Kathy's Kitchen Makeover: Hiring a Designer

Posted by Kathy Worm on 7 May 2012 | 5 Comments

Tags: kitchen, design, Raleigh

Kathy Worm is chronicling the full renovation of her Raleigh kitchen. Read her previous post to see before pictures.

Now that we have decided what we don’t want — our old kitchen — we have to decide what we do want. We live in a flat-roofed contemporary house that was built in the early 60s. My architect friend, Lou Jurkowski of BJAC, calls it an international style house. Some folks would call it a midcentury modern style house. Mostly, I call it a Frank Lloyd Wright knock-off house.

Even though I've never taken architecture classes, I knew that I wanted to be “true” to the style of the house and honor the natural materials that are in the rest of the house. I also wanted to have a clean, uncluttered (ha!) contemporary look without the harsh, really austere minimalistic look that sometimes goes along with contemporary style. I had no clue how to achieve this, so I decided that I would hire a designer to help. 

I met Rebecca Pace of BeyondBlue Interiors and Rebecca Pace Design when I went on a photo shoot for the May/June 2011 issue of SavorNC. I loved Rebecca’s easy-going, elegant, and clean-lined style.

The first step in the process was talking with Rebecca about how we used the old kitchen and what we wanted and didn’t want. This is easier said than done because you have to really think about how you currently use your kitchen and also how you will use your kitchen in the future. There are three of us in our family — and my son will be headed off to college (hopefully!) in a year and a half. So in addition to just designing a new place to feed my family, I am realizing in a truly physical way that there are big changes headed my way. 

We talked about trying to capture the essence of the rest of the house. We talked about how I needed somewhere to store the shoes that usually end up strewn about the kitchen. We talked about taming the junk drawer. We talked about how I needed to find some way to organize my 50 spices so I don’t keep buying the same ones because I can’t find what I need. 

Rebecca took all of this information and magically designed a new kitchen with all these elements in mind. Here are the basic drawings: 

This is just the beginning of the process, though. Stay tuned: In my next blog I will share the ups and downs of picking new appliances, countertops, etc.!