About 7% of Americans live in a mobile home. Living in a mobile home is an affordable way of life for tens of millions of Americans.
Americans live in mobile homes with the same kind of pride as those in studio apartments or full-sized houses.
However, whether you own a mobile home or a full-sized house, you will want to rehab, upgrade, or update your mobile home kitchen cabinets sooner or later.
If there is one part of the home that homeowners rebuild or upgrade often, it's the kitchen.
The National Association of Home Builders' 2017 research study analyzed which rooms homeowners remodeled most often relative to others.
The NAHB's survey found that 81% of homeowners remodeled their bathrooms more often than other rooms. Over 78% of homeowners remodeled their kitchen more often than other rooms.
The bathroom is a utility room that is often used and requires frequent repair and upgrade, but a bathroom cannot be compared to the kitchen. Food is culture, heritage, familiarity, and comfort – qualities prepared, experienced, and shared only in the kitchen.
The point is that whether you own a full-sized home or a mobile home, the kitchen is usually one of the most prized rooms of homeowner pride. As a homeowner, you will be more likely than not to remodel your kitchen and its cabinets before other rooms.
Mobile Home Cabinets and Planning
So, are you in the market to upgrade and update your mobile home kitchen cabinets? Well, there is a right way and a wrong way to do it.
For one thing, you should consider your overall budget. Mobile home and its available kitchen space have much less square footage than a traditional home. So, you don't have to cheap out on the material and supplies when updating your mobile home kitchen cabinets, but you shouldn't overpay either.
Shop around and check out different kinds of kitchen remodeling supplies. There are various ways to source materials other than just buying them out of a catalog.
Visually assess your mobile home kitchen cabinets and imagine how your new upgrade will look before you start remodeling. Visually imagining your budget will help you come up with preliminary designs, which will help you develop a more strict budget.
And hire a contractor or interior consultant if necessary. Plan out how a mobile home kitchen upgrade project will unfold.
Even though there is less available space available in a mobile home than in a traditional home, such a project can be disruptive because there is less space to work with initially.
Are you looking for more data on mobile and prefabricated homes? Check out Home Nation today.
Related: What Is The Difference Between a Mobile Home, Manufactured Home, Trailer, and RV?
Mobile Home Statistics
About 7% of Americans, or over 22 million people, live in mobile homes.
The average mobile home only has about 960 square feet in its interior. And over 56% of Americans who live in a mobile home have resided there for over a decade.
The typical mobile homeowner pays $560 monthly and about 40% less in housing costs than the average homeowner. So, mobile homeowners spend about $292,000 less to own a home than a traditional American homeowner.
And the average mobile homeowner makes about $34,000 annually.
The point of mentioning these statistics is that mobile homeowners are financially shrewd by nature because they have to be relative to their circ*mstances.
So, carry over that financially responsible mindset when it comes to updating mobile home kitchen cabinets.
Make a Budget
Since as a mobile homeowner, you are probably working with 960 square feet of space. Calculate the square footage equivalent of your mobile home kitchen. If you know how much space you have to work with, you can create a more accurate budget.
And if you have an accurate budget, you can then think about the supplies you will need.
RTA Cabinets, Supplies, and Salvage
You could buy cabinets from a catalog or website intended for a traditional home to install in your mobile home. But that can be an expensive and time-exhaustive process that could result in a jarring and visually disjointed interior aesthetic.
You can buy ready-to-assemble, prefabricated kitchen cabinets to install in your mobile home kitchen. RTA cabinets are easy to find online, come in many varieties, are affordable, and offer you many aesthetic options for a mobile home kitchen upgrade.
If you are good at networking, you can also salvage parts from soon-to-be-vacated mobile homes.
70% of the building materials used to build mobile homes ultimately end as scrap anyway.
Try networking with mobile home manufacturers and other mobile homeowners to source all of the kitchen remodeling supplies you need.
Shop and compare when it comes to painting, varnish, and other remodeling supplies. There is no need to rush when it comes to a kitchen remodeling project, so compare color schemes and plan it out.
Hire an Interior Design Consultant and Contractor
You need to plan out your kitchen cabinet upgrade project as much as possible. Such a project will be very disruptive to family life in such a small space, even if it lasts for a short while.
If hiring an interior design expert is out of the question, you should take the time to plan out how the progress will progress.
And if you don't have remodeling experience, you should hire a contractor to enact the remodeling project. After all, it will just cost you more money to redo the project if you are unhappy with the results.
Additional Updates
There is no reason to update your mobile home kitchen cabinets without updating other parts of your mobile. Otherwise, the aesthetic disconnect between your upgraded kitchen and the rest of your mobile home will be obscenely glaring.
Use the same networking and salvaging mindset relative to mobile home salvage mentioned earlier. You can get new windows, doorknobs, flooring varnish, lighting, and so on close to your budget.
Plan Out Your Mobile Home Kitchen Cabinet Upgrade Thoroughly
Make a budget and plan your kitchen cabinet upgrade as much as possible. As a mobile homeowner, you know how to make a dollar stretch, so use that mindset when planning your kitchen update.
Need guidance for your mobile home kitchen cabinet upgrade? Contact Home Nation today.
Related: How To Increase the Value of Your Mobile Home
