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Are you tackling a tricky room layout? Struggling to find the perfect color palette? Wondering how to blend your style with your space? Our in-house interior design expert, Jaclyn Bohn, is here to help!
Through renovating, furnishing, and decorating two of her own houses, Jaclyn has been able to utilize what she’s learned from her experiences to help others not only settle into their homes, but love spending time in them as well.
Submit your design questions here, and let us guide you toward your dream space.
Kitchen Remodels and Entryway Solutions
Our in-house design expert Jaclyn Bohn answers readers’ top design questions to help them transform their spaces.
I am designing a kitchen remodel and have pretty much locked in the layout I would like for optimal functionality. However, I cannot seem to narrow down the cabinet vendor for the look I seek. There are so many companies (from big box stores to custom independent artisans and loads in between). How can I best select which company to go with while not exploding the budget? My husband is a general contractor and will do the install. His recommendations have been great, but also full of options that is muddling my brain. Please help me to find my way! – Elisa, Pinehurt, NC
Hi, Elisa. This is so exciting! There is nothing like a kitchen remodel, especially one that will improve the functionality of your home. You’re completely right—the options are endless and often overwhelming. I recommend going into a local kitchen and bathroom showroom, so you can sit down with someone in person. Show them the look you are going for and ask them to present pricing on the three main options which would be ready-to-assemble (RTA), semi-custom, and custom. Let them nail down the brands for you based on what is available in the layouts that you need. Once you can look at all pricing options with physical samples, this should help you focus in on what to choose.
Hi, Jaclyn: I have a 1940’s Governor Winthrop slant top desk (my grandmother’s) adjacent to 1980’s Henkel Harris dining set with the Chippendale claw feet on dining chairs. What would be a suitable desk/side chair for the desk that is still compatible with the dining room set? Thanks for your help. – Mike, Springfield
Hi Mike! Wow! I am impressed with your furniture collection. I had to go back into my course material from many years ago and brush up on my classic furniture knowledge to give you the best answer. You could keep the chair styles consistent and go with a Chippendale style side chair like this and get the cushion reupholstered to better match your color scheme. You also could go with a Hepplewhite-style side chair, which has a really interesting back and goes with the traditional style of the rest of the furniture pieces without matching identically. A third option, which would probably set itself apart, would be a Victorian-style swivel desk chair. You can find these in leather upholstery, which would also provide the highest level of comfort.
We have a den that has three entryways: One on each side of the fireplace (TV above), One at the front of the room, and the third, a very wide opening coming from the kitchen near the back wall of windows (some 40 inches from the very back of the wall). The room is 21 ft long by 17 ft wide, with 12 ft ceilings. How do we arrange seating? We don’t want to block the back entryway nor do we want seating lining the back wall. Thank you for your ideas!– Kathleen, Little Rock, AR
Hi, Kathleen! Without seeing pictures, I think I have a pretty good idea of what the room looks like, as living rooms with multiple entries are pretty common especially in homes built in the 90s and early 2000s. I would add one cozy chair on each side of the fireplace, facing away from the tv and cornered in front of the entryways. You should be able to place the chairs in a way that sits enough off the doorway that it leaves a clear walking path into the room. For a sofa, assuming the back wall with the large entryway is the one facing the tv and fireplace, you can pull the sofa about a foot or two off the wall. That way there is either enough room for someone to walk behind it or just enough space that you can see it isn’t anchored against the wall (which I don’t love doing either). Then, once the sofa is off the wall, you can have it come out in front of the larger entry maybe 1/3 of the way. Visually, it’s not sitting right up against the entry which would look strange, and it’s also not coming out enough into the doorway to block anyone from getting into the room.
We just had a kitchen renovated, and we find that the room now reflects a lot of noise when many people are in the kitchen. Do you have a suggestion about things I can add to a kitchen to dampen down the acoustical reflections? – Robert, Freemont, CA
Hi, Robert! New construction always seems to bring echoes with it. There are a couple different options to help with this. First, wall décor and rugs help to absorb a lot of the noise. For a kitchen, specifically, I recommend adding a runner rug along where the sink is, with a rug pad underneath for extra absorption. Next, I would focus on getting some art up onto the walls, and if you’re still having an issue with noise, a little trick I learned from someone in the restaurant business years ago is to add acoustic panels underneath dining tables and chairs. Restaurant owners use them to absorb the noise in the dining areas. This is why in some restaurants you’ll notice you can barely hear yourself speak over other people and others you’ll find that despite the number of people sitting around you, you can hear the conversation at your table clearly.
