A personal journey: Designing the right kitchen for you
When you embark on the exciting and at times overwhelming and complicated journey of designing your dream kitchen, your first instinct is probably to head to Pinterest, Instagram or interior design sites and look at pictures of pretty kitchens in search of inspiration. That’s a perfectly reasonable approach since you have to start somewhere and the internet provides you with countless resources, ideas and solutions that can serve as guidance.
However, try not to rely too much on the projects and designs you see online or let yourself be influenced by other people’s undertakings because they might have little in common with what you truly need, and you may end up making choices you’ll later come to regret. The thing with dream kitchens is they’re different for everyone, so there’s no blueprint that can be applied in all situations to guarantee ideal results. What you find useful might be useless for someone else, as we all have our own versions of what the perfect kitchen looks like, depending on our individual lifestyles, needs, and priorities.
Since designing your dream kitchen implies a personal journey, you should focus on creating a space that caters to your unique requirements instead of copying what you’ve seen elsewhere and trying to apply ready-made solutions to your situation. Difficult as it may seem, you can achieve your goal if you follow a few simple guidelines that we’re going to discuss further.
Pinpoint your wants and needs
Design choices are truly endless, but you only have one kitchen so you have to make a choice and decide which direction you’re going to follow.
- Creating a mood board should be the first step in this respect. Putting together a collage of images, materials, colour schemes, samples, and other design elements that you’ve come across in your online (and offline) explorations that have appealed to you, will help you shape a design concept and define the style you prefer for your kitchen.
- Once you’ve figured out where your heart truly lies, you need to move on to more practical aspects because mood boards only serve to contour the overall look and feel you hope to achieve, but they don’t cover the minutiae. So, the next step is to think about the things you want to include in your kitchen, be it classic shaker style kitchen cabinets, appliances, double sinks, pantries, islands, and so on. You need to create a space that not only looks good but also responds to your everyday needs. This means you have to take into account your lifestyle and how you’ll be using the kitchen to ensure the items and features you plan to incorporate make sense for you.
- Having done the necessary introspection, you can proceed to list the essentials in the order of their importance. By writing down the things that matter to you the most and setting priorities, you’ll not just narrow down your options, but you’ll also be less tempted to spend your money on random items that you might think you want but are of no use to you.
Set a budget
Deciding on your kitchen design might seem like the hardest part of the process, but you might change your mind when you start crunching the numbers and establishing a budget for your project. It’s important to know exactly what you want to achieve, but it’s just as vital to have the financial means to carry through on your plan.
Therefore, you need to take a good look at your bank account and analyse your finances before you establish how much money you can afford to spend on bringing your dream kitchen to life. For this, you’ll have to take into consideration all the different costs that the job incurs, from kitchen door replacement or entire units and fittings to installation, plumbing, electrical work, and other services you might require.
Do a bit of shopping around and research prices and offers for all these expenses to secure the most advantageous deals and make sure you also account for unexpected costs as they always have a way to sneak up and throw plans off course, no matter how thorough and organised you are.
Decide on a layout
You might think that between deciding on the design style and budget, you have it all figured out, but there are several other key aspects for you to consider, the layout being one of them. From the way you’re going to move around the kitchen to how easy it’s going to be for you to access and use your cabinets, fixtures, and utensils, the layout will influence your entire kitchen experience, so it’s not something you can brush off.
Designers and contractors can help you figure out which option would work best for you and adapt it to your specific circumstances. However, if you want to take matters into your own hands, it’s going to take some measuring, sketching, some more measuring, and maybe an interior design app that allows you to experiment with different layouts and plans.
Focus on storage and surfaces
With the layout box also checked, you can turn your attention towards two other crucial elements of your kitchen design, namely storage and surfaces. Depending on how much space you have at your disposal and what elements you plan to integrate into your kitchen, you have to find the right solutions to store and properly organise items and appliances. For that, you’ll have to choose your cabinets wisely and make use of clever storage solutions. As for surfaces, whether it’s countertops or floors, make sure you consider the durability, maintenance, aspect, and cost-effectiveness of different materials before you decide.
The final stop is the details like lighting, backsplashes, and decorations. These have a big impact on the overall design and ambience, so take your time to explore your options. What you need to take from all this is that the perfect kitchen is a very subjective concept and the process, as well as the final result, looks different for everyone. Hopefully, these tips can help you find your way and make the journey a bit smoother.
