If you're already picking out tile and pricing countertops, some part of you has already decided you're designing this kitchen yourself and hiring out the rest. The real question isn't whether or not you can. It's whether you're about to do it the hard way or the smart way. And today I'm going to help you figure out which one you're headed for. Welcome to Design Your Home, the podcast that helps you design and decorate your home with confidence. I'm Sally Sorcelli, award-winning interior designer. Let's get started. Well, hey there, and welcome back to another episode of the Design Your Home Podcast. If you're listening to this episode, chances are you've already decided you're designing your own kitchen. Or at least that's the plan, right? That part settled. So today isn't about whether or not you can do this. It's about whether or not you're about to do it alone or do it with a plan. And those two paths look almost identical from the outside, but boy do they feel very different by week three. So by the end of this episode, you'll know exactly which path you're headed towards and what the other option actually looks like. You ready to get started? Let's dive in.
With the first point I want to make is what DIY actually requires day to day. So before we get into which path you're going to head towards, here's what the job of remodeling your kitchen and designing it actually involves. So you know what you're sizing yourself up against. It's managing every selection yourself. From cabinets to countertops to tile to hardware to lighting to appliances to flooring, fixtures, details, everything you name it. Coordination of contractors and trades and being the one who makes the call when a schedule slips or something doesn't fit as planned. It could be saying yes or no on dozens and dozens and dozens of small decisions multiple times a week for months. So picture yourself on like a random Tuesday night. You're standing in the aisle of some tile store with your phone out, and you're price checking three backsplash options while trying to remember if you already use that part of your budget on the faucet and you're forgetting what you've already bought and will this match what you're doing? It's really not a one-time occurrence. That happens most weeks for months. Kitchen remodels take lots of decisions, lots of mental energy, lots of planning, lots of precision. And so you need to get things dialed in. It's not good or bad that it's this way, it's just the actual job description. It's why so many clients ask me to help them with their kitchens and students do in my programs, because it's not a small process to embark on. It's a worthwhile one, 100%. And it will make such a difference in your home when you're done with it. But it doesn't mean it's an easy road to take. So moving on to signs that you're set up the smart way.
So if you're set up for success here, what does that look like? Well, you've got a clear budget you're working from, not really a range of things you're quote, hoping to happen or hoping works. And you have a strong, defined sense of your own style. So decisions feel connected and confirming instead of random and just thrown together like you're guessing. You also would have a solid group of doable ideas to make your kitchen look custom and high-end and not builder basic. Because the worst thing, if you are remodeling your kitchen and going through all this effort, and in the end it just comes out looking like a builder basic kitchen, that's gonna be a real disappointment after all the hard work that you have put in. And then the last sign that you're set up and ready to do this the smart way is you've got the real bandwidth right now in this season of your life to hold a hundred small decisions at once, juggle all the not just decisions, but the workings of a kitchen remodel with different contractors and people coming in your house, the shopping, the spending, and living without a kitchen while you're remodeling. So you need to have the bandwidth ready for it. It's not necessarily the longest process, but it's also not something that lasts two weeks either. You could be one to five months of this, depending on how extensive and timely your remodel can be. It could go even longer. I've seen it happen with people doing it the not smart way. So signs you're heading in the
wrong direction. I don't want to say the wrong direction per se, but that you're heading in a way that's gonna make it much harder for you. Let's go into those next. Sign one is you don't have a firm budget yet. You're still kind of living in that, well, we're not sure, I'll figure it out later, maybe somewhere around here, but we don't know yet. Sign number two, you're headed for the hard way, is you have decision fatigue already showing up and you haven't even picked a single finish yet. Again, like I've mentioned, and I don't say these things at all to scare you. Kitchens are big beasts, they just require a lot of bandwidth. And so if you're already getting decision fatigue or having a hard time deciding, you're gonna be having a hard time through this remodel. Along that same sign line is another sign is you're feeling overwhelmed by the options before you've even started. So not only are you having a hard time making decisions, you are overwhelmed by all the options. There are hundreds of cabinet options to choose from, dozens to hundreds of countertop options. Backsplash tile, you're in the thousands of options. Paint colors, thousands. Hardware, hundreds. And you might be wondering, does this match my style? Does this match my home? Do these match together and coordinate? If all of this is fill feeling overwhelming, you're heading into a harder path. Another sign you're headed for the hard way is you don't really know what specific order your decisions have to happen and what specific steps need to happen in what order. Kitchen remodels follow a specific process. All the ones I do with my clients and students, I guide you through a very specific process. And some decisions can wait until later, but some that you think aren't that important and can wait till the end actually have to happen right from the very beginning. And if you don't know which ones happen early, which ones can happen late, you could be in the middle of your project and a tradesperson or contractor, electrician, or plumber could be in there and say, Wait, you don't have this yet? Do you have this picked out? And then what ends up happening is you end up running to the store and making a super quick, super fast decision that impulse purchase, which truthfully they don't go well often. And then you're feeling rushed, and that's when things start to slip and things don't start to work together. So if you don't know those specific orders and steps, you're in it for the hard path. And none of this means that you cannot do your own kitchen. You absolutely can. And I strongly encourage that as it's a way to save money. It means doing it completely from scratch alone is where it gets hard. Let's move on a little bit and talk about some positives here. Cause I might have been scaring you a little bit with some of the negatives
or what it looks like when you're doing it the hard way. But you don't have to do it the hard way. So let's now talk about some of the signs of what a smart path forward with your kitchen looks like. And the smart way, I do want to preface this, doesn't mean hiring an interior designer to do it all for you. It still 100% can be you doing it, saving all that money, doing your own kitchen design. Now, sure, can you hire a designer like me or another designer to do that for you? Absolutely. And that's what my full service clients do. But you'd be investing a large portion of your budget just for my services. And instead, you could save thousands and thousands of dollars by doing the design yourself. It's doable. So that guided middle path where you're doing it on your own, but you have some support. I call it like a designer in your back pocket type of thing. This is actually why I built my program, Kitchen Design Essentials, what it's there for. It's a way to walk you through all decisions in the right order. So nothing blindsides you three weeks in. And you'll know what products are the best for the kitchen. You'll get your style down, what things go together, how to know if they go together or not. Something people miss quite often. So let me show you what that actually feels like because it is a real difference. It's not just a nicer way of saying the same thing. It really feels different when you have
support. So, what does this different path look like day to day? Well, you are making all the same decisions that we discussed earlier in this episode. You're choosing the cabinets, your tile backsplashes, or your slab backsplashes, your lighting, your counters, your fixtures, your hardware, your flooring, all the special details that make your kitchen stand out and look custom. But it's a completely different experience making these decisions when you have a guide and a process helping you with it. It doesn't feel so lonely or so questionable if things will work or not, because you can bounce those ideas off and you have an actual process to help you determine if things will work together or not. So instead of standing in that aisle wondering if that tile's going over budget, you already have a grasp on your number because it's one of the first things you nailed down when taking on this remodel. And instead of scrolling 40 tabs of inspiration photos on Pinterest with no idea where to start, you're choosing from a short list that's already been narrowed down to what exactly and actually will fit in your space and your style. And instead of wondering a month in if you forgot something, you're moving through decisions in an order with a checklist that's already been mapped out for you. So you're not forgetting loose ends or having any things that got admitted that will bite you later on. And when questions come up during the process, and they always do, you have someone to ask for expert guidance and support. That's the actual difference. It's not that you're less involved. This is still you doing it, your ownership on this. And that can be really important to people. Now, my clients that hire me for full service, many of them, there's a large chunk of them that kind of want to be a little bit hands-off. They want me to do all the heavy lifting and make all the decisions. And they just want a few things kind of curated and pared down and presented to them. That's pretty common with full service. And then a subset of my full service clients is that they really kind of want to be in there with me because they really want that pride of ownership that they were doing this. Not that they're trying to not give me credit for it or take credit for it, but they really just have that pride. They have a passion for design, they just don't necessarily have the skills or background in it. So they're a little more nervous to embark on it alone. So that's why they bring me in. But they're very involved clients. I have some clients that just kind of want me to pare things down, filter decisions, and give them, you know, one to three options. And then those more involved clients, they're what I kind of call DIYers willing to hire. They kind of want to be really involved in the process because they just take so much pride in their home. Not that the other people don't, but they kind of geek out on this and they enjoy the process. And I'm thinking of one client in particular who I've worked with for years and she's just lovely to work with, but she really likes to be side by side with me for things. And so I know that about her, but other clients are a little more hands-off. When you are not bringing a designer in at all under a professional full service capacity, you have much more ownership of your kitchen remodel and the outcomes. And if that makes you a little bit nervous, this option in my kitchen design essentials is a great way that you get some of that support, but you get that pride and ownership at a much more affordable place to go. So the remodel again is not less yours. You're just not alone doing it with this support. This episode is never about or was never about whether you can DIY the design of your kitchen. You're already doing that. It's about whether you do it alone or with a plan. And that's a choice you actually get to make. And it's not about whether or not you have good taste. It's about whether you're ready to make dozens of decisions without a guide. And when you're investing tens of thousands of dollars in your kitchen and affecting your home's value and resale value, you 100% can do it alone, but it's a little bit more secure when you do have
a guide. So here's what I want you to do if you want to make sure you're headed for the smart way and not the hard way of DIYing the design of your kitchen, is I want you to download my free kitchen planning guide at nestorations.com forward slash kitchen. It will walk you through the exact first decisions you need to make with any kitchen remodel. So you're not figuring out the order alone. And if today made you curious what that guided path looks like in kitchen design essentials, keep listening over the next couple of weeks. There's more coming. And one last thing I want to bring up about DIY and kitchens. With kitchens, you have two buckets through the whole remodel. You have your design side and your construction side. And you can DIY both sides of them. With kitchen design, that keeps you from hiring an interior designer one-to-one, that full service design, and that will save you thousands and thousands of dollars. You can actually design your kitchen without a designer through that guided plan makes it so much easier. And the big bonus of that is that you get to use all that money that you would have invested with a designer towards materials and products and to make that kitchen that pin-worthy custom look that you would get at the end. The other bucket of DIYing in our kitchen is on the construction side. That could be demo, managing different trades and contractors. So you could, of course, hire a general contractor and that can help you manage everything. But plenty of people manage that on their own too or choose to. It's not always easy doing that, but again, that's what this guided path is going to help you with both buckets: the DIY of the design and the DIY on the construction side and how to manage all that and the proper order of operations. So that first step is to download that free guide again at nestorations.com forward slash kitchen. And that'll be the first step to help you move forward. And then once you download that guide, you'll be the first to know about different opportunities with kitchen design essentials and when that's available to you. All right, that's it for today's episode. And I'll catch you next week on another episode of Design Your Home. Have a great day.