Kitchen Decorating Ideas
- Discovering Good Sources

It's amazing what kitchen decorating ideas you can get for free from the library and your local retailers, as I discovered.

I moved into a house some time ago and wanted to modernize it by installing a fitted kitchen, new plumbing, and decorating it throughout.

Being on a tight budget, I didn't have enough money to do it all at once, so decided to start with the kitchen, because that would please the wife, and it did need the most work.

But first I had to get some kitchen decorating ideas, since I wasn't sure quite what I was going to do.

My first thought was to check out the local library to see if I could get some kitchen decorating ideas from interior design books, magazines, periodicals and trade magazines.

If you're regularly looking for ideas and inspiration for remodelling your home you may want to consider subscribing to a specialty magazine.

One of the quickest ways to find out what magazines exist in your area of interest is to look online. A good place to start that I uncovered has over 1500 magazines to choose from.

Whilst a lot of these magazines featured dream kitchens that were well outside my budget I did get some great kitchen decorating ideas.

One of the interior design books I found showed pictures of several kitchen renovation projects as they were done.

The photos detailed each main step in the kitchen project and gave a timeline showing how long each phase took.

I found the timeline very helpful since in reality things always take longer than planned. This they showed in the book, when they had to do more work than expected, due to uncovering a problem with one wall when they gutted the kitchen.

In addition, in some of the magazines I found articles that gave a blow by blow account on how to implement some of the kitchen decorating ideas being talked about.

I made photocopies of the items I wanted, and in the case of one magazine that was for the current month, I bought it from a newsagent so I had the magazine at home to work from.

I also found some good ebooks and resources on the Internet.

Home Improvement Tips, Techniques and Ideas Guide was particularly useful.

It included kitchen design, whether to buy new kitchen cabinets or reface and many other remodeling tips.

It also gave me many ideas I could use on the rest of the house.

After hours reviewing many different kitchen decorating ideas, I had to decide which ones would suit the space and layout of my kitchen.

This wasn't as simple as just picking the features I liked the most and then hoping I could make them fit together.

Firstly, any ideas that I wanted to implement had to be within my budget. With the rest of the house to think about I didn't want to spend all my money on just the kitchen.

Secondly, the kitchen decorating ideas I chose had to be practical and within my abilities to implement. As I didn't want to hire contractors, this latter point was an important consideration.

Armed with my decorating ideas I visited as many local DIY and Home Improvement stores as I could find in my local area.

The store staff were not only helpful, but in some cases very knowledgeable. This not only gave me more kitchen decorating ideas, but changed some of the ideas I already had.

I also wanted to purchase as much of the materials as I could from local suppliers. By doing so, if I had problems I had a face to face contact to get them resolved.

This was much better and quicker than trying to deal with a distant supplier over the phone or by letter.

After visiting the local suppliers I came back armed with cabinet dimensions and fixture and fittings brochures by the dozen.

With some paper ruled with small squares, a ruler, pencil and eraser I set about drawing to scale the room and each of the cabinets in a two dimensional plan view.

I then cut out the cabinets and kitchen fitments I had drawn on paper and positioned them on the plan view of the kitchen.

In this way I could move the pieces of paper representing the cabinets around the paper plan of the room to see what would fit.

If you have access to a PC and the Internet there are floor planning software's you can download for this purpose.

You can Design & View your Dream Home with FloorPlan 3D which will give you basic finished views in three dimensions.

However don't expect the results to be as good as with say Professional Home Design.

I have also used planning software applications like SmartDraw and Professional Home Design (shown opposite).

Once you get familiar with how to use them, they are great fun.

It's also great to see your kitchen decorating ideas come to life on screen ! 

For more details click on the box image above. 

With Professional Home Design software, being able to work in 3D is also a great advantage because you can view your kitchen design ideas from any angle ..... it comes highly recommended.

Household Tips & Do-It-Yourself Advice