Kitchen Inspiration

We moved last weekend, and now, we’re in the middle of renovation hell, which is why I’ve been so quiet. Living in a 12-hour a day construction zone is difficult on even the most accomplished of work-from-home types!

We’ve had some significant setbacks on our project, which I’ll detail a few days from now. But for today, I’m choosing to focus on the positive – the design inspiration for our new kitchen.

The kitchen is our favorite space. As some of you know, my husband is a former chef, and one of us is always puttering in the kitchen – whether it’s him whipping up something fabulous in 20 minutes with no recipe whatsoever, or me slaving away and trying to follow every.single.step. of a recipe to try and pull dinner together in under 2 hours.

We love food – everything about it – and all of the kitchens that we’ve had an opportunity to design ourselves have reflected that love.

Our current renovation was the first where we’ve really been able to start from scratch on everything and not have constraints of pre-existing elements. Cabinets, appliances, floors, backsplashes and more all got demolished about three weeks ago.

My husband and I are rarely on the same page with anything, but with kitchens, we share the same brain. So we knew what we wanted from the get-go: a beautiful, modern, highly functional kitchen with clean lines.

Function is one of the most important elements for us. We have a LOT of kitchen equipment, and the space we are working with has some size limitations. Our eating area is snugged up right next to the kitchen – which has a great, open feel, but required careful planning for us to ensure that we maximized the kitchen space for storage.

Here are some of the images that are our inspiration as we march toward our final product.

Based on our inspiration photos, the design elements we finally decided on were:

* White perimeter cabinets with very little detail, for a modern look

* A black cabinetry island (same door style) with feet for a furniture look

* Stainless steel appliances

* Hardwood floors

The backsplash is still to be determined. The counters ended up being changed at the last minute. My original vision was to have a black perimeter countertop in either honed granite or soapstone to contrast with the white cabinets, and a light marble countertop on the island to contrast with the black cabinetry.

But truth be told, we fell in love with a quartzite slab at the granite yard that we decided, in the interest of cost, to use on the entire kitchen. You’ll see the results of that when it gets installed. Which could be never, at the rate we are progressing.

I’ll be back again soon with another post on our renovations, including our debates over flooring choices and the master bathroom we never planned to makeover, but did anyway.