Post 3: Hours Spent Pinteresting, Planning, Shopping

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Setting the mood

When I made the decision to fully renovate my kitchen I started combing through Pinterest and assembling a mood board. I actually made two different ones: a recurring theme throughout my renovation. Mood boards are a collection of ideas that help you organize and plan for the design of a space. My boards included images of my ideal flooring, cabinets, backsplash, lighting, hardware, sink and faucet, all assembled into one document. Originally, I thought I wanted an all-white kitchen with a blue island for a little pop of colour, but when I was putting my mood board together, another idea began to take shape.

Brass is back with a vengeance

When I was assembling my mood board, I was undecided on the metals I wanted to use for my fixtures. I had stainless steel appliances but knew I did not want nickel fixtures. I loved the look of brass but was on the fence about their longevity. I had a matte black faucet and handles, but would it match the rest of my plans? I researched all about mixing metals and decided if the lights and fixtures matched, I was ok with more than one metal in my space. When I began shopping, I had one board with all black fixtures, which I saw as a safer route, and one with brass/gold fixtures. I read some articles that said brass won’t be going anywhere anytime soon, so I jumped on the bandwagon and decided on a brass/gold palette for my new kitchen.

Rookie Tip: Create a mood board with all the looks you like to help pull your design plan together. They help you to stay focused by narrowing your options to colours and styles that best fit the aesthetic you are looking for. Before assembling my mood board, I combed Pinterest and started ‘pinning’ the images that I liked. I created my mood boards by pulling my favourite images into Microsoft Word. You could also just create a digital board in Pinterest, but I liked being able to move the images around to see how they could look in my small space. I immediately saw some trends appearing (some of which surprised me) but having my mood board set me up for the shopping element in my project and gave me a clear focus to reach my goals.

Sticking the layout

My kitchen isn’t a huge space, and I had a pretty fixed budget, so changing the footprint wasn’t really in the cards. The kitchen work triangle, a concept used to determine efficient kitchen layouts, was working ok for me. I didn’t move my stove or dishwasher from their original locations, but I did move the fridge over a bit to get some extra storage and allow the fridge door to open wide enough to empty the ice maker (one of my pain points). I also decreased the size of my island a little to gain some extra space to fully open my dishwasher. My other must haves included: lots of drawers, a wine fridge, pantry storage on the back wall, remove the bulkhead on the stove wall and raise cabinet height, declutter my counters, replace the original tile floor, add pendants, move pot lights, and update all finishes to look more modern.

I had the original design plan for the company I decided not to go with, so I had a good idea of some elements I wanted. I worked with Debby to produce the design plan for my new kitchen. I started with plans for all-white cabinets with a navy island. When I saw the first renderings something was missing, so I went back to Pinterest and looked at some photos of blue and white kitchens. I found some examples of two-tone cabinets which I fell in love with, so decided to change my cabinet colours to white uppers and blue lowers with a blue island. Debby and I went back and forth on the pantry, and I toyed with having all navy, navy lowers or an all white pantry. The original designs were exciting to see, but once I saw the 3D colour renderings it was much easier to visualize how amazing my kitchen would look. My renovation was scheduled to begin in early January, and I couldn’t wait for it to start!

Here is the first set of designs and the final renderings.

I’ll take 2 of everything

Once I had decided on the look and layout I wanted for my kitchen, I started online shopping and trying to find samples for the various elements on my mood board. I made my own budget, itemized out the items that I wanted to purchase myself vs Debby sourcing, and added the links once I had purchased or decided to purchase the item. I was lucky that I didn’t have a lot of order delays, but deliveries from Wayfair and Amazon took a little longer than usual due to pandemic supply issues.

Even though I started shopping in the fall, I still didn’t have all my purchases made by the time my renovation started in January. This made me a bit nervous, especially once the demo work started. As a Project Manager I am organized when I need to be, so I put my PM skills into action, systematically tackled my shopping list based on meeting project milestones, engaged my trusted advisors, and often purchased two versions of an item if I wasn’t sure what I wanted. There were a lot of decisions to make, and I really struggled with my hardware and lighting plans. More detail on this when I get to my brass, gold and everything in between post. In the end, all the pieces came together, and I couldn’t be happier with the results.

Rookie Tip: Try to find samples for all your design elements. It is really hard to purchase online without being able to touch the item or see its true colours. A few of the items I purchased from Amazon or Wayfair, I had to return as when they arrived, they did not fit in with my other design elements.

Next post I will cover the preparation that took place in the days leading up to my renovation start date. As the post title says: “prep is the most painful part.”

Thanks for reading,
LA