Kitchens are a place of sustenance and sociability. Food, family, and friends mingle to create a winning combination. So it makes perfect sense that remodels are so often geared toward the kitchen. What about thinking of your kitchen in the long-term sense, in terms of investment and return? Will your kitchen remodel projects be a positive contribution to your home’s value or will they erode that value?

To maximize the financial return on your kitchen remodels, keep the basics in mind and avoid trends. Trends are fun, but buyers are more informed than ever and place greater importance on solid elements like counters, cabinets, and good lighting.

Paint Your Kitchen
Color is the spice of kitchen life. Picking the perfect color not only makes for a lively, pleasant space, but it’s one idea that can return great value. Keep it timeless and traditional with an all-white kitchen color scheme. Or take the opposite tack and go chic with a black kitchen. Feng shui-inspired kitchen colors keep things cool, relaxed, and neutral. No holds barred here; the color of your kitchen is dictated only by your imagination.

Upgrade Your Cabinets
One word you never want to hear about your kitchen cabinets: dated. So, to attract maximum value in your kitchen remodel, put cabinets at the top of your list.

Add A Eye Catching Back-Splash
A kitchen backsplash is the ideal element to add or upgrade in terms of investment since the visual impact is high. Shimmering glass or metal tiles are sure to attract attention.

Install A Gorgeous Counter Top
Among kitchen countertops, laminate, concrete, stainless steel, solid surface, and a number of others vie for “best countertop” status. But one countertop material always leads the pack: quartz countertops. A hybrid of minerals and resins, quartz is a nearly perfect material for countertops. It looks like natural stone but is harder than natural stone. It is as impermeable as solid surface countertops but it won’t scratch like solid surface. This chameleon of surfaces can take on different personalities, too, adopting everything from a traditional stone-like appearance to the trendy and industrial look of concrete. Quartz countertops are expensive, so make sure your home’s anticipated sale price can support this upgrade.

Hang Some Great Pendant Lights
Kitchen lighting, often ignored, deserves the spotlight. Not only does a well-designed lighting package illuminate your beautiful kitchen, but the lighting itself can also become an object of attention. Unlike that other kitchen standby, recessed lighting, pendant lighting announces itself front and center.

With kitchen pendants, the best advice is to go big and bold. Be sure to scale the size of the pendants to your kitchen, and avoid overwhelming the space.