A Kitchen Renovation using SketchUp

I wanted to share a project I am working on at the moment. Some friends of mine, "J" and "L" are doing a complete renovation on a house and it has been taken down to the studs! The entire thing!

I'll show you the pictures first because that's what I would want to see.

This 1st picture is taken from the kitchen facing the front door.

Below, in the second picture is, the view directly to the right of the front door. The 3 car garage, laundry room, and storage are near the very back. There is a fireplace sitting in the middle of the house and "J" would like to build an office behind the fireplace and make a formal living room in the area where you see the door laying on the ground.

In this third picture, I pivoted a bit to the left to show how open everything is. The area by the sliding glass door will be the dining room and "J" wants to knock out the wall to the right and extend it a few feet to create a bigger family room.

This kitchen picture is taken standing from the front door. The second is taken from the dining room. The bedrooms are on the other side of the kitchen. (That's my best buddy and sweet husband Sean!)

So! the details: "J" already had plans for the kitchen but wanted some input on the finishes. We met at the house and walked around discussing the types of hard finishes to use in the bathrooms and kitchen and chit chatted about renovations. After talking and looking at the plans with "J", he mentioned he was thinking of doing open shelves and removing one of the side cabinets in the kitchen to include a minibar/wine/coffee bar. He was also thinking about extending the living room a few feet and creating an office on the other side of the fireplace. I started looking around picturing the possibilities and wanted to open my mouth and offer to give him a slightly different version of the space. Honestly, the plans "J" received from the cabinet company were fine and worked for the space. But in that moment I saw an incredible opportunity to practice using SketchUp and build up a kitchen from nothing, AND it was a chance to be creative, AND it was going to force me to be brave and do something that felt overwhelming. I'm going to boomerang for a second so please bear with me...

What I thought was, "What's the worst that would happen if I did this?"

Well, the worst that would happen is he would thank me for my design and continue on with his renovation and I would have put in a handful of hours of extra work/practice. That's not too bad... I'll take that any day over total humiliation in front of an audience of people. But I took it a step further...

What's the worst that would happen if I didn't try to create a learning experience for myself?

I would be allowing this thing called "FEAR" to be the boss and reinforce a limiting belief that I'm not good enough, brave enough, smart enough, and creative enough to do this. I had to make a choice in that moment and filter through everything my body was feeling and what the "negative voices" were saying.

For me, offering to re-work the design felt like my body was physically taking a step forward and as if I was taking off a blanket of self doubt. There were beautiful colors swirling around my head, floating and blending together into this watercolor painting of me actually succeeding. It felt warm and bright and I was happy and proud. I heard birds chirping and the sound of a stream...But I also heard and felt the buzzing of these unformed black ink splotches. They were zooming around, screaming insecurities towards my painting, and trying to splatter self doubt everywhere and ruin it. I could feel my heart pounding and was aware that I wasn't breathing. I had two choices:

1. Stand there quietly and watch as fear slung ugly darkness onto an opportunity...OR

2. Turn around and stop the negativity and give myself the gift of growth.

And I chose #2. And please by no means am I trying to imply it was as easy as just saying, "Sorry Fear, I hear you knocking but I'm not answering." with one hand on my hip and the other flipping my hair. It has definitely taken work and consistency in changing a pattern of unhealthy thinking and creating a growth and positive frame of mind. So instead of standing there and letting the splotches do their thing, I turned around, grabbed, and hugged them.

What?!

Yes, I hugged them. Because those little zooming ink splotches are part of my past and if it wasn't for a combination of everything heartbreaking and heart-mending from the last 41 years of my life I would not be who I am today. I can't be mad at that...instead, I am grateful and open to learning and growing. So I'm making it a point to get to know my inky colored fears/insecurities/issues and have some compassion and understanding of where they came from. I need to work with them and hopefully grow from them so that when opportunities come by I will take them or create them. And with that all that happening in my head as "J" and Sean were talking, I opened my mouth and offered to tweak the design a bit. And "J" said "Sure" and told me he would email me the measurements that night. Well, that was easy! Imagine if I had said nothing. (In case you missed it, the boomerang has returned and we're back to the topic)

As soon as I got those numbers I got to work putting his ideas in. Here is what was sent to me:

In a spur of the moment decision I texted him and asked if I could go back to the house and measure the entire floor space so that I could get an idea of how everything would flow together as a whole. I got the OK and here is what I have so far! (FYI that wall that sticks out by the kitchen is not there. I put it in to create an entrance. I'm not sure how I feel about it just yet.)

Not too shabby for my first time creating a kitchen from some numbers. I still have things I want to change like the coffee bar area next to the fridge, rework the cabinets above the stove, and change the style of the hood. But overall I'm thrilled I was able to get this far. The best part about all this is the number of mistakes I have made in creating the space! My Goodness! The frustration of trying to figure out and remember my training, the stress of trying to get my lines straight, accidentally erasing whole sections of the floor-plan, and having my laptop crash right before I saved everything and then having to start all over. But it's ok...because I'm learning and growing my skills in all areas (even blogging). This whole process has been such an experience and I'm getting a better idea of what I would do differently and how to navigate the program.

A big thank you to "J" and "L" for the opportunity to be creative. I look forward to seeing how everything progresses with their house and wish them the best and smoothest process for their renovation.

I will give an update on this project in the next couple of weeks, explain what I was thinking for the layout, and show what they ended up doing with the house. I will also give an update on "P's" office.

Also, as I mentioned in the previous post, I wanted to talk about my double mastectomy, my reconstructive surgeries, and my recovery (emotional and physical). I'm truly hoping it will help even just one woman out there that may have questions, especially regarding the reconstruction process and options.

Until then, I hope you have a wonderful week!

-Diana

p.s. If you haven't already gotten a chance to read them, here is a link to my first and second posts. They give you a sense of who I am and how I work, making it easier to understand future posts.