Kitchen Renovation for Your Rental Property

Renovating for a rental property is a specific type of challenge. Every renter comes to the home with their own preferences, needs, and wants. And this is especially true in a high-use area like the kitchen. Let’s discuss some helpful kitchen renovation tips for your rental property.

Renovate for Durability & Ease of Use

The kitchen’s style isn’t nearly as important as the functional aspects when it comes to rental renovation. The top things people are looking for when they’re looking at a rental unit kitchen design are its durability and ease of use.

For your sake and theirs, it’s important to choose materials, accessories, and appliances that can withstand both heavy use and tenant mishandling.

More often than not, extra details and design flourishes aren’t appreciated by future tenants. They will want to make the space their own, so specific décor or style-based renovations will mostly be a waste of your time and money.

Your goal should be to provide your tenants with a kitchen foundation that has everything they need.

This also includes investing money in high-quality materials for the rental property. Cheap stick-on tiles will only peel and create more patchwork and headaches for you or your maintenance personnel.

Here’s a list of the most recommended materials for rental kitchens:

Countertops: laminate at minimum, but use something more durable like stone, granite, or quartz if you can afford to
Under-sink cabinets: don’t use particle board or other cheap, porous options – stick with plywood at a minimum
Door and drawer fronts: melamine

Color & Lighting

Neutral, light colors are the best choice for cabinets and walls in a rental property kitchen.

It’s important to create enough depth and layers of light in the space as well. Take a look at your high-work areas in the kitchen design. Do you need to adjust light fixture placement to reduce shadows in unwanted dark areas?

Lighting a kitchen from the center only will create annoying shadows when your tenants are facing away from the center of the room to use the countertops for food prep or to find pans and other items in your cabinets.

Focus on Storage

Storage, in any home, is essential. And offering adequate storage in your rental property kitchen is a great way to appeal to even the most difficult-to-please potential renter.

Removing soffits and creating larger cabinets is always a great way to increase the value of a kitchen, and the rental property as a whole.

Upgrade Appliances

Appliances can make or break a kitchen experience. From a functional standpoint, installing high-quality appliances can help keep energy costs low and reduce the need for maintenance.

It’s even better when you can build these appliances into the kitchen and cabinet design. This means nothing will get damaged if your tenants are trying to clean around and behind the appliances.

Restricting access to important technical and electrical components helps keep your appliances functioning property and decreases the chances that a tenant or their children will be harmed by faulty or exposed elements.

Upgrade Hardware

Plastic drawer and door handles, outdated faucets and drains – all of these are sore points for a potential tenant.

If you fix the lighting in the kitchen, but don’t spend any time or money on the little things, you will just be shining a light on the details you overlooked in your last renovation.

Like with the appliances and other materials, solid quality is always better. Renters are never as careful with a space as owners will be.

Decreasing the chances that your tenants can break or damage elements of the rental property is crucial in keeping a nice-looking unit and keeping your maintenance costs to a minimum.

Design the Perfect Kitchen with Anve

Not looking forward to figuring out the best materials, layout, and other design elements for your rental renovation? Anve Kitchen and Bath can help you bring your new kitchen to life, from custom design to cabinet production and installation.

Our professionals are here to walk you through every step of the process to create a durable, appealing kitchen for your rental property. We will work with your budget, as well as your goals. Are you renovating to update an older property? Redesigning the property to capture more tenants looking for a luxury space? We can help.