New Design Plan for the Kitchen + Living Room

September 23, 2023

When I’m decorating a room, my absolute favorite thing is to put together a design plan. I need to see how things will go together, if the shapes, colors and patterns work well and tell the overall “story” that we’re trying to convey. It’s a super time consuming process, but I also think it’s SO FUN. In fact, it’s my favorite thing to do in the whole world! (besides stare at Joey for hours on end.) Doing this also helps me stay on track instead of buying a bunch of random things that I love but that don’t work in the room.

I’ve been working for weeks on putting together a design plan for our new kitchen and living room. Since we now have one big open space, it’s essential that we make all the different parts of the room feel really cohesive. We want to give this super white space more warmth, depth and definition. We also want to make sure that the living room/kitchen/dining area feel like they belong with the other parts of our house, like Joey’s room and the master bedroom that are both already done (ish, in the case of our master).

I keep changing this, which is half the fun, but this is what I’m working on now…

(*These are the things we already have.)

A lot of these things aren’t set in stone. Some of these things we already have, some things like those absolutely gorgeous stools for the island we have every intention of getting, and other things like the rug are just there for an overall feeling but we haven’t really decided yet.

For the overall vibe, we were inspired by our trips to Palm Springs and that cool desert style that’s kind of like one big midcentury pool party. I’m calling it The Desert Meets The Beach Meets Candy Minimalism… until I come up with something more catchy! Our goal is for the space to feel fun, comfortable, laid-back and colorful, but also sophisticated and minimal.

When coming up with a plan, we like to find inspiration in one thing to start, and in this room it’s an extra large photo print by Matt Crump of the super colorful Saguaro Hotel, where we stayed the first time we went to Palm Springs. Matt Crump invented the “candy minimal” art style that I am obsessed with (seriously check that hashtag on Instagram because it’s amazing). That print will go behind the couch. (It’s supposed to be horizontal but we’re going to flip it to make it work better in our space.)

So what do you think of our design plan? Do you like to make a plan when you’re decorating a room or do you wing it?

New Design Plan for the Kitchen + Living Room