Kitchen Remodeling 3: Opportunities

Now break out your wish list. You’ve covered basic functions and needed replacements or repairs. Now you can focus on improving your experience of your space. Here is where you “Dream Big” and unlock your kitchen’s potential.

Opportunities to optimize – What if you could use every bit of your space, floor-to-ceiling? What if you didn’t have to get on hands and knees to reach the back of a cabinet?

Opportunities to save – Make a list of things you wouldn’t change about your kitchen (like maybe you love your refrigerator, or your cabinets are still robust). This gives you an accounting of the concrete resources you have. Keeping or re-using elements of your existing kitchen, (as you do with kitchen refacing) can save you a significant amount of money. We’ll be considering that later, when we tackle methods.

Opportunities for beauty – This is where you really develop your idea of how your kitchen will look. Since you’ve already done the brainstorming about function and space, it’s finally time for the visual brainstorming. Visual Brainstorming is when you collect a bunch of pictures that appeal to you, or ‘inspiration’, and use them to make a plan. You can collect your pictures on paper, on your computer, or even with your phone camera. Choosing inspiration first lets you open your mind to ALL of the things you like. You might surprise yourself with what you like after seeing the possibilities.

Then you take a sharp eye and compare the designs to find what they have in common. If there is an element of your kitchen that is on your priority list to change already, look at those first. Compare lighting, cabinet style, cabinet color, countertops, layout,and appliances. Are most of them lit with track lights, or does the majority have under-cabinet lighting? Take notes on these features.

Don’t know where to start? Check out our Style Guide category for different kitchen styles and looks. The Kitchen Saver boards on Pinterest group kitchen images by style, by color and more, so it can be a great place to start as well.

Pinterest is a great tool for visual inspiration, allowing you to collect pictures of what you like and look over them later. Check out how this blogger used ‘visual brainstorming’ and learn how to identify what you need to include to get the look you love.

 

Moving on: The next step is Resources!

I’ve seen enough to know I want to get started on my own kitchen!