Thinking about Kitchens Part 1

As the big moving day gets closer my mind is off and running with ideas about the room in which I spend most of my waking hours: the kitchen.  I want it to be efficient, visually interesting, tidy (a girl can hope!) and as much as possible I want to enjoy being in there.  The best thing about my current kitchen is the cabinet space.  There is a lot of space.  More than any kitchen I've ever lived in.  But that is where my kitchen and I end our love affair.  The shape, lighting...oh, you name it, doesn't work.

This is the view as you walk in the door.  There is a built in table which is awkward to get around but eating in here with a ceramic tile floor was preferable to the dining room with a baby/toddler and carpeting.

And since I mentioned the floor...oh, how I detest ceramic tile!  Everything shatters when it falls on ceramic.  And since I am a huge klutz I have broken many jars, plates and glasses.  The shape of the kitchen makes more than one person in here at once difficult to maneuver.  (in the interest of full disclosure I left the kitchen as it looks at least three times a day...lol....)

 I remember being excited about this kitchen when I moved in. I suppose I may miss some aspects of it in the future but thinking about a "dream kitchen" is still a work in progress for me.  I don't have my system down yet.  I still have kinks to work out and welcome ideas in several forms, especially photos.

I created a gallery on Flickr for inspiration and also because I'm trying to discern if I have a style of my own.  I noticed some themes happening in the gallery that I hope to incorporate into my new space. 

christayayaya

I love these colours.  That retro red and blue combo is very prevalent in my palette right now.  I can vary the shades of blue from sea foam to turquoise to blue veil.  The red sits between brick, blood and fire engine.  There is a vintage feel to my style, an eclectic mix and match.

one haute mess

And the other decor trend, if I can call it that since I'm not up on them, that I'm loving right now is the mixture of wood tones with painted furniture pieces.  My mother would cringe a bit on that one but painted furniture can really bring the eclectic boho up a notch.  Not to mention that I become more convinced each day that colour is so important for creating personality in your home.  Too much and it's overwhelming but a few hits here and there can make the room.   And my final kitchen decor requirement is open shelving.  I've had several kitchens with mostly open shelving and while it looks cool it gathers tones of dust.  So I wouldn't advocate complete open shelving but definitely some.   

If you couldn't tell before why my kitchen and I aren't the best of friends the Flickr gallery will probably explain it all.  I'm not much for beige.  The colours I'm looking at for the home in general will be blues, grays, reds and some small hints of green.  At least that's what I'm thinking right now.  But of course that may change when we get into the house.   And I'm not thinking walls right now since the co-op has a colour that they paint all the units and we can change if we wish to but I'll really live in the space through at least one year first to make sure that I understand the light in the place.  The wrong light can turn a paint colour into a disaster pretty fast.  Well, I hope that was mildly interesting.  I'm on a bit of a decorating kick these days.