Before and After: 4 Things I Wish I Knew Before My Kitchen Renovation

It was then that we started thinking about a home renovation. Create the house we wanted in the house we had. It’s what brought us to that day pouring over plans that most definitely did not feel like the solution. A week or so later, I was lamenting where we were in the process to one of my best friends, Courtney, who just happens to be an interior designer, and this is where our grand plan was hatched. Now, while Courtney is a fantastic interior designer who excels at creating spaces that are both chic and welcoming at the same time (not an easy feat), the only kitchen she’s “designed” was the one in a past house of hers. 

But she said something to me that made complete sense: that I didn’t have to start with the function. I could start with the form. The aesthetic I was craving. Heck, we could design a kitchen around a single light. We could debunk all the “rules” and create a space that worked for us. 

The entire renovation and decorating of our new living space took about seven months. And while I’m a firm believer that things can’t give you the life you want, I will say that as a family, we are exponentially happier in our home. The space works for us.

I hope everyone is in the home they want, but if you are like me and have to create the house you want inside the walls of the house you have, then read on for the rules we tossed out and the myths we debunked. 

The dream photo that Courtney and I kept pulling up in our design chats was a California beauty with three walls of windows. At first glance, our contractor said it was a non-starter. That it would leave us with a paltry amount of cabinets. But I kept coming back to this one inspiration photo. So, Courtney and I took the time to actually plot how many cabinets we could fit into my space if we lost all of the uppers and focused on windows, instead. Turned out, we would still have more cabinets even if we only put in lower cabinets. It was maybe the single biggest moment for the entire renovation. The kitchen now has 24-feet of window. In short, sometimes you have to take the time during a renovation to do the work and to crunch some numbers. 

Courtney was 50 percent designer and 50 percent therapist during my renovation. We constantly discussed what sort of homeowner I was…or wanted to be. Did I shop often (meaning I kept less food at home) or did I frequent big box stores (like Costco where I would need lots of storage)? Who was I feeding – just my family of four or my kids friends after-school and their cousins on the weekends? I think it’s very common for a kitchen designer or contractor to assume you live like they do, when, in fact, your needs are different.

You might be shocked to see that “home renovation” alongside “financial stress” listed in studies as a common cause for divorce. But I get it. It’s so much money. There are people in your house daily. It’s SO MUCH MONEY. One thing I’m so glad my husband and I did was to define our roles in the renovation. Since I was going to lead the day-to-day conversations about the renovation, I was clear with my husband that he had one job to do—support my decisions. I would chat with him before we moved onto a new phase of the work, to walk him through what we were planning on doing (knowing that it was never exactly to plan) and got his input and buy-in but I was very clear that at the end of the day, I didn’t want to hear his edits or his “have you guys considered…” We did. We considered it all and then we decided and we’re onto the next step. But what I did do, was relent on the one thing that he wanted that I thought was extraneous. He wanted a deck. The deck pushed us over the budget until we made cuts elsewhere. The deck showed my husband that he was part of the action. Alex is now so happy and it secretly is one of my new favorite spaces in the house. 

Wall-to-wall carpet. A light-colored floor. Lights hung below their normal level. Three things that my contractor swore I’d regret. I love them all. The sconces in my kitchen look like earrings. The lights on my deck remind me of my favorite hotel patio – they’re low and vibe-y. The wall-to-wall carpet in my living room feels like you’re walking on a cloud, is durable, and makes the living room (which was oddly long) feel much more cohesive.