Pick your Kitchen Designer first. All other decisions become incredibly easy after that.

Sophie- kitchen layout has been designed. general ideas for colors discussed. Exact details are all up to me to figure out on my own (with the help of trusty houzz experts and friendly DIYers of course).

Is your flooring continuous throughout the house? If so, pick that first.

Virgil- Thank you. Even though I knew all of that, it really helps to read it! I was leaning towards counters. I know I want white/off white/light colored painted cabinets. The floor will be a medium/light wood look LVP (I know - fake, the horror!). I guess I will peruse some granite yards next week and see what speaks to me. Anyone know- do the yards have the slabs graded by price? I know they don't sell to the public, but I would love to know if I am looking at the Chevy or the Maserati of the stone world before I fall in love with something.

I start by picking one thing out in my head and then working around that choice and seeing where the trouble may begin. So in this case I may choose white kitchen cupboards and then start to think of how those would look if I had a very open kitchen, then I might change to stained wood and so on. There is no order of making choice, though Virgil's point is great about where to start, but since one thing hangs on another, you have to iterate until all the pieces match your vision.

crl - yes, flooring is continuous, one reason I am choosing LVP. Don't want real wood in the kitchen.

You have to buy cabinets. The design services are FREE with cabinet purchases from most shops. You just have to commit to a retainer. Find the right KD. Buy your cabinets there. Let them help you.

Sophie- I did have help designing the kitchen, but the exact finishes are still up to me and my tastes.

Looking back, everything was picked more or less at the same time because I was working with a designer so I had a design board. I didn't 100% like all the finishes - wanted a lighter wood stain - didn't want marble (either fake or real) and my inspiration was more period kitchens so I didn't want white.

I knew the finish of my cabinets approximately - medium stained quarter sawn white oak so finishes went with the cabinet although with my choice of wood stain, I had a lot of leeway.

My floor is wood and lighter oak so that it provided some contrast with the cabinets but I didn't find that to be a constraint. If I were not going for a pretty classic finish oak floor, I would have been more concerned about cabinets and flooring.

I bought my copper farm house sink early on but I knew the finishes were going to work around copper as well as the medium oak cabinetry. Counter is Black Galaxy which picks up the copper and works with the medium oak. Backsplash is an Arts & Crafts inspired tile in green blue which pulls together the various elements as it has copper subway tile accents.

I didn't particularly feel constrained by any specific design choices I made. I only occasionally felt regret because there are so many gorgeous options if I had traveled down a completely different design inspiration but that's just a question of the almost infinite possibilities rather than feeling that a specific choice made early was a bad decision which then prevented me from getting stuff I would have preferred. If one goes into a really good tile store (for example), one sees so many gorgeous options just as one sees such fantastic fabric when one goes into a fabric showroom.

I picked cabinets, countertop, floor, and backsplash, in that order.

Remodel with existing floors. I picked countertops, appliances/sinks/faucets, cabinets, custom hood, hardware and backsplash. Floors got a new coat of poly so I was able to darken them just a touch.

I would use the same flooring throughout the entire house. I've had hardwood floors in my kitchen twice and I love them - very easy to keep clean and wear very well. The vinyl flooring will cheapen your kitchen.

Your first decision really has to be whether you want stained or painted cabinets. That will dictate many other things.

I pretty much had a general vision of my kitchen and knew there were certain things that were "fixed", though that meant doing things backwards, or maybe sideways : ) . I knew what paint color I wanted for the open kitchen, dining room, and living room. I knew I wanted a blue Bluestar range to match my blue transferware pieces. I knew I wanted honed Carrara marble on the island. I knew I wanted vinyl plank flooring (Karndean) in a medium brown throughout the entire house (which has been a wonderful and practical choice for our farming family).

We also knew we wanted Ikea cabinets, especially since living in Canada, something like Scherr's doors/cabinet fronts wasn't an easy or inexpensive option for us. So we went to Ikea to see which doors/cabinet fronts we liked and would go with our other choices.

Cyndy, do you have any kitchen inspiration pictures? Have you gone through the Kitchen forum's Finished Kitchen blog?

I think you are on the right track. Choosing a countertop next makes sense.

I do always advocate for choosing everything in concert. Often people post here after everything but the backsplash has been installed and they find their choices very limited. Nothing wrong with plain white subway tile (I put it in three kitchens myself) but if you love something bolder, it’s a shame to be locked in by an already installed countertop.

If you don’t alresdy know about stone counters, I recommend the countertop geology threads here to help make sure you know what you are getting. (Stone yards mislabel stones all the time and the same stone can have different names in different yard—or even the same name can be different stones in different yards.)

There's no real answer to this, so I'll just tell you how my husband's and my decisions unfolded. Perhaps that'll give you an idea of where your own process might start.

With our remodel, we had limited funds and knew were were going to sell our place in about five years. So we were looking (a) to improve the kitchen for ourselves to use for five years, (b) to improve the kitchen a way that still looked good when we sold it in five years, and (c) to keep within our budget. This led to two immediate decisions:

1) Remodels that are in-keeping with the architecture of the home seem to age better (they seem to sidestep trendiness), so to ensure our home didn't look dated in five years, we opted for a Spanish revival feel to match our building's architectural style.

2) We also knew we were going to use IKEA cabinets because you cannot beat IKEA prices, and our budget was so limited. There was only one IKEA door style that looked remotely Spanish-style, so that was an easy and obvious first choice.

At that point, we found some inspiration pictures on pinterest with similar cabinets and a Spanish feel and then went to floor and counter warehouses to find affordable floors and counters that we thought complemented the cabinets and helped them to lean Spanish. During that process, we found a GREAT deal on a set of stone remnants that weren't incongruous with Spanish style and were a light color (something I wanted), so that was an easy decision on counters. And there was literally only one floor material/color we both liked, so that was an easy decision. The paint choice was based on the counters, cabinets, and the adjacent rooms.

And we've been stuck for four years on choosing the backsplash. :D I'm sure it's karma for how easy the other decisions were.

crl_ - Thank you. I have read the geology threads and they make my head spin. We are un-planned home builders...having to do everything on a shoestring budget, while still aiming for quality . We will likely end up with granite.. Our cabinets will be some shade of white -and I do not like super white or super dark counters. I love the look of soapstone, but not the maintenance or fragility.

This is my flavor of the week https://www.msistone.com/granite/silver-creek/

Pretty countertop! Since you’ve read the countertop geology threads, you know to test so you know how prone to stains it is. Some of the granites in those colors have garnets in them, which are very pretty, but I found the color a bit limiting for my purposes last time I remodeled a kitchen.

As an aside Virginia jet mist mist granit is sometimes suggested as a soapstone substitute.

It's unlikely you will ever replace your *floors*. I'd save on something else and use site-finished, poly-coated hardwood.

Its best to have all these decisions before construction, but that will continue to be the least listened to best advice ever. "Early Fall" is 10 weekends away. IF you get this set early, the rest has a great chance of smooth sailing.

Whether you've started construction or not, here's the sequence I use:

1. Plumbing fixtures & appliances

2. Electrical fixtures

3. Cabinet manufacturer (local custom or factory)

4. Counter material

At frame stage its time to layout cabinets, appliance and plumbing locations, based on sizes. Your cabinet designer will need all sizes. Installed flooring thickness can be critical also as many factory cabinets won't accommodate thicker floors without raising them (to clear dishwashers).

Understand your counters at this time so you can design to slab sizes if necessary, especially if your slabs are prefab. Even raw slabs have some optimal island cabinet sizes.

Pick a countertop first. Cabinet color can be matched or coordinated with counters but it's harder to match counters to cabinets. I chose my countertop even before I chose anything else in the house and it wound up dictating the color decisions throughout my house. Best decision ever.

Cabinets second along with appliances, sinks, etc.

One thing to consider, especially based on cpartist's advice, is whether you want your countertop to be a "star" in the kitchen, or a supporting player. cpartist's countertop is definitely a star : ) --

If you're not going for a countertop star, or have another unifying concept from which design decisions can flow, then you can probably move countertop down the list...

True to what Becky said. BTW: Here's my kitchen. Not only is my quartzite the star, but I have a secondary star with the stained glass backsplash. But overall, you can see how the color of my ceiling and my backsplash, and even my lights were based on the colors in the quartzite.

So if the star is going to be the granite, pick that first.

If you want a more exciting backsplash, pick that first. Here for example is a backsplash that is the star.

Granite Bay Design/Build · More Info

Or if you want the cabinets to be the star, then pick that first.

Victorian Kitchen · More Info

I knew from the get-go that I didn't want a white kitchen (white elements, fine, but not mostly white). I wanted black appliances (I have since gotten used to SS but at the time I found it severely industrial) and I've had problems with white appliances where handles and other parts would yellow quickly.

I also knew I didn't want painted cabs - but I hadn't thought about the tone of stain yet. I spent time looking at tile for the floor (which since my design is a semi-open layout, is fine having different flooring in the kitchen than in the balance of the house, but people's tastes differ on this...) and looking at quartz countertops. I looked at them together - collected all sorts of samples and eyed them together and in consideration of having light enough colors to balance out the black of the appliances.

I also knew one wall was going to be largely log -- it is a log home, after all - so, the stain tone I chose for that wall (which goes through the entire house) helped inform choices for flooring and countertops,

I did have a moment of panic when one of my countertops discontinued, but deciding that I didn't need to have both kitchen countertops manufactured by the same company, widened my horizons and I found a better one after all.

Paint, as has been mentioned, is most flexible since there are so many choices. However my GC wanted me to choose colors (for the two walls that would need paint, and the part of the log wall that was sheetrocked), so it could all be painted before the cabinets went up.

I ended up deciding to stain the cabinets the same shade as the logs - they look lighter in spots but that's because the pine in the logs has darker regions to begin with.

Thing is, I never did find a backsplash I liked -- yet. So my backsplash behind the range is sheetrock. It works... it worked fine in every house I ever lived in, and can stay that way until I decide it important enough to do something about. (And, I don't have to clean grout...)

So... try to decide some things together... and know what type of material you want your electrical fixtures to be... you can pick the actual objects later on, but you will want to know: chrome, oil rubbed bronze, brass or whatever,

and know what type of material you want your electrical fixtures to be... you can pick the actual objects later on, but you will want to know: chrome, oil rubbed bronze, brass or whatever

And bear in mind that light fixtures and other things are victim to the whims of fashion, so some years oil rubbed bronze or (nice) brass or brushed nickel will be easy to find, and other years it will be nearly impossible.

i agree with chartist, pick counter first, especially if its going to be granite. most have movement/color, so its easier to pick cabs, b/s, floors and paint from it.

very hard to match established cab color to granite, even a stained wood.

I wanted white cabinets so picked those first. Then the accent tile, then the granite. However, I went with a black, grey, and white color palette, so it wasn't difficult to find elements that went together.

I think beckysharp and cpartist gave good advice - pick what element you want to be the star and then go from there.

We did the same as cpartist. We wanted a 'wow' kitchen island so picked that first, then coordinated a 'quieter' stone for the perimeter. We were told by our kitchen cabinet designer/supplier that we were very much out of the normal doing the stone first. Plus, we chose the stone even before we broke ground so the counter top fabricator had to put a large deposit down to hold the slabs. (Well, WE put a large deposit down, lol, through our GC.) My guess is the slab yard is not thrilled with what we did but we don't care. We wanted to design the kitchen around the stone so we had to do it this way.

Basically if you really have a partial vision... work with that first. My partial vision is / was probably different than yours. Listen to YOURSELF. And do try to get samples of things, to see how they "talk" to one another.

Remodeled 3 of my kitchens so far and we had a house built. Flooring, cabs, counter, backsplash (and do not be afraid to choose paint or wallpaper instead of tile/glass/or mirror), lighting. If you like to have some interesting patterns/colors I advocate do that only with ONE finish and the rest will support that choice.

Don't be the lady scurrying around a stone yard with a wall covering swatch in her hand, please.

Any of the old GWers remember the Sweeby test? Maybe that will help too in addition to the advice above.

I've had clients choose countertop then cabinets and vise versa.

Both work, however the clients who chose the countertop 1st usually had an easier process, because it helped them budget accordingly and having the sample to bring around to cabinet shops helped them choose their cabinet color in confidence.

I have had a few clients fall in love with cabinets 1st. 2 of them had a difficult time finding a countertop in their budget. Eventually they did & everything worked out in the end.

I personally would pick out countertop 1st if buying a natural stone. They are all unique. Once you find a stone slab you adore, put a deposit down to reserve & take a photo for proof of the slab. Had a client return to get a slab, but someone else beat them to it.

The countertop is the usually the main focal point in a kitchen. Once chosen, it is useful in choosing the rest to coordinate.

Take all samples home 1st to see it in daytime & night lighting.

Get new lighting in 1st, then choose colors. Light bulb hues can really change a color hue. Here's some photo examples of how much different light bulbs can change color.

Pick what is the most important choice to you.

For me it was the counter top. Unfortunately, I picked cabinets first.

Kitchen decisions have a domino effect. I picked the kitchen cabinets I liked best (and I do love them), but they are not a perfect with my countertop.

Never found a KD more interested in getting the best design; they were more interested in selling cabinets and the upgrades. Learned far more and better design ideas from GW, then all the KD's I spoke with combined.

Agree w/ chisue about HW floors. Lived in a very old house that had maple HW in kitchen and oak in other rooms. Since I planned on replacing the maple I did nothing to protect the kitchen floors. Walked on them with icy, snow, salt covered shoes, through long Chicago winters for years and had no damage.

Avoid the Landed From Mars bit of something you love looking like it belongs in a completely different house.

You have to plan an Open concept home all at the same time. It all has to work together. All of the choices are interrelated. You can’t pick a bunch of separate items, without an overal design plan. They have to balance out.

Which is why you design the space on paper before anything else. And you stick to the design, and do not make changes. That’s when you drift into higgeldy piggeldy eeny meeny miney moe.

Too many times we see the result of amateurs picking individual choices of gray cabinets, gray counters, gray floors, and gray walls, and them either being pink undertones or yellow undertones. Or if they get the undertones correct, the color values are all so much the same that there is no differentiation to the eye, and it’s s giant gray uninteresting blob.

Design the whole space. Stick to the design. If you can’t do that, then work with a Pro. Because they can, and it’s why Professionally designed spaces come together better. A Pro is ruthless in ruling out choices that do not work with the overall design plan. And homeowners are not ruthless in cutting out things that they have fallen for that just don’t work in their house.

Prepare to love some things from afar. In someone else’s house. Not yours.

You pick your budget first. Always. I will not make a single design decision without it. After that, you generally select your cabinet first because it should be the most costly item in your kitchen. So you need to choose the manufacturer and line of cabinet and then select from their finish choices. Once you get that price, you know what you have to spend for everything else. There are a million ways to design a room and it’s always primarily dictated by the budget.

If you pick the things with the least selection first (appliances) and move to the things with the most (paint colors) your choices are always expanding instead of narrowing.

(Your real kitchen please, not the one where Brad Pitt feeds you no-cal chocolates while George Clooney polishes the brass knobs on your Lacanche.)

OMG, I just spit out my water all over the screen laughing. Ok now I'm going to go fantasize about George wiping down my counters since I don't have a Lacanche.

You have to plan an Open concept home all at the same time. It all has to work together. All of the choices are interrelated. You can’t pick a bunch of separate items, without an overal design plan. They have to balance out.

YES! While I wasn't finalized on my overall color scheme, I did have a very good idea from the beginning of what style my house was, how I was going to integrate all the elements, etc. I even had the kitchen/dining/living room cabinets floor plans designed. Once I had the counters picked, the choice of colors fell into place.

The only things still up in the air was the lighting in terms of chandelier and hanging pendants. But even there I had a pretty good idea of which fixtures I was going to use. I did almost stray with my dining area fixture, but realized the error of my ways.

I've been away this weekend, but appreciate reading all of the recent comments. I definitely think my counter will be the star. Our backsplash area is relatively small, so will definitely leave that till the end to decide what goes there. I have been looking (somewhat obsessively) so have a pretty good idea of fixtures I like.

I do love natural hardwoods, but I can almost guarantee my husband would veto that material. He (and volunteers and friends) spent many hours, blood, sweat and tears tearing the original oak floors out of our flooded house. I would worry about having them in the kitchen.

And now I am going to imagine Brad Pitt feeding me bon bons in my new kitchen, lol. (it is my family's ongoing joke that I stay at home and eat bon bons all day while they are at school/paying job, lol).

Joseph- good idea. I am reusing most appliances (till they die anyway), so that one is easy. I like the idea of expanding choices.

ArtistSharonVA - thank you for the lighting pictures. Those are immensely helpful.

CPartist - I am trying to plan the open concept rooms together. The wall color will be a neutral greige or straight up light tan color. We don't own much furniture anymore and will not likely be able to afford much new when we finish building. Furniture will trickle in over the next few years I imagine. This will give me time to 'finish' the living/dining. My dining room table and chairs did survive, so those will drive some of the furniture choices.

We have gone with luxury vinyl plank in our past home (floating) and will be doing so in the new as tile is too hard on the legs.

First, know your budget (or allowances, if you are doing a fixed price type build).

Then, know your style. There are some beautiful kitchens on Houzz - @cpartist’s is one. Her quartzite really is a piece of art and her kitchen is amazing. But it is one I will admire from afar for many reasons: not my own personal style, not suitable for size of my kitchen, and not in my own chosen budget around here either.

If your house is open concept, you really need to also pay attention to how you will see into the kitchen from other spaces, and out of it into other spaces!

I am doing a modified production build so I first assessed the “builder standards”. I was very happy with the builders standard appliances for the amount and way I cook (different brands but all stainless steel). So that part was easy.

After that were things I knew I wanted and things I did or, so that narrowed it down. There are so many great photos on Houzz you can browse through to determine what styles you are more drawn too. I knew wanted a more modern or contemporary kitchen with slab or shaker cabinets. No raised panels, applied molding, etc. I also knew I wanted white cabinets as it is only colour cabinet I have never tired of. I knew I wanted a polished white or warmer-gray quartz. I knew I wanted something neutral because in my small open space I wanted flexibility for my art and furniture choices. I knew that, contrary to most, I did not want cabinets to the ceiling. I knew I wanted brushed nickel hardware as I find it blends better. I wanted my smaller kitchen to be less of a star and more a comfortable neutral backdrop. But...keep in mind I don’t cook a whole lot or entertain a whole lot, and if I do, I am more likely serving drinks and catered food than cooking! So, I wanted a kitchen that was functional but not visually dominating in my small open space.

My builder has a design centre so I was able to pick out everything at same time and see how the choices all fit together, but I chose the cabinets and counters (quartz) more or less together first in a sense and the rest flowed from there. You may be able to do similar by going to a kitchen design centre. Get samples and take them home to look in different lights, and to cart around to choose flooring etc.

Most will recommend picking backsplash last once everything is in. I could not do that but it was still the last thing I picked out (and had to pick out again as very very last thing when my first option was backordered!). Only thing I did not pick from builder was lighting as their choices really kind of sucked!

Re: hardwood in kitchen. I have had hardwood in kitchen in two houses - including current house - and it was fine. That said my new house will have laminate in kitchen and I expect it will also be fine. I don’t want hardwood at all anymore, not just about kitchen. But all depends on your kitchen use and such I suppose. I can’t say - other than time we had a leaky dishwasher - I have ever had much water on kitchen floor for hardwood to be an issue. We do currently have a powder room with hardwood - also not my choice - and the hardwood is all warped and needs replacing due to a toilet leak. It is also showing issues near doorways. And yes, choosing laminate in my kitchen there is a risk from another leaky dishwasher but will deal with it if it comes to that. My neighbours put LVP in their entire house - not an inexpensive house - because of their large slobbery dogs and are very happy with it. As is my friend who put it all on main floor of her new and not inexpensive new build.

Sorry to hear about your flood, Cyndy. I'm a fellow re-builder after the same experience and understand the extreme negative reaction to items susceptible to water damage ;). Being in the south, I chose tile for the public rooms...even before water came into our home. I saved some of my area rugs, which will add softness and dampen sound. I don't have my dogs, anymore, but they had a hard time on the vinyl flooring I tried out in another room, when I was considering material for the living area. For LVT, don't forget the moisture barrier underlayment, especially if you're on a slab!

That brings me to how I ordered my choices. Flooring first, because we're using the tile we had already chosen for our living area/hall and extending it. Then, I looked at cabinetry and figured that out very easily after lucking onto my inspiration picture. The kitchen countertop color fell into place for the same reason and the material was chosen for it's repairability (and I love how it feels). The backsplash will be the same material. My kitchen layout was guided by the appliances we are reusing, the changes I wanted to make, and allowing for replacements with larger specs. Paint is last due to taking into account the new lighting plan and lowE windows/sliders that have a green cast, though I know the general direction.

I'm uncertain about the drawer pulls. I have expensive taste, judging by the sticker shock when I love something! I have some favorite hardware from the ruined wood pieces/previous cabs and will be reusing those for the bathroom vanities, laundry cabinets, etc.

We're reusing the decorative lighting that I've been changing over the years. LED cans and UCL are being added in the reno.

Alex - I am so sorry you flooded as well. We too are re-using and re-purposing many things. We even pulled all the closet light fixtures and cheapo fixtures to use in our of the way places.

I too usually have expensive taste! I have lucked out and Picked a few cheaper things so far! I hope my luck continues :)

Mid-America Mom - I definitely cannot do tile, I have arthritis and have had foot and back issues. Tile for bathrooms only I am afraid.

I hear you! Sorry you have to deal with that and a flooded place.

For this house we are leaning toward getting a luxury vinyl plank that looks more like a traditional site finished floor in either maple or oak and the "boards" are more clean/clear looking wood. This rustic plank thing is a fad but it helps hide scratches and such. Then gray ish floors is one fad we might pull the trigger on knowing we would replace in the future .. it is only about 500 sqft we need to deal with.

Mid-America Mom - We finished the 1960 red oak floors in our flooded place when we bought it 5 years ago. They were in awful shape and It was a labor of love (and a ton of sweat) to get them done - we had 30 days before we had to move in. We did not stain, just sealed and I LOVED how it looked. Will probably try to find some LVP that has a similar look, albeit with wider planks. When I walk in places that have dark floors, I feel like I see every dust speck and pet hair. I need floors that hide my poor housekeeping.