Kitchen design priorities include cabinets, appliances and lighting
(Aug. 5, 2025) — The opportunity to redesign your kitchen is truly a luxury, so being thoughtful about the following steps will ensure a spectacular finale.
Whether you are designing a kitchen from scratch or diving into a remodel in your existing home, two things need to happen right away: coming up with a strong, functional layout of your kitchen cabinets and selecting appliances that will enhance your kitchen in regard to aesthetics and scale.
These two initial first steps should take place at the same time. As you are laying out the kitchen cabinetry, it’s important to factor in where you want your appliances.
A remodel provides a chance for you to include appliances that have always been on your wish list. This might be a hot water dispenser at your kitchen sink, a drawer microwave, a beverage refrigerator or just increasing the size of existing appliances – like your refrigerator, cooktop or main kitchen sink.
You don’t necessarily need to rearrange your entire kitchen; sometimes just new cabinetry and new appliances in the same footprint can be life changing.
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Most of us who have been cooking, entertaining and even doing homework in our kitchens have specific requirements and probably a lengthy list of things that we would like to change. In this initial step of cabinetry layout and appliance selection, take time to think about how you ultimately want to live in your kitchen.
For example, if the upper cabinets have always frustrated you, maybe placing those cabinets sitting on your kitchen counter will take away that aggravation of reaching upward. If you’ve become annoyed with storing kitchen objects behind cabinet doors, consider drawers throughout that will hold pots and pans, even dishes and pantry items.
There isn’t one set way on how or where you should store things that you use on a daily basis, so customize your kitchen design for the way you live.
Once you are feeling good about your kitchen cabinetry layout and your appliance wish list, the next part of the project is your finishes. Some of us have a dream kitchen in mind: an all-white kitchen with a contrasting, rustic island, two contrasting countertop materials – one for the perimeter and one for the island, black cabinet hardware with a black undermount sink and a gold faucet. Others are counting on sources like Instagram, Houzz and our friends to provide us with design direction.
If you are unsure about the new design of your kitchen, take notes from your existing home. What parts about your home makes you the happiest? Is it a specific wall color or wallpaper? The shape of your stairwell? Does your home have unique architectural details that you would love to see brought out in your new kitchen design?
Or maybe your home has no real design details that inspire you, so creating this new kitchen is your opportunity to initiate a design that will eventually filter throughout the rest of your home.
Selecting countertop material is another high priority of kitchen design. Whether you decide to go with natural stone, quartz, porcelain, cement, butcher block or any other man-made material, finding a countertop that is not only functional, but adds intrigue and the right aesthetic is really the icing on the cake.
Your countertops can do one of two things. If your kitchen cabinetry and layout create a quiet background, maybe you want the countertops to take center stage. Or, if your kitchen cabinetry design has intricate design details, perhaps with multiple contrasting colors, you may want your countertops to be more of a quiet space where your eyes rest.
Finding the right balance of cabinetry and countertops really is the glue that holds a kitchen together.
The last priority of kitchen design is lighting. The right lighting will truly bring any living space from dull to breathtaking. With the variety of tasks that take place in a kitchen, lighting should never be an afterthought, but rather a complete design endeavor.
For example, recessed cans sprinkled throughout, decorative pendants or a single chandelier centered over an island or within the general kitchen space, under cabinet lighting, an individual fixture set above your kitchen sink and even toe kick lighting will create a lighting plan that truly glows.
Enjoy the process from the initial cabinetry layout to selecting a suite of your wish list appliances, focusing in on the finishes of your cabinetry and countertops, to finally taking your time to create a lighting plan that illuminates everything. A new kitchen design can truly be an exciting way to marry your functional needs with an aesthetically pleasing environment to cook in and focus on homework – and everything in between.
Jennifer Leischer
Jennifer Leischer is the owner of J. Designs Interior Design based in Clayton, CA. Combining a public relations degree from California State University, Chico, with further studies in design and interior architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, Jennifer began her career as an interior designer in 1998, working for various firms in San Francisco and Orinda, and Denver, Colorado. She describes every designing moment, throughout her career, as a wonderful tutorial about the importance of relationships, open communication, and getting down to the basics of functional, yet stylish, living spaces.