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Free Yourself From Your #1 Kitchen Remodeling Blocker!
The New Kitchen E-book by Diane Plesset will help you overcome your #1 kitchen remodeling blocker. You feel alone, separated by circumstances, believing that there isn’t enough money to remodel your kitchen. But you are not alone! No one can wave a magic wand to have thousands of dollars appear magically in your bank account. The good news is that there are things — many things! — that you can do now to help you prepare for a better future. There is hope!
THE NEW KITCHEN E-BOOK WILL HELP YOU
Hope is something to look forward to, no matter what life is like now. Thinking about and planning for a better future that includes achieving your dreams is the best thing you can do proactively to make today and tomorrow better. Hope will become your reality as you read my New Kitchen E-book, “THE Survival Guide: Kitchen Remodeling.” It contains the How-to’s that will lead you to believe that you can have the kitchen of your dreams. Yes, you can achieve your dreams.


About The Book
Many of the illustrations from my award-winning book appear throughout this New E-book. Some of them will make you say, “Gee, that’s how I/we feel!” Many of the illustrations will give you a chuckle or make you laugh. There are real-life case studies that talk about others’ problems and how we solved them together. You’ll see hundreds of hints, how-to’s, and tips to help you get started on the right path to your kitchen remodeling goal. Finally, I’ve included quotes to break up and spice up the text, so your reading will be enjoyable. Below is one illustration that always makes readers laugh, especially if they’ve had a bad experience with liens. The blood pressure machine has the following labels:
- Normal
- High
- Very High
- Off the Map
- Look Out Fool!

WHAT’S INSIDE
THE Survival Guide: Kitchen Remodeling is 88 pages, broken into 10 sections:
- Kitchen Remodeling Surveys to help you pre-select and prioritize what features you want
- Investment and Budget information, including 3 sample spreadsheets for good-better-best projects
- Designing Your Kitchen includes a breakdown of the design process so you know what’s involved
- Design Professionals: Classifications and Fee Structures, to assure that you have options
- Detailed Plans and Hints has a sample kitchen plan with elevations and specifications; there are also two virtual-reality perspectives so you can see what the proposed kitchen looks like
- How to Find a Qualified Designer; this is where many homeowners make a mistake
- Hiring and Working With a Designer, to make the process easier for everyone
- Kitchen Remodeling Construction, to help you to communicate about your project
- Finding and Working With a Contractor; this is the biggest problem for homeowners
- Kitchen Remodeling Legal Information; how to avoid serious problems that occur

BOOK EXCERPT
The “Might As Well” Factor
“We didn’t actually overspend our budget. The allocation simply fell short of our expenditure.” (Keith Davis)
It’s human nature to want more than we can really afford. The American culture and economy is driven by advertising and trends. It’s very easy to justify an investment in luxury items, “We’re only going to do this once, so we might as well get . . .” It’s okay to splurge on one or two top- priority items, if there’ s a willingness to make tradeoffs. But if the “might-as-well” argument is applied to everything we think we want, and don’ t keep track of the investments logically, our target budget is meaningless. How many times have you heard, “Remodeling (building) always takes twice as long and costs twice as much.” You CAN be in charge of your investment! Designers have a responsibility to be the voice of reason — not to tell you what you can or can’t afford, but to offer questions like, “How much value is this (……) really going to add to your home?”
CASE STUDY (shared by a contractor): Homeowners had decided not to hire a designer to freshen up their kitchen with new countertops, backsplashes, and flooring. They were on the fast track for many mistakes (+$$$). Friends and family members could give advice, but it wasn’t the same as reasonable advice from an experienced professional who knew suppliers and showrooms.They fell in love with imported glass tile for their backsplash. After their project was finished, they discovered the same tile at a local “to the trade only” supplier that would have saved them time and money. Like most of us, they didn’t know what they didn’t know.
You have completed the Surveys, and have read the “Good-Better-Best” philosophy and spreadsheets. Now it’s time to gather product information and pricing for your project. By this time, you have ideas about changing your kitchen. What do you want and why? How do you want your kitchen to look, feel., and function? But if you’re still concerned about your investment and are concerned about what a contractor will tell you, there’s a quick way to calculate a guesstimate. Please read on . . . SQUARE FOOTAGE CALCULATION METHOD This estimating method is the quickest, but it’s not as reliable as the breakdown method on the next page. First, you must know the square footage of your existing kitchen. If your mortgage documents include an appraisal, the square footage should be shown there. If you don’t have the information, you can prepare your own square footage calculations. Just follow these simple steps:
- Sketch your kitchen plan (it doesn’t have to be to scale);
- Take overall interior dimensions of all walls, starting at a point and working around the perimeter, writing each dimension as you go;
- If your kitchen isn’t rectangular, break up the areas into rectangles or squares, as large as possible;
- Multiply the width times depth of each area to get the square footage of that area;
Add the sums of all areas to get the total square footage. Second, decide whether your remodeling project fits into the “good,” “better,” or “best” category (explained previously). Each category has a range of investment which varies 10% – 25% or more. Multiply the total square footage of your project by the investment per square foot from the examples to obtain a reasonable budget. Don’t forget to add at least 15% contingency for the “might as well’s” mentioned earlier. If your kitchen remodeling is a mix of good-better-best products and scope, add the totals for all of the category square footage investments and divide by three.
CASE STUDY: Homeowners prepared a preliminary spreadsheet in July to help choose products and select a contractor. Before they finalized the 20-year home improvement loan the following January, they prepared a revised spreadsheet. Products had increased a total of $15,000, which was easy to include in the loan. They weren’t in a financial position to personally pay the additional $15,000 from their bank account, but they could spread that amount over the period of their loan. The additional payment would be $62.50 per month.
“When you change one thing in your life, you will discover it is hitched to everything else in the world.” (Dr. Nelson Clements)
Sections
Pages
Testimonials
About the Author

Wishing you success in everything you do,
CMKBD, C.A.P.S., NCIDQ
Other Books
Diane Plesset won the NABE “Pinnacle Award” for best how-to book. “THE Survival Guide: Home Remodeling” was compiled from notes she provided to homeowners who attended her seminars and classes. Nearly 100% of the attendees suggested that she write a book to help more homeowners. After extensive research that took almost five years, she added information about products, remodeling investments, and created an extensive glossary (over 800 terms!). The new E-books contain portions of the original book, plus updated technical and investment information to help homeowners.
NEW BOOK COMING SOON!
THE Survival Guide: Kitchen Remodeling
Product Guide – Glossary
You’ve just purchased the new E-book about how to prepare for a kitchen remodeling. Soon you can complete the set with the upcoming E-book containing a 45-page Illustrated Product Guide and a 33-page Glossary (over 800 construction terms defined!). Pre-order it today!
