As you can imagine, a kitchen remodel can be a major project as knowing where to begin is one of the toughest part. So before you start planning the initial stages of a complete kitchen renovation, it’s essential to know exactly what you want to accomplish, and how much of a budget you have to work with. Remodeling a kitchen is a costly investment that can pay off when reselling – if done well. Personally, I never look at anything for the resell value down the road. I just have a hard time doing something fantastic and then thinking, “when I decide to sell this will really pay off …. ” That doesn’t work for me. Do the remodel because you want to and don’t think about what happens after that.
To begin with ask yourself what kind of kitchen you want and then ask yourself how you live your life. How you live determines a great deal of what you need. For example: If you never cook then why do you need a 48″ Wolf Range? Wouldn’t something else work just as well? If you entertain a great deal and host all the family holidays then the kitchen needs to reflect a large gathering with many cooks in the kitchen.
Everyone knows that the kitchen is the nucleus of the home. Even if you rarely cook the kitchen is where the coffee pot is and the refrigerator along with the microwave. It’s where the sink and water is so it only makes sense that just about every basic human need is in the kitchen. So I have put together some of the more interesting thoughts and looks for the 2019 kitchen trends for you to get some ideas from.
Countertops
My favorite counter top is quartz. I know I’m going to hear all about granite but quartz is a trend that is clean, and indestructible. Granite is fine but it’s a dated look for me. Even when the kitchen is brand new it looks like a kitchen of 20 years ago. Every home built in the 1990’s and early 2000’s had granite countertops. Quartz will rarely be dated.
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White Kitchens
This is a big trend now and I love white kitchens but only in small quantities. I love a softer mix of white and another color to break up the antiseptic feel of white. How about white cabinets against the wall and grey cabinets in the island. Too much white and I become disinterested. I like to mix things up when bringing in white as my sensory skills kick in and I begin to take notice of the combinations of color and hue. I love things that have a story to tell and an all white kitchen doesn’t really have a good story. Plus, keeping an all white kitchen clean, especially if it’s a large kitchen, is going to require a maid service.
Set the mood with lighting
For me lighting is everything. It’s always been everything and when it comes to kitchen design, setting the mood with lighting makes all the difference in the world. Many 
people forget to think about lighting while in the design phase of your remodel but that where a good designer will ask you all kinds of questions around how you live. In our home, lighting sets the mood and with a great design in our kitchen it puts us in a great mood when we come home or are entertaining friends and family.
Lighting should be designed to provide services and do the work it was intended for. Lighting should create shadows and reflect on prominent items you want to enhance. Rock walls and table tops along with light reflecting off stainless steel or other colored appliances. Lighting should be brought in with multiple color temperature lightbulbs of yellow, white, and blue for different areas of the room as well as different sized lights. To accomplish your dreams don’t forget about lighting.
Cool appliances & hoods
Our home is all about cooking and entertaining so our range is a Wolf. My sister lives in a condo downtown and does not entertain large crowds so her home is set up for small intimate gatherings of maybe two other couples. The center piece of her kitchen is the range and the range hood and they look fantastic. A Wolf range and an Italian hood immediately draw your eye right up to the ceiling. You can’t stop looking at it. It’s beautiful! She has all kinds of cool gadgets and countertop appliances that are hard at work for her small galley kitchen but it looks amazing.
Be mindful of the little things and take notes.
Its the little things that have a great deal of impact with your kitchen design. This comes back to designing your kitchen for how you live. What are your pressure points and what about a wish list. We had cabinet hardware that was flat and thin that if your fingers were wet you couldn’t grip the knob to open the cabinet door. Your fingers would slide right off the flat surface. It drove me and my wife crazy. The goose neck faucet in our island sink doesn’t come far enough over the sink and water always splashes on the countertop and soaks everything. It’s drives us crazy. When designing our kitchen we moved the island out an extra 12 inches giving us plenty of space for two people to walk and work in the kitchen without bumping into each other. This also came in handy when we opened the oven door. You could easily walk around it. When we tore apart our old kitchen we made notes about what drove us crazy that we would not duplicate in the new design.
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Be mindful of the minimal
Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. These are words to live by when designing your new kitchen. I’m not a clean freak but I’m the next thing to it. I just like things clean and less cluttered. I like things that are a little more open by design and spacious in feel. I like clean lines and smooth fronts. The new trend in flat faced cabinets is a things of beauty. You just push on the door and the spring tension hinged pops the door open. I love that! And you will to. When keeping things clean looking your appliances have kept up the pace in that regard. The induction cook top range is something else. No need for a giant center piece Wolf range when you have the induction cook top and a wall oven. Wow!
Mix & Match
Be bold with the unexpected. I love mixing things up with cabinets and flooring and then going a little crazy with an interesting backsplash. When you do this you create your 
own little design style. You’r not boxed into Mid century modern or colonial or contemporary looks in design. It’s all about you.
So when you’re ready to design your new kitchen I hope you consider some of the items I’ve mentioned and then reach out to one of our certified kitchen designers for a consultation. Bring in your ideas and notes and you’ll be way ahead of the process.
