David and I are demolishing our 29-year-old kitchen and redesigning it from scratch! I can’t believe we’ve lived in this home for almost 2 years now!?!! Business has been good this year, so we finally get to do the first big adult project that’s been on our wish list since day one of owning this home - redoing the entire kitchen from scratch!

After mulling over the prospect of ordering everything, contacting contractors (which deserves an entire other blog post since we live in this pandemic-induced labor shortage world now), calling HomeDepot Design Service to no avail, and playing with pieces of cut-out papers ourselves, I bit the bullet last weekend to search for a “3D design” app on my iPad and boy am I glad I did! Been playing with it for north of 24 hours now lol.

In this blog post, I’d like to go over a few before and “after” pictures and share my thoughts on why we make certain design choices for our kitchen. Keep in mind the project is still in its ideation stage and not execution yet, so things might change once during construction. If you are looking for some ideas to freshen up your kitchen, or redo your entire kitchen like we do, hope this blog helps :)

Also, Major Disclaimer: I’m not an interior designer by any stretch of the imagination. But I like to believe that I have pretty good taste and I stalk a ton of people on the design space to learn from them. I’m also pretty opinionated and make quick decisions, which means I’m not doubting myself often and that really helps us land on the “final” mockups fast. It took us 3 attempts to come up with this version.

So without further ado, here they are! V3 of our Kitchen Design, in 3D, plus a few handy tips!

Step 1: Determine the Total Surface of Your Project

Step 2: Pick your Color Palette!

The Butcher Block and the open shelving unit are meant to warm up the “cooler” tone of the cabinets. That couples with neutral floor and wall space, makes a pretty good palette IMO.

Step 3: Decide on a focal point

Since it’s the focal design, we want to make sure it’s unique. The island will be part island (with cabinet space and such), part table. The island portion will have a marble countertop, whereas the “table” portion being butcher block. The idea is we will do food prep in the marble portion (which can withstand heat), whereas the butcher block portion will be mostly used for hanging out and even dining.

Also, right under the cutting board you see in the picture, there’s our trash and recycling! Yay for convenience!

Step 4: Design for your space, not against it

As seen in the picture above, we keep the “hard” stuff essentially where they are already. Instead of a stainless steel 2-sink situation, we opt for a farmhouse sink (more space FTW); and instead of a white non-functioning dishwasher, we will have a slightly bigger stainless steel one. So essentially this is a “cosmetic” change and not a “backend” change.

Step 5: Pay attention to them cabinets!

Everybody will tell you this when you start a kitchen reno project, but I don’t see the harm in hammering the point home one more time: When you design a kitchen, the hardest thing to get right is the cabinets (because they depend on everything else), but they are also the first thing that you have to order because they take the longest to make!

No doubt, I’ve designed and redesigned both the wall and the base cabinets at least like 5 times during the last 7 days. The version you see above is (somewhat) final and I’m quite happy with the diversity of cabinets, not just because of the look but also the functionalities as well:

• For showcase, we have Glass Cabinets and Open Shelves

• For big pots & containers, we have the Base cabinets with Big Drawers

• For Spice, Oil, Cutting Board and other small items, we have narrow but deep cabinets

• Also, all the cabinets go all the way up the ceiling now so there’s even more space!

Step 6: Varying the texture makes all the difference!

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I can’t reiterate enough how important texture, not just color, is to any design space. So we decided to go with Mosaic Hexagonal Tiles for our floor (or David calls it, French, since I often mention how important French architecture is to my growing up as a Vietnamese #colonialism lol), Subway Stagger Tiles for our backsplash, on top of the wood from the butcher block and the shelves, and marble for the countertop. All varying of textures and colors is meant to provide interest to the eyes.

Step 7: Make use of “hidden” corners!

Ah, much better. That “weird” corner to the left of the fridge is now gone, replaced by only a tiny pony wall. Then the hidden corner is now very well used by having a fridge and a tall pantry so I can store things like broom and vacuum cleaner! Win win!

Also - unrelated but peep the space under the island - it’s now a microwave cabinet so the space above our oven could have the hood instead of the ugly microwave. Double yay!

Some last words

Designing this kitchen has been an absolute thrill! I’m sure we will realize that we’ve made a ton of stupid mistakes once construction actually starts, but I’m glad that we come up with something that we are both happy with. Plus, even if the eventual design looks even just remotely like this, I will be a happy bird.

Until next time, be well and stay tuned for more updates to come!