end.
What are the advantages of working with a professional design/build company?
The advantage of working with any professional is that you’re going to get that added insight. And that added insight has value just like the added insight of a skilled surgeon or an accountant.
Could you call a contractor again to create a new kitchen? Yeah, but you become the designer at that point. You’re going make whatever selections you know about but you can account for what you don’t know. And I think the advantage is that many experienced, accredited design-build professionals are going to have that basis of knowledge to be able to show you a few other ideas that may really benefit you in the long run.
