Finding Your Inspiration

After sealing the deal on our new digs, we had about 6 weeks to our move-in date, which is plenty of time to completely renovate a kitchen…if you want to develop an eye tick, sink into a depression, and allow small animals to nest in your hair. Okay, the animals didn’t actually nest in my hair. It was more like a sleepover. I was incredibly fortunate to have an amazing contractor that I was introduced to by a designer I worked with on another project. Pablo was certain that he could get the kitchen to a livable point by our move-in day. That meant that all I had to do was to come up with a reasonable plan for the new kitchen. Easy! I could just go to Pinterest, find a kitchen I liked, and say to him “Can you please make it look like this? And can you please put that wall thingy beside the cabinet doohickie?” The end.

In all seriousness, Pinterest is an amazing resource. Yes, it can give us incredibly unrealistic standards for just about anything, but when you feel overwhelmed with all of the possible options, it’s a great place to begin to figure out the identity and feel you want your space to have. I find that when I know the general direction I’m heading, it makes the decision making process much easier. A few pictures of rooms you love give you an anchor point when you feel like you’ve lost your way in a sea of possibilities. Your room is not going to be a carbon copy of that pin from your favorite blogger or pinner…and that’s a good thing. Your space, budget, and personality are not their’s, and that’s what makes the design process so much fun. Pick a few things that made you fall in love with that room, and incorporate those elements.  I decided I would let my Spanish roof lead the way. Although my house would never be a true Spanish villa, I knew I could incorporate nods to la casa buried somewhere under that vertical siding.

This kitchen by Jessica Helgerson inspired and yes, haunted me throughout the design process. It had a Spanish feel without the overly ornate elements that can keep a Spanish space from feeling young and fresh. The black, white, and brass color scheme with the splashes of wood for warmth made my heart skip a beat. While I knew I wanted to go in a more modern direction, there were so many things about this kitchen that kept drawing me back in (maybe it’s that incredible loaf of carbohydrates sitting on that gorgeous table, turned island.) I had my jumping off point. Now there were only 563,721 more decisions to go.