Kitchen design paralysis

4 years ago

TLDR; second guessing choices because I spotted my old kitchen on Houzz and it's totally HGTV-ified.

I am using the design services of the cabinet/floor/counter shop. I like who I'm working with and I think she's designed cabinetry that maximizes the small space I have combined with features that I need. I'm not working with a designer that makes everything look like an HGTV-styled kitchen.

I'm choosing white shaker inset cabinetry (maple, factory painted) and soapstone counters. I'm going with higher end appliances. I'm choosing a floor that matches the rest of the first floor (oak, basically a medium color, sort of light). Windows already exist (we replaced those years ago). Lighting is pretty simple - mostly overhead inset style (really surface mounted LED that look inset) and undercabinet lighting. I don't really have the space or desire to have any dangly lights. No island.

In short, it's all pretty simple, but I think the result will be elegant and timeless for this 100 year old home.

As I'm scrolling through Houzz, I've briefly noticed some of the ads but haven't paid a lot of attention to them. These are mostly ads for local designers. I did notice a few weeks ago a window that looked a lot like my old house's kitchen window, and a lot like the zillow advertisements when the 110 year old house went up for sale this year.

Yesterday I just kept hitting refresh and eventually the ad popped up. I'm not linking to the designer. But it's... not my style? Looks awful for a nearly million dollar house? Looks like they used cheap cabinets and installed cheap flooring? I couldn't see a lot of the kitchen in the zillow advertisement but the designer's ads include a lot of details about the kitchen and I'm horrified. The 23 year old range and hood are still working and still a selling point, so they kept that. We had a 4x4' square table in the eating area with plenty of room all around; they put a breakfast bar with two chairs in there instead and left room for a teeny tiny skinny desk. It's just...odd.

Now I'm wondering - did I go about this wrong? Should my kitchen design look more like HGTV? It's just unsettling to see the old kitchen look the way it does. If I were remodeling that kitchen instead, I'd probably choose similar cabinetry to what I'm putting in here so that the old house (with all the old house charm they've kept) doesn't have some bizarrely modern kitchen that looks totally out of place.

Eh, probably a weird question.

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Comments (4)

julieste
4 years ago
With a 100 year old house you definitely DO NOT want the HGTV look. Instead, you want a look that feels like it belongs to the period of your house. Try to choose materials and styles that are not at all trendy and could have been found in your house 70 to 100 years ago. That's your best bet.
User
4 years ago
You need an actual kitchen designer. Not a cabinet seller. Someone with a real design education, and exposure to historical design styles.

Because ”white shaker” is not historically appropriate to MOST kitchens it is shoved into. It’s very 2015 HGTV “contemporary” . It doesn’t have nearly as much design longevity as those who swallowed the ” timeless” impossibility think it does. All kitchens are easily dated to the era of creation.
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porkchop_z5b_MI
4 years ago
"With a 100 year old house you definitely DO NOT want the HGTV look. Instead, you want a look that feels like it belongs to the period of your house."

^^ This.
herbflavor
4 years ago
last modified: 4 years ago
on the other hand ...in small kitchens its perfectly acceptable and sometimes wiser to skip the expensive painted inset that you are choosing. there would be absolutely nothing wrong with Ikea cabinets and give the personal themes of the home/yourselves w counter/tiles/lighting hardware. As long as say infrastructure things like flooring /windows/trim are in keeping a streamlined modern kitchen is sometimes better. but a remuddled mess..large expenditures on things which skew the space to being awkward or a statement thats out of place is not the way to go. I've seen 200 yr old barn conversions in the British Isles ....lots of Ikea style frameless slab cabinets. the flooring/cooking hearths/worktables[islands] would stand apart as features and it all fits in well. If your budget allows inset painted cabs in s small kitchen thats great...it would not be the case for everyone to skew the expenditures w that option. so consider yourself lucky .