Kitchen Envy

PLANNING

Preparing for Your Design Project

Maybe you've been jotting ideas for your new kitchen in a journal for the last 10 years and know exactly what you want.

Or maybe you haven't the faintest idea how you'd like your kitchen to look, except to know it simply has to change. We've seen both extremes, and everything in between, and it's all perfectly appropriate.

Whatever your thoughts are about your new kitchen, the time to gather them is in advance of our first meeting. Here, we'll listen to you when you're certain, coach you when you're not, and offer comprehensive design solutions when you're feeling stuck or uninspired.

It's important to remember that the better prepared you are from the start, the smoother our progress will be going forward, and, crucially, the more closely we'll adhere to our projected budget. With that in mind, we offer the following pre-meeting guidance:

Meeting Preparation

  • Scheduling out at least 1-2 hours for an inital meeting with Kitchen Envy. Face to face interaction is beneficial so you can not only get a feel for who you would be working with, but also to be able to look at samples and bring your ideas to the table.


    Gather pictures of products and styles you like from magazines and the Internet. This helps put us on the same page quickly.


    Print out and complete our Kitchen Design Questionnaire or our >Bath Design Questionnaire. Here you'll indicate your lifestyle preferences and answer questions about what you like, or don't, about your current space. We find this immensely valuable.


    Seek input from family members. What do they prefer? And don't forget the kids – or perhaps you don't remember what it's like to live at countertop height?


    Know your budget. When you know how much you have to invest, we can guide you toward products that allow you to stay on-budget.


    Bring your floor plans. If you're building a new home, or have hired an architect, we'll need to know the big picture.

Our First Meeting

  • Allow one to two hours for our initial meeting. This gives us time to get to know each other's style and preferences, as well as to view product samples and exchange a range of ideas.

What to Expect

  • In addition to our learning from you, this meeting is a great opportunity for you to discover as much as you can about us – what's our design philosophy? Our installation process? Ask as many questions as you can. Building a new kitchen is precise work, and not without emotional resonance for many of us. This meeting is your chance to interview us and get a feel for how our working relationship will evolve in order to minimize unexpected future surprises.


    We're going to need your kitchen's dimensions, along with some photographs. If our meeting takes place in your home, we'll use part of our time together to gather measurements and snap some photos. If we meet elsewhere, we ask that you bring this material with you.


    Our goal at the conclusion of our first meeting is to have formulated a few preliminary design concepts in order to offer you a rough cost estimate. Then, in approximately two weeks, we'll request another meeting to present to you our drawings, as well as a more targeted price.