The Kitchen – Layout Planning

For our first meeting with the Lowe’s kitchen design team, Andy and I had to bring measurements of our kitchen and our wishlist for the project. We met with our project manager, Janet, and Karen, the team member who would translate our wishlist into their computer program in order to create the layout of our new kitchen.

Andy and I felt that our wishlist was pretty reasonable. Working in a kitchen without many modern amenities has given us a pretty modest list of wants:

• Dishwasher
• Garbage disposal
• In-cabinet garbage can
• Under-cabinet lighting
• Functioning kitchen triangle workspace
• More overhead lighting
• Lots of drawers
• A kitchen island with only prep space – no appliances

As we spoke about what we wanted, Karen created a proper kitchen work triangle based on industry standards. Then, she plugged in different cabinet combinations to accommodate our needs. During this part of the meeting, Janet asked about our budget. Andy and I looked at each other uncomfortably. We were kind of afraid that once they knew our budget, the laughing would begin. It turns out that our budget was reasonable for what we were trying to achieve.

It is worth noting that Andy and I did not necessarily know exactly what we wanted until we started to see things that we definitely did not want. For instance, Karen initially plugged in corner cabinet doors that look like a 90-degree angle but open together as an L-shape to reveal a deep corner cabinet. The intent is to utilize the dead space created by the two corner cabinets, but I knew immediately that I did not want that on the top cabinets. I did not like the way the door looked or how it opened. Another design feature that we determined that we did not want in our kitchen was a microwave/fan combo over the oven. Venting will be problematic in our old house, but we wanted to hold out for a creative solution.

The design process went pretty smoothly. Several times I had to assert that I did not want any appliances in the island. I wanted the space solely for prep. Because our kitchen has four doors, wall space is at a premium. The island would have been a reasonable place for a cooktop or dishwasher, but I stood firm. Karen was a whiz with the computer, and Janet did a good job of helping us continue to assert our wants and needs. Andy and I were assured that we could change our minds at any time, but having a basic layout was the first step.

At this point in the process, I cared almost entirely about function over form. I thought that I wanted some exposed brick in the kitchen and a quartz countertop that looked like marble. The only detail Andy and I were sure of was that we wanted solid wood Shaker style cabinets to coordinate with the original cabinets in our pantry.

BHH is not a Craftsman style house, but the Shaker style was quite common around the turn of the 20th century. The lines are clean and classic. The cabinets we chose are made by KraftMaid.

(image credit)
Once we were done designing our potential kitchen, we walked around Lowe’s with Janet to make some decisions about finishes. By this time, we had been in the meeting for over two hours. Andy was completely done, and I was wearing out too. I found myself agreeing to finishes just to have something to put in the plan. As we walked around Lowe’s, looking at appliances, faucets, lighting, countertop materials, etc…, I finally hit a wall. When we got to flooring, I realized that I did not see anything that would go with the kitchen cabinets that we had chosen. Wood looked too dark. The tile looked too builder-basic. All of our choices, from cabinets to lighting, started to feel wrong. I was falling into “people pleaser” mode and not making decisions based on what I really wanted. I do not like modern tile, but we put grey slate tile in our plan, and we all decided to end the meeting at that time.

Before we left, we received a preliminary estimate. It was near our target budget. So far, so good. We also set up a site visit. Janet would be coming to our house to get exact measurements of the kitchen. She would also be bringing the contractor to our house to determine the scope of the work so we could nail down a more accurate estimate for the project. The basic layout of our new kitchen based on their rendering looked like this (Note: The rendering does not show the gray slate tile floor.):

When we left Lowe’s, Andy and I were both feeling excited about the project, but I was not feeling excitement about our design or the finishes we had chosen. It had everything we needed, but it was not a very exciting plan. Andy sensed that something was wrong. I admitted that I was hung up on the flooring. It just wasn’t right.

Prior to our meeting, I visited a number of tile stores and looked at tile online. I had sensed that wood floors with wood cabinets would make the kitchen look way too dark. In addition, I had a problem with marrying a new wood floor with the original wood floors if we extended the new flooring through the hall and into the butler’s pantry.

I had been drawn to the reproduction vintage tiles from American Restoration. However, elaborate tiling would be out of our price range, and the only acceptable substitute I could come up with was wood flooring. I could not reconcile large modern slate tile with the aesthetic we were trying to achieve. It was not right. It would not work.

With our rendering in hand, I looked around our current kitchen. I saw the mistakes we had made with our layout plan and where the design fell short. It was not Janet or Karen’s fault. They did exactly what we asked of them. It was me. I had compromised when I did not want to, and I had been completely unreasonable about issues that were trivial or actually necessary for a balanced design. This kitchen was not what I wanted, and it did not look good. It did not match the picture I had in my head of how this happy room should look. Now, I had to tell Andy. I was not sure what he would think or how we would proceed from here. Something, or maybe everything about our plan needed to change.