Day 5 of 5: Designer Dialogue
PRB Interior Designs is turning 5 — yay! I am continuing to share 5 things about my personal home and sharing what “real life” looks like for me day-in and day-out. Nothing is cleaned up or staged; this is truly how I live 24/7.
The last and final feature, number 5! The kitchen, the heart of the home. I briefly mentioned some features of my kitchen in another post but I am going to get down and dirty with some considerations here because it is the most renovated area of a home. A lot of these things will also apply to bathrooms, since they are the second most renovated area of a house.
My kitchen, while not anywhere close to my ideal kitchen, has a lot of nice features. For example, I love my granite countertops; I love being able to pull things right out of the oven or off the stone and put them right on the black stone without worrying about damage. Although it’s small I like that everything has a nice work triangle — meaning that the configuration of my space is ergonomically and efficiently laid out that is conductive to the task at hand, which in this case is cooking. All of our appliances were brand new so that was definitely a cost saving feature of purchasing a flip/ renovated home. When I open a cabinet door there is ample space and nothing is banging together. From there, that’s about all the positives that I can think of for my kitchen.
From the first day I toured my home back in 2017, I knew that not only was it not my style but there would be problems with it. Let me break down just a few so that you can understand how to prevent them for yourself in the future.
Flooring
· Let’s start at the bottom, the floor. As mentioned in another post my floor is an off-white tile with a linen-like texture. That is terrible for many reasons. The main one for me is the color, it only looks clean the moments after it’s been wiped down.
· This is where the texture comes into play, holding all the dirt in. Within days it will have some kind of dirty mess or fuzz ball clumped up and I’m back to sweeping or swiffering. It’s not the end of the world, but if I had my pick I would go with a slightly darker floor so I could space out my daily wipe downs.
· The saving grace here is that the tiles are larger so the grout lines are fewer. Grout lines are also something to consider when selecting flooring. Typically people like them to blend in with the tile, not contrast and stand out — although that’s becoming more and more popular in bathroom showers). If you select a darker flooring you will typically select a darker grout as well, it emphasizes the need to clean less.
Cabinetry
· The second issue is the cabinetry themselves. I know white cabinets are in right now, I’m personally not a fan, but that’s not what this bullet is about. Let’s talk construction. We have a standard, stock, builder grade, Thermofoil cabinet. They are low cost and because of that contractors who quickly flip houses love to use them.
· However, that low cost comes with a low quality. I will have to address this in another post because there is so much to cover about cabinets, but point I’m trying to make is to consider quality based on how long you plan to stay in your home.
· If you are doing a quick turnaround for resale than sure go with a lesser quality because the people moving in might not like them anyway. If you are planning on staying there for a while, maybe this is your retirement home, then I highly recommend investing in the quality and craftsmanship of higher grade cabinets.
Backsplash
· My third issue is with the backsplash. Again, black and white is pretty boring to me, but that’s now why I’m making this point — as you can see I’ve added pops of red to contrast the blah. The backsplash tile was put in poorly, without care and it shows. They didn’t properly apply the grout so, at the base around the entire perimeter of the kitchen, the bottom line is cracking and chipping a little more each day. Also not the end of the world because I can’t wait for a reason to replace it!
Refrigerator
· While you can’t see it in the photo, our kitchen does have a refrigerator and a poorly located one at that. There is a small addition to our home, just big enough that you could fit a refrigerator in but no one stopped to ask if they should. We have a side-by-side refrigerator (which I hate immensely anyway) so whenever you try to completely open the door you can’t; you are met by the walls on either side of our refrigerator to stop you. Fun stuff when you’re trying to shove a cake or pizza box in…
· That brings me to the point of appliances. There are soo many options for appliances these days and people get so caught up in having the stainless steels matching (just because it’s stainless doesn’t mean they’re the same with each manufacturer FYI) that they don’t think of functionality. Do you like side-by-side storage? Do you look at the capacity (cubic feet) before you purchase? Have you planned for operation of each appliance: when you open the dishwasher will it bang into the oven door? When put a drawer near a corner is it too close with hardware that it can’t open completely?
Trash/ Location
· The kicker to the entire kitchen, for me, is that no one took into consideration where the trash will go! So frustrating! To me, personally, that is something that needs to be worked out before you even order cabinets, definitely not an afterthought or no thought at all.
· We have both trash and recycling in our household so we needed ample room to allow for 2 bins. Those bins because we had no other place to put them are lodged on either side of our refrigerator. So you need something from the refrigerator you always have to look (and sometimes smell) the trash and recycling. Definitely not ideal.
So why am I sharing my house or any of this information with you? Because, I want you to understand that bad, thoughtless design does exist. There are always quick, easy, inexpensive ways to do things — and if that’s your purgative then go right ahead. However, if you have a sizable project with a probably matching sizable budget then take the time to do your own research, ask questions, and reach out for help. One of my biggest pet peeves is when I ask someone a question and their answer is “well, I’ve been doing it this way for 20+ years.” That isn’t an answer, that’s an excuse. Good contractors will know why and explain why things need to happen a certain way. They will also be open to working through design dilemmas with you and providing innovative solutions to meet the end result. There are good contractors out there, they do exist, you just have to know the right questions to ask.
I could talk about design all day, every day and because of that I am working on some free resources for you to use during your next design project. Be sure to follow us on social, get on our mailing list to be the first to know about future freebies and visit our website for more interior design inspiration.
Wow, what an experience it has been to say how imperfect my home is! I am definitely feeling “exposed” and it’s just the push I needed. That’s it for this series, our birthday is over but stay tuned because we are just getting started!
