our dream home: kitchen inspiration
If you’re an avid HGTV-watcher like me, you know that kitchens sell houses. And if you’ve gone through the process of building a custom or semi-custom home, you know that this is probably where most of your design budget went. At least that is the case for us.
After going through hundreds of kitchen inspiration photos on Pinterest and Instagram, I was really struggling with my vision for our kitchen. I knew I wanted the same minimalistic vibe as our kitchen now, but wanted to warm it up a bit. In our townhome, we have light grey cabinets, grey and white countertops, gray floors, and matte black hardware. And while I really love the look, I’m just REALLY over gray and cool tones right now.
I recently binge-watched Season 3 of Rock the Block on HGTV, featuring Egypt Sherrod and her husband, Mike Jackson, as one of the contestant couples. If you’re an HGTV OG, then you would be familiar with Egypt’s shows Property Virgins and Flipping Virgins, which came out about 10 years ago, and her new show, Married to Real Estate, which I think is still streaming now. Now, I’m no interior designer, but I really enjoyed her design and connected with their strategy to give us a little bit of luxury, but a whole lot of functionality. Once I saw her white warm kitchen, I knew that was something I wanted to incorporate.
Before I committed to the idea, I definitely had to understand that her idea of luxury and mine are different. We have totally different budgets! But that doesn’t mean that I couldn’t pull inspiration from her concepts. So I started itemizing and listed the things I really wanted and took notes on my personal style, then used that as the foundation to build off of.
Realistic Kitchen Wishlist
Cabinets: white shaker cabinets
I really really wanted white cabinets in our last home, but was afraid about how I’d keep it clean. Funny enough, my cabinets now are a very light gray (almost white even), and we’ve had zero problems keeping them clean with a young child. So being able to get white or ivory cabinets was a no-brainer. We also wanted to upgrade, if possible, to shaker cabinets instead of traditional. The sleek look really makes a difference visually and gives it a modern flare, which I love.
Countertops: white marble-like quartz with minimal veining/designs
In our last home, we upgraded to quartz countertops instead of granite for durability purposes, and it’s worked wonders for us. You have no idea how many times I’ve accidentally left red wine stains on the countertops and was actually able to clean it up so that it was undetectable afterwards! The only issue that I have with our current countertop is that there are speckles of gray and silver material in the design. I think it’s beautiful when accented with our gray cabinets, but I’m ready for something different. Luckily, I saw a few options for white countertops that were either pure white or had minimal gold and gray veining which I think could work if we can afford it!
Hardware/Faucet: champagne bronze/gold hardware
I absolutely love the look of gold hardware. It’s the perfect mix of traditional and modern to me. I tried to do it in our townhome but it clashed with the gray/silver design in the countertop. I could’ve made it work, but it just seemed too busy for me. However, white cabinets and gold hardware could work beautifully when done right! I think the idea of limiting the mixed metals (silver appliances and gold hardware) could also pop too. I’ve seen it a lot of home design shows, so I’m willing to test it out!
Sink: white apron/farmhouse sink
It’s just something about a farmhouse sink. I have no idea why I love it so much. It just looks so good, and it’s absolutely a splurge… But I want it, so that’s that lol.
Floors: luxury vinyl plank (LVP) in light brown or white oak color
Again, in our very gray townhome, we have gray wood LVP throughout the entire first floor, including the kitchen. Durability-wise, it’s great! But like I mentioned earlier, I’ve over the gray and happy to leave it behind. Lighter brown floors against the white cabinets and gold accents just make sense to me. Hopefully, it makes sense when we put it all together too.
So all in all, I think the look in my mind (see inspo below) says luxury-ish, but functional, especially in the durability of the materials that we’re choosing. And if done right, it may not look like Egypt & Mike’s kitchen, but I think it’ll still look great!
If you’re interested in following my kitchen design process, feel free to check out my Kitchen Inspiration Pinterest board. I update it regularly, and will add more to it once we finalize our design selections!
