The home is a beautiful place—or at least it ought to be!  Our homes are places where we live and to which we will inevitably end up inviting a tremendous amount of guests over the years, and with all that traffic home owners are generally pretty keen on keeping their homes spick and span, shipshape, and simply sexy all around.  Certain areas of the home are renovated for personal pleasure and enjoyment, while other areas are renovated and changed for a mixture of personal enjoyment and a compulsion to impress visitors to the home with the latest in materials and designs.  Throughout the home, the most frequently and extensively renovated rooms would have to include the living room, the laundry room, but particularly the kitchen—there is just no other room in the home that has to fulfill such a broad mandate, combining sleek design with total functionality.  

This is a room that many people feel the urge to design on their own, though of course there are certain tasks that will always demand the contribution of a professional in the matter.  Nevertheless, creating a new kitchen design is something that many home owners find attractive, as they generally know exactly what materials they find enticing and know their personal habits and routines in this room better than the back of their hand: the way they cook, clean, order things up, etc.  Each home owner and family has its own quirks and routines, and hence it’s very appealing to think of being able to completely set out the design of the entire room, including all details from surface materials to the distribution of space, etc.

If you are one of those brave people considering creating a brand new design for their kitchen, start with the issue of space distribution; final details as to which finishing will get used and such superficial concerns can wait to the final stages of planning.  A key rule to successful renovation of this particular room in the home is the triangulation of the three crucial spaces: the cooking area, the cleaning area, and the storage area.  That is to say, the sink, the oven/stove, and the fridge/pantry area.  These three stations need to be easily accessible and must not be located too far from each other, otherwise the entire flow of work in the kitchen will be interrupted and the enjoyability of your newly refashioned space will be reduced down to near zilch.  

If you are doing the full DIY route in your project, consider whether or not you actually have the skill to finish every aspect of the project.  There is no shame in leaving a small amount of highly skilled labor to a professional, such as letting a plumber hook up sinks and dishwashers, and letting a professional gas technician hook up your stove and oven unit.  You can get roughly 95% of the work in yourself on a budget, yet unless you have a great deal of experience in these areas or a handyman friend on loan, you will be risking it if you fulfill these jobs on your own.