PROBLEMS: The Oregon City home, located in a park-like setting, had a kitchen that was seriously outdated. It had the typical soffit and dark oak cabinets, laminate countertops, and patterned vinyl flooring. The homeowners had developed a storage system that worked okay, but most of the contents in the base cabinets were hard to retrieve.

CREATIVE SOLUTIONS: Changes to the kitchen included new stainless steel appliances, a new angled corner cabinet for dishes and glasses, a new microwave-pantry cabinet, and full-extension drawers and rollouts. New cabinets were painted with a custom color chosen by the homeowners, except the cabinet under the bay window and the island which are a light-stained alder. The door and window trim and the new baseboard match the stained cabinets. The flooring is easy to maintain LVT, as are the granite countertops and denim-blue backsplash tiles.

TESTIMONIAL: We chose our designer Diane Plesset (DP Design) because of her positive reviews. The kitchen remodeling sections of her book “The Survival Guide: Home Remodeling” were very helpful to me in understanding the scope of the project, timelines and all the decisions that needed to be made. Diane is a very positive and upbeat person. There are always compromises in a remodel, but there are many solutions as well. She helped us find good solutions. She gave us a great detailed design for the kitchen. The CAD pictures were so helpful because mentally visualizing doesn’t work too well for me. She worked really hard to give us the kitchen features we wanted. She located beautiful pendant lights for our island. She also connected us with great people to do the work. The result was a beautiful and functional kitchen. We are delighted with the process and our new kitchen.