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Assess Your Space

We've been assessing our spaces right on decide, or at least really our lifestyle and deciding if our if our homes, our livable so now that we're starting to see whether or not they are, and most of us at least have a few challenges that pretty much everyone does weaken, start really evaluating the spaces self and have it put it on paper and start planning some solutions that were going to be looking at over the next couple of days. So for this section, we're going to start talking exactly about that, about how to evaluate your space and and what you're dealing with, how to start really taking inventory of what you have, um, what, how your space lays out ah, and how you can really start making at work for you. So I'm taking an inventory for a lot of us means getting it on paper in plan form like this and as a floor plan so you can start drawing and sketching, and whether you actually have something that is drawn or on a cad or something just thatyou sketch that it doesn't really matter...

is longest as you, you know that the measurements are right, and you're planning for the proper sizing of things or measuring it out in your space before you purchase or before you build that's the most important part. So really started to take a tour of your space is important and noting everything in it. So as I said earlier, when I start working with a client, I literally, uh, tour even ifit's not built yet if it's ah, new construction it's on plan like this in my mind, even what I call my mind's eye, I take a tour through the house not only from just a traffic flow standpoint, whether there's any furniture in it yet or particularly after we've got furniture and other things, cabinetry and other pieces that are really functional place into it. I start thinking about how everything works, so or if it's an existing space that already has front insuring it that were starting to dio remodeling project or redecorating project, you know, thinking about, you know, did we almost trip over something like you were saying, if we're going to go outside a lot, can we get past all the furniture to move in and out because it's really important, and I'm not I'm certainly not a person who wants to leave a bowling alley in the middle of a room, just in case someone might walk through that space. You know, we want places to fill lived in and really for you to get the most out of the space. But it does have to function and if you're having to move something out of the way to get to something else if it's on a regular basis probably not what you want to do right? If it's occasionally fine if it's to move a bar stool to get to a cabinet down underneath just for the holiday platters that's no big deal, but if it's every single day that's probably not going to be an ideal situation so really starting to take that inventory of your own house and really asking questions about all the things we've started thinking about today like lighting is there too little light in an area? Can you see to do whatever it is you need to do there isn't reading or is it putting on makeup or is it putting, you know, some kind of a craft or homework or other activity how's that gonna work for you? And how can you make those things remedy those problems with the right kind of functional pieces? And really just how are you using each of those spaces right now? And you might even say, well, now I'm using this for the dining room but that's not really working for us or now I'm using this for, um the laundry room, but we really want to have a full laundry room and we want to move this out of this space so just because you're using it a certain way right now doesn't mean that's how it needs to be in the features, but taking inventory first, writing it down, even, um also thinking about, you know, for a couple of days, really watching how other people use the space, if there's other people in your home, because we're not the only ones often that are using this space. And so how do they use the space you could? You could have find out a lot by where everything lands with you if you have children, right? I laughed because I travel a lot. And when I get home, I can tell every single thing that has gone on in my house since I left like every meal that's been eaten, I could come home and then afternoon and be like, oh, so you all had fast food twice today. How did you know? Well, there's chick fil a rapper's in that room and there's mcdonald's over here whenever you need it. So you tell you what? We played tennis because the tennis shoes they're still and the rackets still on the floor. Obviously, you know, there's a trail. A lot of times of what's been happening and and the more that we need storage and function for a lot of those things, the more the trail exists because things haven't been put back in a certain place. I find that with our current home are newer home with my daughter, she doesn't want to go upstairs all the time to put things away and that's where her bedroom is, so everything lands downstairs, so there's certainly going to be a need for me to have ah, locker space or her someplace to gather all of those things that I don't want just trickling all over the house. Is there a bottleneck area in your house? So I think about this a lot, even when I'm just looking at a home or a floor plan for clients, meaning is there? Are there certain rooms in your house that only have one way in and one way out of them? And a lot of times we see this particularly, like in the front of a house, if there's rooms on either side, when you first walk into a house that maybe don't connect to other spaces, and if those air rooms that you're using a lot it's, not great traffic flow, you want traffic to be able to move in through and around the space? S o noticing that, and maybe you could clear it up by even the way that you arranged the furniture like for you, it might be something that, depending on where you place your furniture in that big loft area it's gonna be what directs the traffic really cause you don't have any wall space to do that. S o avoiding those bottleneck areas. Oh, also, um, are is your family using something in a way that's, really different from the way you thought they would use it? Like I said, I thought we would spend time in certain rooms that we don't, and then we spend all our time in other spaces, so it may be even shifts things like the budget of your project. If you're only using these two rooms a lot, why not put more money in those spaces? Ah, maybe then, in some of the places that you would typically have spent your budget, a few examples of some of the things you might encounter when you're taking inventory, things that might come up our maybe you have too many people in your family and not enough seats at the table. Or maybe you need more bar stools because you find everybody's always eating at the bar and not at the table, or vice versa, if that's even a possibility to add more, um so people eating in the kitchen and maybe avoiding the dining room and sometimes, but recognizing these issues, it doesn't mean that you need to get rid of the dining room. Maybe it needs to be that you change things about the dining room that make people go in there more, so we can actually do things that encourage people to use the space more not just get rid of the space, right? It's kind of like not don't throw out the baby with the bathwater, just make make the space a place that they would want to go into, and so you can find out why is it not functioning? Is it too dark? Are the chairs not very comfortable? What is it that's keeping people from really using these spaces? Um, maybe it's not enough tables in the family room to sit things down or, you know, maybe they want to put there they're just not comfortable. Sometimes you find that people don't use a certain room because the sofa or chair and there is not really comfortable that's why? My husband says he loves the sun during more than this other space in our house, because the sofa that I have in there right now, it's, just so much more comfortable than the one in the other room, so you can learn a lot about asking these kind of questions, maybe you need charging stations in places, maybe if if you find that you have that in another space, but they're always taking their phones out and putting them in the kitchen, maybe that's a zone that you need to create in the space, um, and then a lot of us deal with this need for shoes and bags and purses. We've heard that already from the chat room of where do we put all these things that land in the entry or by the back door? I'm so that's certainly all part of this inventory piece of assessing your space so, so far have any of you done a mental tour of your house and encountered anything yet that maybe you're dealing with, like, storage issue or, um, what's coming to mind, anything coming to mine, definitely storage on dh having a place for things that is contained, um, and doesn't look like it's out of place. So what do you find that you need to store more than anything? My mail or paperwork? I don't have right now, I'm doing work either on my my laptop on my lap or have kind of a standing dining room table that I'm using as a standing desk on dh just if I don't finish it it's just out, and so then I take a pile of it and shove it in a closet, and it does I forget go back to it so just finding of a functional system for that is one thing just having things not just out on the counter so okay with this process of like taking a mental inventory help you make a list of maybe how those things those activities take place and what you might could then do to find the solution does that help you to think through it that way? Definitely anybody else have any thoughts that are coming to man from your mental inventory? Well, I know for sure in our kitchen family room I have a small little sectional crossman the fireplace in a pretty little chair here and a small coffee table and as far as the layout it functions but we definitely don't what we need are little in tables to the sofa yeah and it's a small space and I it's a traffic thing for sure and so I find it very hard to find really small, narrow tables that I actually like I agree with you and I use those are often I use really small like what I even called tiny tables and there's one company that I love that does these called oh mm ph info online dot com that they make these great little tiny tables and they'll make him in different colors they have several shapes they'll put like different tops salam grass cloth or fabrics or things they're fun but I grew the the the little pieces that uh really important often are those things that like will nestle up next to a table or a chair in a in a traffic flow space and sometimes maybe even need lighting there and that's when you can think of all we'll talk more about this but those multi purpose pieces he sounds like you may not have a wall there but if you were to have a wall but no room for table's big tables and lamps you can use those swing arm lamps that we've talked about before said room sometimes I also do a floor lamp because it doesn't need to end with a small table in front of it so sometimes that'll work too but you have to get really creative with solutions for space is like that um anything else cut those air both great examples so I think that as you continue to do this mental inventory will start figuring out what what it is that challenging you but I think before you even worry about it um measuring it perfectly often I just start putting it on paper even in this is is one of my actual sketches I did often do these on airplanes it seems like that's when no one can bother may I get on the plane when I'm traveling and I start sketching and I don't know that this is exactly right yet when I'm starting to draw it I'm just envisioning the size of the room like this was a show house I was doing, and I knew it was a long, narrow room with a staircase, a new where the openings were, and so I just started planning out what seemed like the most common sense approach to laying things out and writing really almost like a brain dump, because a lot of times when we're just being free form and creative about things that's, when we get really creative ideas that can help us with function because we get so pinned into thinking the way it was before we met, like, who have a furniture was when we visited it before we even rented it or what we what was in our house as a child, and we don't really get our mind open to all the possibilities. He's so I think just starting to put things down, and, um so what do you have right now that works with your goals? And you can even list those and say, you know, well, what does work and you kind of just did that you were like from a layout standpoint, this works, but from a function standpoint, here's, what doesn't work so that's exactly how I would approach the same kind of space and say, here's, what is working for us? Here's what we need we need some small tables we may need some kind of lighting that would took into the space and be out of the way from traffic flip um very common sense approach and a lot of times it's funny when people take my courses they say well I didn't really learn I learned a lot knew but also just was validated that a lot of the things I'm already doing are right and this is truly how I approach this whole idea um just common sense and then really that idea of thinking as we say out of the box or even just getting rid of the box all together just opening up your mind to maybe something that you have even bringing something in from another room you may have a piece of furniture that's in another place in your house that's not working there or does it really have that much impact on how the family lives in another space but just about bringing it into this room so a lot of times I go through clients houses and things may end up in places that they had never thought of because they just always it always went in the living room where it always went with this particular sofa and just by moving it around into another space suddenly it's the perfect chair or table or ottoman or something that you already have so a lot of times that's the case as well and then really just writing everything down and don't overthink it at this point. This is that totally creative, visualizing place to go in a perfect world, and sometimes we we already, um, uh, what would you call it clue box ourselves in because we're not we're already making assumptions about a space or were already making assumptions about our budget or you already saying, well, I'd love to have so and so, but I can't afford that or I'd love tohave this, but I'm sure that won't work or I'd love to have this kind of peace, but I'm sure my family would never go with that when to get the most functional space just put it all down, don't over think it, and then you can come back to it after you've worked out more of a solution and start putting the pieces of the puzzle together, if that makes it so, this is very, very creative in loose how do y'all feel about this idea of just kind of brainstorming on paper? Good stuff done sometimes that's just not even using a filter and just kind of putting it all out there and then and organizing it, I agree, so when you start to specifically in this space and you're just trying to say where's the sofa need to go, you lose sight of a lot of other things, but when you start with that blank slate I think you get can get a really good uh, clear answer a lot of times on what really needs to happen, so I agree, and but but a lot of times we people don't feel like that were you think I'm not that creative or I'm not really that good at this that we don't just take this first step, which is really important to just think totally free form and then the next step is to really then start visualizing all of these goals and start taking them to the actual size square footage measurements that you already have. So you go from create, we're gonna work our our way all the way through from being that uber freeform creative toe what would really work in our space? This is a drawing from one about a project that we did, so you know you conceptualize it here, and a lot of times the space is actually turned out almost exactly like they looked from the point of just conception for us because often those free form ideas, those creative ideas are your best ideas at the end of the day, so um, I usually go back to that, so when you're visualizing certainly and you start to putting start putting things on paper, it doesn't have to be fancy going to teach you some tricks in a little bit. I'm going to show you some cool aps some of that's in the next segment have had to start really putting these things on paper in a way that are going to help you visualize if something it would look right for you or not, but don't be afraid to sketch or drawer put things on paper, and it does you don't have to be an artist to start really moving along the design process by just putting these things down on paper there's all these cool aps and I'm gonna show him to you that really make this easier for you and fun if, of course, my eight year old can do it so we can certainly do it. But she's, so comfortable with it, I'll even show you some of her drawings in a minute cause she has a great time playing on a lot of these abs, so sixty five percent of the population is our visual learner, so if you can put things on paper or if you're needing to share these ideas with other people in your household, your spouse, your children ah, lot of times you could never describe it for them to understand it but once they see it on paper it makes a lot more sense whether a floor plan or even something that's more like it an elevation or a drawing like the piece the picture we saw just a moment ago so anything that we can do to help you or anyone else in your that lives in the space really be able to visualize the better I even do this for myself sometimes even though that I do that I'm an expert at this there sometimes that I just need to see it uh the way it's gonna look I just need to plan it out and really visualize it um on paper so that I can understand what it's gonna what the outcome's gonna be the brain processes visual information sixty thousand times faster than it does text also so that's another reason why they say a picture is worth a thousand words and that's really, really the case and designing your interiors um and ninety percent on information that comes from the brain is visual so that's a lot ninety percent of what we perceive is visual so even if you have to take it a step further from putting things on paper and start actually moving things around in your house sometimes just let playing with the layout or we even sometimes for clients will take brandt a role of brown like butcher paper craft paper and we'll cut out squares and rectangles the size and shapes of the furniture and literally lay it on the floor and it actually really, really helps because people get nervous about putting too much furniture in a space or that it's going to be crowded or that they won't have room and so that can really give you some peace of mind of visualize furnishings and other things in a space before you go make an investment cause you don't want to make a mistake right on somehow I flipped the piece of paper, which you can't do with grand piano, so when I finally actually moved in, I couldn't work out why it wouldn't fit in the space that I think is ahead of the curve on the way the other way so everything else squares it doesn't matter which way around you have a visitor it's a great tip so many good idea but always note to self do not flip thanks I'm gonna write this side that side up on the grand piano that's good to know it really does help though it definitely helps but you could do a lot of that with aps and other things other tools these days too so as you're really visualizing your girls, how do you want each space to really work? How do you want it to work it might not be what it is right now, but how would you ultimately if you could just start from scratch? How could you make the space work? And this is what I do for clients as well, we can always come back, teo, you know, adding and other things that maybe aren't ideal. Maybe if the budget doesn't allow us to get some new pieces of furniture that they were hoping to get or whatever, but I always design it from the best case scenario first, and then only substitute if we have to. So I would like for you is you're visualizing your spices. What would be the dream scenario for this room is a lot of times, it's not as hard to chief as you think, and not as expensive as you think our maybe you already have other pieces in your house that would are already help you achieve some of these goals. And then, of course, you need to consider the architecture of your home. And we talked about that in the last course on style, in the style of architecture that you have, and then the decor of other rooms, because if you're working on just a single space and you're bringing in elements to make it more functional, you still need to feel like it flows with the decor of other rooms, so it's it's not a great idea to isolate one space and make it something totally unique, and then it not feel like it works together. Chris, you don't even have that option cause all your spaces are kind of one space. Anything, um, and then think about how the room khun be unique, and ah, lot of times, if you get the function right, the function, the list of functional items, right? Then you can get a little creative within each piece, so if you need, you know, lighting to help the space be more functional than you could have fun with and bring your personality and your design style into the room through the lighting or custom cabinetry or other pieces. Um, hopefully many of those air, both functional and beautiful at the same time, and then don't think about what you think is possible or impossible. It's really to me, especially with function, figuring out what you want and then figuring out a way to make it happen. And a lot of times we are going to be looking at things for function like custom cabinetry or maybe accustomed feast, piece of furniture or customizable piece of furniture that maybe does one or more things that can really, you know, we're going to look at a lot of these again over the next couple of days like benches that have storage in them or like the things we've seen that turn into two different kind of table at that sort of thing so you may not even know it's available on the market you made I think it's totally impossible but if you think oh, I wish I had a chair that converted into this you know, there's even there's an ottoman that's a that converts into a twin size bed so there's all kinds of things out there s so think about what the possibilities are not what can't happen because a lot of times it's more possible than you think. So how how what is this bringing to mind for anybody? We have any any thoughts about this whole visualizing process yet some of the you know, the challenges, etcetera. We had one really interesting when she's dealing with a fireplace a corner fireplace in the mall today so I think people are really getting into this now how do you assess your space? How do you actually map it out? What is the function of each thing? I'd take kevin to the five corners fireplaces drive me crazy there's so many things that you're by the way sorry well there's, so many things that were going on that are gonna come into play when we start talking about this this course on function because the the layout, as we just learned in the last piece, is what dictates so much of what we want to do and there's a lot of crazy things happening in a lot of our homes and it's what I call different for the sake of being different, like a builder, an architect of the last person who lived there wanted to get creative, and a lot of the times the way people do that is by doing things like putting something on the angle, which is never really a great idea. It just doesn't work for the most part, and so when people try to get creative with layout, a lot of times, they cause us more problems than not like you think about other things that come to mind are windows, and people will put, like, a crazy art shape wind a way up high in the wall, and how do you really put a window treatment over that? But the son comes blaring in right into the middle of the space that you're in, and it doesn't really function, or just a lot of times columns when people remove all the walls and put all these columns and these things, they're supposed to be architecturally beautiful, they really just become problematic in this space a lot of times, and maybe they're pretty in the home of when it's empty when you're touring any like oh these columns air so grand in this corner fireplaces so stylish and then you get there and you think how in the heck am I gonna arrange my furniture and there's walls, windows and openings on every single wall so really it's worth thinking about like this next point says really start forming that vision of the flow and the function of each room before you even buy or rent that space because a lot of times you get into something that you thought was just going to be so great and it's really diff pickle or your particular furniture doesn't work sometimes we we own things already like a large china hutch or some kind are king sized bid or something and then you get into the space and those pieces just don't really work jeez drama is it's right on a traffic part which so often as you say when somebody decides put in a feature because perhaps there master brick worker building the house I it's not only a corner fireplace but it's also a corner fireplace, right? We're corner bathroom bathtubs they came in in the eighties, didn't they? And they was such a disaster anything and you could see what was gonna happen they're cornered I'm gonna go with two corner toilets very weird yes given that there's if it hasn't and then before there's probably a reason for that ah, in a lot of cases when it comes to the architecture's so I like to keep things really clean and simple and even to help people you know, when they're building homes I think it's going to be so boring to just have a straight, uh staircase but but it's not necessarily in the architecture that I want that I think you can get really unique and beautiful it's in some of the elements in your space so we're starting to visualize and even if you're not on our just just of course you know, you may not be able to do this sort of thing, but I'm going to give you some tools for that later but just that idea of sketching out and adding that's and brainstorming I love to do this almost like it's journaling and just keep ideas and write things out and often times that's when you're most creative you know ideas brainstorms will really hit are any of you comfortable with this? I mean you are because you're a designer so dealing so much fun it is fun it makes it fun. So any of the right are you any of you intimidated to start putting things on paper with a space? I'm generally intimidated by a blank canvas, but what I've come to learn is so then make it not blank just put something down and then play with it that's the only way not gonna be a blank yeah that's a great point so when you're looking at it like I'm looking at this um blank canvas here that I'm gonna sketch on in a little bit in them hopefully not shorting out with spilling my drink on it it's it just it's a little daunting when there's nothing on there yet but the minute you start really just kind of putting and that putting things on the paper and I think that's the great point about this this part because before we even get to the part of actually measuring it and making it so perfect this is just that free flow of ideas theresa, how about you do you we operate in this way I'm intimidated by just free sketching for sure I'm just too hard on myself wanting you know, I draw a chair and I'd be like, oh, that the proportion is all wrong, which is not really the point just to you know that's just to get yourself a little bit more loose and creative because that's when some of these ideas come together from robo shop robo shopper said I visualize in ottoman that would slide up to my small section or so it could be used as an extra gifts bid and then I found it online and it even had storage yeah so that's uh that's uh trying to thought that really eventuated in something good there's really great products like that, so there's a like, like I was saying earlier, and one comes to mind right now, that's an ottoman that is a twin bid that comes that pulls out to be a twin bid on dh then and then it's also just your ottoman on a regular basis. For those of you who don't have any room for a guest, that guest space, it would be perfect for your sake, kat cocktail table put a tracer on it during the day and it's a cocktail table, and then it becomes your guests, ben so they're certainly lots of things that you can do that or multi purpose. So with this idea of visualizing your goals, um, there's all kinds of great sites online, um, you could look at things like pinterest and house and, um, all kinds of places to get these sort of ideas, pinterest is a great place to just go and look at all the possibilities for sure, and we're going to look at more of them today together, and I love to just have people start, and we do this with our clients as well have people just start making pin boards of everything they love now? I think I mentioned this inside some of the previous courses, but if you weren't with me during those courses, or you haven't watched them yet? Be sure that when you're pinning things in the description, you put what you liked about the space, because sometimes you forget you go back and you look at something you're like, why did I pin this and said, or if someone else is gonna look at it if it's design professional or someone else is going to be looking for from that through those it's great to say, love the sofa, hate the chairs or love the cabinetry style or loved the countertop said that you really remember what it was you like about it, but it's great to pin when you're not looking for something special suffix, so I love to do this at night say, like, if when I get in bed at night, this one of the many things that I use my bedroom workspace, it's, a multipurpose space that I live in all the time is I'll get in bed at night and I'll just go great pin and reap in things that other people have liked, even when I'm not specifically working on my project or someone else's it's like when you go to shop for an outfit for a special occasion, you can't find it, but when you're just out looking for things, you find lots of things you like this same way with being creative about a project. So just let yourself being a really relaxed and just start pinning and searching things that you really, really love and collect them all together. I'm doing this for myself right now. Um, even in my own house and any of you can follow along with me. It's gonna be a process for awhile that I'm, uh, talking about on my block every single thursday, and I call it my new house diary, but it's funny because some of my friends who are designers just were appalls that I showed the before pictures of my house because it's really ghastly in some ways just because it's dated nothing. You know, it's, a great house, but it's just stated, but I'm going through this whole process, and I even I'll take you out to my pin board real quick and show you what this looks like, but let's, see, so I just start pinning things. Um, this is actually like my journal, my own line journal and so hopes let's see, uh, maybe can we go to that from someone? Help me just go to the first image. There you go. So just last week I was talking about and we're gonna I'm actually gonna work through some of my floor plan later this afternoon for us, but just I just started talking about on my own blawg how what I was thinking about so this is an upstairs floor plan at my house and just start sketching so I go through this exact same process for myself just starting to sketch and say what I'm thinking about and ah, brainstorming and it's really, really loose and it's really creative, okay, so in this and you can go and look click to any of these and they all link back to they've all intellect back to my block, but I'm just going through this process in a really slow way this time and taking my time to think about what we want in all the spaces and this one was just basically saying rome wasn't built in a day and I was talking about the process of living in the house and finding out what works, but I think that if you could go through this process for awhile and your own project and just take notes and write things down in journal, you're gonna learn so much about yourself in the process and how things are working for you and how you want things to work there we go thank you oops got it um and so I've talked itself started a room at a time, and I'm doing this actually for myself, just like I would with a client, and I started with the entry and a moving through other spaces on we'll see we're going to go into some of these, like I said later today, talking about color palettes and storage, I even posted pictures for myself and for everyone else of my last house and what I liked about it. So I'm not even, you know, like I was saying to you earlier, theresa, to assess the things that are working and the things that aren't working, so reminded myself all the things we loved about our last house, so there's one post this one's all about the things that I love about the new structure in the architecture, but here's all the things we loved before that we don't want to lose when we come to the new house, because that happens a lot too, and I even have this happen with clients where they say we love this sofa so much, we don't want to lose the comfort that I won't let them buy new so fast they were going to recover this one, because we might actually lose that, and I don't want that lost in the translation of this new project. Here's my beautiful kitchen that needs to be remodeled and we're going to be looking at some options for it those of the cabinets that the plates don't fit into um and the really dated nineteen eighties tie or seventies style um and so you know we're going and I'll show you my process but I'm truly going through this piece by piece for myself I think designers find that designing our own homes are the hardest projects that we have it's somehow easier to tell other people oh yes you should invest in this but when it's your own home you think oh but I don't want to make a decision I like both of these items ah and so it's it's really eye opening to go through this entire scenario for for yourself a piece of the time really creative and really loose but you can follow along this whole process with me as I go uh over time through this on my website and blogged okay, so really visualizing your own project in this way is important oh there's that lovely kitchen so one of the rooms that really, really needs to be improved certainly is this and so not only am I going to, um journal this entire process on my block and show you inside my my thought process and how I make this work I'm actually then keeping all of those images I was just talking about for all the things that inspire me and so we can go back out to pinterest actually now and look at so here's one of the boards that I have so not all of these things were going show up in my house but I just start pinning in a real free form sort of way in this particular board is called dream kitchens so any time that I'm really falling in love with certain things I pin them s so that I can go back and remember and start incorporating those things into my house possibly in different way so I loved this this is probably not the aesthetic I will have but I like how clean and simple it is I love the hardware I like the door styles there's a lot of things I like about this although it's a little bit more simple than something that I would typically have but there are parts of it that I love in this I especially like the way I like this countertop in the way it wraps the island and I like the campaign hardware so there's certain things again about all of these spaces I like the marble um the countertop backsplash here there's other things that are a little bit um too cluttered for me and I would want cabinets that actually had doors on them but all of these pieces go into influencing what we'll ultimately my kitchen will look like um again, this one's a little bit more modern but I just like the overall aesthetic how clean and simple it is. I like the marble I like the splash of color in the artwork so you can see just in these three lots of variation and what I'm pinning that I like it's because it's all very freeform this I really love the the steel metal window so pretty so architectural so um but again total free form of the collection of ideas here and then I can go back and start prioritizing the things that I really really like about it. Any of you working on a kitchen remodel actually at this time you are oh, yeah you were mentioning that's part of your um I love the detail on this hood I love this medal I like it's almost like a lacquer finished I think it's really interesting how this tile is on the back splash all the way up to the ceiling here. Um really pretty detail of this metal front cabinet here so there's so many ideas like that that can come into play and introduce them selves justus apiece or apart? I think I also encourage people a lot of times to not try to mimic a space that they've seen but just pull the things that they loved about it and incorporated into it in a unique way because it's not very exciting, just ted earley mimic something that you've seen before any of these ideas speaking to any of you so far that picture just to your left of the curse or you've gone down that was that many vibrant turquoise think think that's really interesting isn't that so that's like a kind of it's like a retro kitchen, but I love the turquoise think as well, and I like this faucet uh, really interesting hardware choices here this so this does look like a a retro kitchen it's not totally updated, but I think it looks fun and inspiring and there's um, I think it's cooler that's making beautiful, like fifteen or twenty different colors of kitchen thinks like that that you can get in vibrant color. So if that's something that you love, certainly something to think about. I spent a lot of time studying these sorts of images to with clients because again a picture speaks a thousand words so someone khun try to describe what they want to me and it's really difficult, but we can look at an image together and we can really fast acted and started understanding what it is that they like and there's things to note that at first glance you might not notice, but in this kitchen I love the fact that the tile goes all the way up the wall and around all the columns and underneath basically underneath it might be around but it looks to be that the tot walls are totally tiled in the cabinets are placed on top of them so that's an interesting detail um and it plays into the aesthetic versus the function at the same time and it could be very functional too it's really fluid it's pretty and simple and so a design detail to think about in the early stages of your project who's sorry so how many of you were using pinterest in this way to collect ideas are using that so have hasn't proved to be helpful for you teo teo go through this process definitely that allows me to just kind of see they kind of follow the path and just if I'm if if anything speaks to me just pin it and then come back and it's interesting to then take a step back and see what let let the trends reveal themselves yes so that's exactly what I encourage people to do because once you start looking back across your own board, you'll see certain things that you think oh must really like this because I've been this idea several times or sometimes I'll even notice that I pin the exact same manage more than once ah and didn't really remember that I had to end it before and I think I must really like this one so um yeah that's a great great way to look at it do you get does it ever overwhelm me because you have so many options on pinterest are you able to organize them in a way that helps you use them for me it hasn't been overwhelming um but no I haven't it's been helpful okay teresa here yeah that definitely helps for sure but I'm pretty good at it self editing so once my pin board start getting too full I'll go back and actually say okay well didn't know this was okay but it's not that great deleted you know so I think that's a good idea so that you really use it as a functional tool at all times and it's kind of fluid and you're adding things too and you're taking things away right that's a great way to do it quick question are those white drawers is that some sort of like refrigerator there are probably warming drawers so I would think that those air probably warming drawers um it doesn't look like it isn't it it's pretty that's a really pretty space even within the things that I pin you see a large range of style that you just glancing at them something from almost like a shaker style a little arts and craftsy then things that are more modern things that are very architectural and then that last night we were on was very I would think call that very traditional what? Lots of mill work so within the realm of what I want there's a whole lot of variety, and so then deciding which pieces and parts make the cut even from saying, you know what I love, um, subway tile, and it would be really practical and great on the budget to use that in the kitchen. But then do I want black gratitude? I want white ground and his white ground functional for me, or is a black grouse gonna be cleaner and s o that just the ground killer can actually be a function question on something like a kitchen or a bathroom? It could be a big function question, actually in the bathroom for sure. Um, in the tot in the shower cleaning and, um so lots of things to think about and they look like they're at first glance, aesthetic choices, but there's a lot of function choices happening in all of these from the lighting and the layered lighting. I love thes lights. Um, over this I was so I have that passed through that. I don't know if you noticed there was a passed through in my kitchen that goes into ah, the sunroom on the back, and I'm going to keep it, I think because I already know well, for one thing, there wouldn't be any natural light in the kitchen if I did away with the past through there's, not another window in there, but the other thing is is already noticed that we communicate through that all the time. So one of the challenges I have is how to make that look updated and fresh, but still keep it there. And so I like the idea of maybe putting some kind of lighting over the past through and I think these look interesting and fun, these kind of architectural library lights eso loved us, and then I also really love those pendants as well. I'm going to take out a what you would call like a peninsula, into the kitchen and really and put an island in instead. So we're going to show you all of those things, but pinterest is a is a great way for me to even remember ah lot of the ideas that I like or a way to install flooring or I love this I had a chalkboard in my last home that was on the pantry, this one is on proper I think that possibly is a rift in the refrigerator. And that's a really modern kitchen, and I wouldn't do something quite that modern, although I really like it in my own house. But I do like the idea of having the chalkboard somewhere in our house because we used it so often before was where we were every time we ran out of something in the house, it was where we wrote it down, so we wouldn't forget to put it on the grocery list. I was really, really handy and quite functional, so that needs to show up somewhere again in our house, looking to see if there's any other big function ideas. This is an interesting one for wine storage. Um, so in small spaces, a lot of times that convict him a problem, too. I love that these air just pegs on the wall that hold the wine and open shelving there's such clever designers and creative people out in the world. And now we have this amazing tool called pinterest that keeps it all in one place force, and you, khun, search just about anything. So if you're dealing with any kind of specific problem, just search that idea and it's amazing how many solutions come up for it here's some great cabinets, I think that would be wonderful for your idea of collecting things. Um really, really pretty to me how that's in the kitchen and if you do have more of a traditional aesthetic and you want something kind of glamorous, I love how this kitchen is very functional in a lot of ways, but it has a little bit of that style, glamorous style coming into it as well. You're in the chat rooms, they are saying they're using pinterest a lot more now also, then just show different ideas. Declines as well. Yeah, I love this. We're gonna look at one, I think project I did a few years ago for a client that's similar to this. This doesn't look like a built in bank. It it looks like it's just made to fit their perfectly it's free standing. But I'm gonna show you this afternoon. And, um, I think this afternoon and or maybe tomorrow how I worked an eating space into the island like this to really be able to eliminate an entire table and chairs and in a space for a client and mesh that in with the island. So really fun and functional idea there something to think about, so okay, we can go back out our power point now, but it again. I know a lot of you are starting to do this and it's really, really helpful, so hopefully you're you're bringing pinterest into the creative part of the process. We have plenty of time to get to the nuts and bolts, but the creative free foreign parts what a lot of people skip, I feel like I just need to go right ahead and pick out that sofa or pick out the appliances and a lot of times that's where you make the biggest mistakes with function because you don't take the time to get your list together to really decide how you live and make sure you're checking all those things off. And so when people go strike toe purchasing something it's too late to then make sure that it hits all of your needs and wishes. So I always encourage people to plan, plan, plan and plan some more on paper creatively and then take it to the next step, which we're going to go into right now. I've had a measure and really get the true size and shape of the space on paper and then maybe later, into that purchasing.