Designing a Kitchen

Heart of the Home

The kitchen is a place where family and friends gather over celebratory meals. It is the room where meals are planned and prepared with love. Whether you are a friend or family, when you come to visit us, this is where we end up chatting over dessert and coffee. I am longing for those precious visits again after months of cooking in a 6×8 kitchen! I have a long list of favorites to cook and bake as soon as this kitchen is complete!

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Design Options

I love designing the kitchen. After taking precise measurements, I enter the dimensions on the design site and begin choosing the cabinet style and sizes. On the planning tool, you can choose different countertops, wall colors and flooring to get a better idea of how the cabinets will look in your space. There are even options for adding windows and doors!

After deciding on the cabinet layout, we tape it off with painters tape on the unfinished floor. This gives us a better visual of the actual spacing for the island. We will measure the space many times before finalizing our order. There is no room for error on the cabinet order.

I have designed many, many kitchens over the years for family, friends and for myself. We’ve used custom built solid wood cabinets, boxed cabinets and Ikea cabinets. By far, my favorite has been Ikea cabinets. Call me crazy, but they are so incredibly functional! I have personally put together 3 kitchens of Ikea cabinets. They all come with soft-close doors/drawers. I love using all drawer bases! In my last Ikea kitchen, I had all my heavy pots and pans in the large drawers and never had any issue with the drawer sagging. They come with a lifetime warranty too! After 4 years of use, I had zero complaints or issues with the Ikea cabinets.

Pictures of the last kitchen I designed for our personal home:

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I am considering Ikea cabinets, another RTA (ready to assemble) brand, and custom cabinets.

Design #1

This design anchors each side of the windows with the largest appliances in the kitchen. The sink and dishwasher are in the island and a separate work station is on the pantry wall. Not shown is the pantry door beside the refrigerator. I like this because it seems balanced. I really wanted the sink under the windows, so I kept designing. Note that the dishwasher looks taller than the other cabinets. This is an error in the design site.

Design #2

The kitchen island is a perfect workspace and would allow 3-4 people to sit at bar stools on the living room side. All the lower cabinets are drawers. This would be a very functional kitchen. I am not sure if I like the refrigerator location.

Design #3

The gas range is located in the island for this design. The downside to this design is using a downdraft instead of a traditional venting system. A downdraft doesn’t perform as well and they cost 3-4 times a regular vent system. I do like the way it looks.

Design #4

My favorite design thus far! All along, I envisioned open shelving on each side of the window. I believe we can frame the refrigerator in with shiplap on the exposed side. If we use shiplap on the wall with the windows, the integration should look really nice. The shelves represented in the drawing are not the type I want, rather they were the only ones available on the design site. I would love to find a large section of an old tin roof or large chippy trim to hang above the windows. This promises to be my favorite room in the house thus far!

I would love to hear some feedback on which design is your favorite and why! Leave a comment below!

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