have a passion for hosting and could talk all day about this. There are so many details you can add but I also want you to remember that this doesn’t have to be done perfectly. You know what you have the margin for and where your limitations are.

The kitchen is the room that gets used the most, judged the most, and redesigned the most. It’s also the room where bad design decisions are felt every single day. A drawer in the wrong place, not enough counter space, lighting that makes everything feel flat. These things add up quickly when you’re in the space twice a day, every day.

Every home I’ve worked on has taught me something about the gap between how people think they live and how they actually live. That gap is where most design decisions go wrong, and where the most useful work happens.

There’s a particular feeling you get when you walk into someone’s home and immediately feel welcome. The temperature is right, something smells good, and there’s a sense that the space was prepared with you in mind. You relax before you’ve even sat down.

Have you ever walked into a room and felt your shoulders drop? Or sat down to work at a cluttered desk and spent the next 20 minutes staring at the wall, unable to get work done?

The spaces we live in are constantly sending us signals. And whether we’re aware of it or not, we’re always responding to them.