Professional designers may have samples, showrooms, and people who know the difference between eggshell and satin paint without checking the can. Amateur remodelers have something equally powerful: stubbornness, personal vision, and the willingness to eat takeout beside a table saw for several months.
That spirit defined the Best Amateur Kitchen category in the 2018 Remodelista Considered Design Awards. Five reader-submitted projects became finalists, ranging from a historic Washington, D.C., rowhouse to a 505-square-foot Los Angeles cottage. Each kitchen addressed a real limitationpoor light, scarce storage, a tiny footprint, an aging structure, or a tight budgetwithout sacrificing personality.
Voting took place during the summer of 2018 and closed on August 3. Readers were allowed to vote once per day, with the winners announced after the public voting period. Although the ballot is now closed, the finalist kitchens still offer a lively design exercise: Which project would earn your vote today?
What Were the 2018 Considered Design Awards?
The Considered Design Awards celebrated residential spaces that were not merely fashionable but carefully planned for the people using them. Remodelista divided its kitchen, bathroom, and living or dining categories between amateur and professional entrants. Gardenista recognized outdoor projects, while The Organized Home added a kitchen-organization category.
Editors and guest judges selected as many as five finalists in each category, but readers chose the eventual winners through a public vote. The 2018 Remodelista judging panel included Roman & Williams cofounder Stephen Alesch and fashion and home designer Jenni Kayne. Winners received editorial coverage and a $500 Schoolhouse gift card. Professional winners also earned entry into the Remodelista Architect and Designer Directory.
For amateur remodelers, the format mattered. These were not fantasy kitchens assembled solely for photography. They were personal projects created around ordinary challenges, imperfect buildings, family histories, and budgets that occasionally required an uncomfortable conversation with a spreadsheet.
Meet the Five Amateur Kitchen Finalists
1. A Stone Cottage in Sherman, Connecticut
Terry Crowe Deegan began with a cottage kitchen that was dark, dated, and burdened by an enclosed laundry room in an inconvenient location. A cabinet blocked a window, aging appliances had survived long enough to qualify for honorary museum membership, and the overall room felt disconnected from the home.
The renovation removed the poorly positioned laundry room and opened the kitchen to more light. An original cupboard was retained and updated, giving the new design a visible connection to the cottage’s past. The finished room included an island, dining space, bar area, and a better relationship with the screened porch, making the kitchen suitable for both daily use and entertaining.
Guest judge Jenni Kayne praised its color palette. More broadly, the project demonstrates how correcting one bad planning decision can transform an entire room. Removing an obstruction did not merely create additional square footage; it improved circulation, daylight, visual openness, and the social role of the kitchen.
Why it deserves a vote: It respects the cottage while fixing the layout problems that prevented the room from functioning comfortably.
2. An 1885 Rowhouse in Washington, D.C.
Hillary and Tyler Davis took a different approach in their 1885 rowhouse. Instead of making the historic building look brand-new, they allowed its age to remain part of the composition. Original painted hardwood floors and an exposed brick fireplace were paired with matte-black stained oak cabinetry and Carrara marble countertops.
The black-and-white palette gives the kitchen graphic clarity, while wood accents and plants prevent it from feeling overly formal. Remodelista editor Julie Carlson highlighted the project’s clever use of space and its combination of traditional and modern elements. That balance is difficult to fake. Too many historical renovations either preserve everything until the kitchen becomes inconvenient or modernize everything until the house develops architectural amnesia.
This finalist found a productive middle ground. The coffee station, dining area, custom cabinetry, brick, and greenery form a room that feels contemporary without denying the building’s original character.
Why it deserves a vote: It proves that old and new materials can share a room without starting an argument.
3. A Contemporary Kitchen in a Historic Montauk Beach Cottage
Steffen’s Montauk kitchen represented the compact contenderthe finalist that did not have abundant space but refused to use that as an excuse. Julie Carlson praised the way the kitchen concentrated substantial utility into a small area.
Graphic floor tile visually defined the kitchen within the historic beach cottage. This is a smart move in a compact or open-plan home because a change in flooring can establish a functional zone without adding a wall. The pattern provides personality, but it also tells the eye where the kitchen begins and ends.
Small kitchens depend on disciplined decisions. Appliances must fit the scale of the room, frequently used items must remain accessible, and decorative features should ideally perform more than one job. Current small-kitchen guidance from American design publications similarly emphasizes properly scaled appliances, vertical storage, open shelving, strong task lighting, and layouts that preserve circulation.
Why it deserves a vote: It uses pattern and efficient planning to turn limited square footage into a memorable design.
4. Hunt Sunday House in Hunt, Texas
Kate Zimmerman Turpin and her husband designed Hunt Sunday House as a guest retreat on her family’s property in the Texas Hill Country. Their goal was for the building to settle quietly into a landscape of golden grass, oak trees, and cedar rather than competing with it.
The kitchen expresses that idea through white concrete countertops, open cabinetry, natural wood, collected pottery, and a compact 20-inch range. Turpin initially considered painting the wood cabinets white but ultimately kept the natural finish. The variations in wood tone warmed the pale surfaces and contributed to the kitchen’s relaxed farmhouse character.
Open storage was partly an aesthetic choice and partly a budget solution. Because the house was intended for guests rather than heavy everyday cooking, the couple could eliminate conventional drawers and doors. Visitors could also see where dishes were stored without conducting an archaeological dig through unfamiliar cabinets.
The room contains deeply personal details. An antique papier-mâché bowl was converted into a pendant light, and furniture and decorative pieces were rescued from Turpin’s parents’ Houston home after Hurricane Harvey. A thick ledge along the concrete counter provides a place for art, cutting boards, and utensils. A steel door became the principal splurge, adding refinement to an otherwise restrained material palette.
Hunt Sunday House ultimately won the 2018 Best Amateur Kitchen award. Kayne had selected it as a finalist because of the contrast between white and wood, while readers apparently agreed that simplicity, warmth, and a strong connection to place were a winning recipe.
Why it earned the winning vote: Every choice supports the purpose of the house: rest, nature, hospitality, and uncomplicated living.
5. The West & Wild Cottage in Los Angeles
Alex and Max faced perhaps the most dramatic starting point. Their 505-square-foot hillside cottage had not been updated since the 1950s. Once work began, they discovered bees inside the walls and damage to the foundationtwo surprises that rarely appear on a cheerful renovation mood board.
With help from friends, they stripped the cottage to the studs and rebuilt it as a bright, peaceful, minimalist home. The kitchen uses white surfaces and warm wood to create an airy atmosphere without making the space feel sterile. Kayne praised the light and the tonal relationship between the wood, white walls, and cabinetry.
The project is an excellent reminder that minimalism is not simply owning three plates and hiding the toaster. In a small home, visual quiet requires careful storage, appropriately scaled features, a limited material palette, and enough natural light to prevent the room from feeling compressed.
Design guidance from Dwell, Apartment Therapy, Architectural Digest, and Houzz repeatedly shows the effectiveness of the same combination: pale reflective surfaces, natural wood, compact appliances, open storage, and daylight. These elements help a small kitchen appear larger while preserving warmth.
Why it deserves a vote: It creates calm and coherence within an extremely small, structurally challenging cottage.
How to Judge an Amateur Kitchen Project
A beautiful photograph can win immediate attention, but a kitchen should be evaluated as a working environment. Before choosing a favorite, consider how effectively each finalist responds to the following questions.
Does the Layout Make Daily Tasks Easier?
A useful kitchen reduces unnecessary movement between food storage, preparation, cooking, and cleanup areas. Modern National Kitchen & Bath Association guidance organizes kitchens around activity centers, work areas, storage systems, appliance placement, aisle clearance, lighting, and accessibility. A dramatic island is not automatically good design if everyone must squeeze around it sideways while carrying a hot pan.
Does the Design Use Light Intelligently?
Natural light makes a kitchen more welcoming, but it must be supported by practical artificial lighting. Ambient fixtures illuminate the room generally, task lighting supports chopping and cooking, and accent lighting highlights materials or architectural features. The U.S. Department of Energy notes that strategically positioned windows can reduce dependence on electric lighting, while kitchen-planning resources recommend dedicated light over important work surfaces.
Does Storage Match the Household?
The finalist kitchens show that storage should be tailored rather than maximized blindly. Hunt Sunday House could use open cabinetry because it was a lightly used guesthouse. A full-time family kitchen might require drawers, pantry storage, concealed appliances, and more protection from dust and cooking residue.
Open shelves improve access, display attractive objects, and make a small room feel less top-heavy. Their less glamorous résumé includes frequent dusting and a strict policy against collecting seventeen promotional travel mugs. The correct choice depends on cooking habits, inventory, and tolerance for visual clutter.
Does the Kitchen Preserve Meaningful Character?
The strongest amateur projects do not resemble anonymous showrooms. The D.C. rowhouse keeps original floors and brick. The Connecticut cottage retains an old cupboard. Hunt Sunday House incorporates inherited and salvaged pieces. These elements give each project a story that cannot be ordered with two-day shipping.
Were the Budget Decisions Sensible?
Successful remodeling rarely means purchasing the most expensive option in every category. It means spending where performance or emotional value matters and simplifying elsewhere. Hunt Sunday House saved on cabinet doors but invested in a distinctive steel door. Other homeowners may prioritize durable counters, better ventilation, electrical improvements, or high-quality drawer hardware.
Is the Kitchen Safe and Healthy?
Ventilation deserves as much attention as countertops. Cooking produces moisture, odors, particles, and combustion byproducts. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recommends a correctly sized range hood that captures cooking emissions and exhausts them outdoors. ENERGY STAR guidance likewise identifies externally vented kitchen exhaust as an important indoor-air-quality feature. Good lighting, slip-resistant flooring, clear walkways, and accessible storage further reduce everyday hazards.
What the Finalists Reveal About Lasting Kitchen Design
Although these projects were selected in 2018, their most persuasive features do not depend on a single trend. Natural materials, practical layouts, good daylight, thoughtful storage, and respect for a building’s architecture remain relevant because they respond to human needs rather than an annual color forecast.
White and wood appear repeatedly among the finalists, but not as a rigid formula. In Texas, the pairing connects the kitchen to the landscape. In Los Angeles, it enlarges a tiny cottage visually. In Washington, darker wood and black cabinetry create contrast against marble and historic brick. The lesson is not that every kitchen must be white with wooden shelves. The lesson is that a limited palette becomes powerful when it supports the room’s scale, light, history, and mood.
The finalists also demonstrate the value of subtraction. Removing a laundry room improved the Connecticut cottage. Compact appliances prevented the Montauk kitchen from becoming crowded. Open cabinetry reduced cost in Texas. Minimal finishes quieted the tiny Los Angeles home. Sometimes the most successful renovation tool is not another feature but a polite, firm “no.”
Experience-Based Lessons for Planning an Amateur Kitchen Remodel
Studying these five projects offers an experience that glossy product catalogs cannot provide: a view of what happens when design ideas meet real buildings. Real walls conceal pipes, insects, questionable wiring, structural surprises, and occasionally a previous owner’s creative interpretation of the phrase “load-bearing.” The finalists succeed because their owners adapted rather than forcing an inflexible plan onto the house.
Begin With the Problem, Not the Shopping List
The Connecticut kitchen did not primarily need fashionable cabinet hardware. It needed light and a better layout. Removing the enclosed laundry room addressed the underlying problem and allowed the later decorative choices to matter. Before selecting finishes, document what is failing. Observe where people collide, where groceries accumulate, which counters remain unused, and where shadows make food preparation difficult.
Design for the Way the Kitchen Will Actually Be Used
Hunt Sunday House could succeed with open base cabinets and a 20-inch range because it was a weekend guesthouse. Copying that arrangement in a busy household with three children, two enthusiastic cooks, and enough snack containers to stock a convenience store might produce a very different experience.
Make decisions according to frequency and behavior. Daily dishes should be easy to reach. Heavy appliances need stable storage near a usable outlet. Trash and recycling should sit near the cleanup or preparation zone. A beautiful feature becomes irritating remarkably quickly when it adds six unnecessary steps to every meal.
Mock Up the Layout Before Construction
One of the least glamorous but most valuable remodeling experiences is testing the proposed room at full scale. Mark cabinets and islands on the floor with painter’s tape. Use cardboard boxes to represent tall units. Open an imaginary dishwasher and check whether someone can still pass behind it. Pretend to unload groceries, prepare dinner, and carry a hot pan from the range.
This exercise costs almost nothing and can expose expensive mistakes. A rendering may make an oversized island look majestic. A cardboard mock-up may reveal that it behaves like a parked yacht in the middle of the kitchen.
Expect the Building to Disagree With You
The West & Wild Cottage revealed bees and foundation damage after work began. Hunt Sunday House could not use the desired adobe construction because local soil conditions made it impractical. Renovation experience teaches that contingency money is not wasted money. It is protection against the moment a contractor opens a wall and becomes unusually quiet.
Maintain a reserve for structural repairs, electrical work, plumbing changes, ventilation, and code-related improvements. Decorative purchases can often be delayed. A safe foundation generally cannot.
Preserve the Details That Give the Home a Memory
New materials can improve performance, but retaining selected older elements prevents a remodel from feeling generic. Painted floors, exposed brick, inherited furniture, restored cupboards, and repurposed objects gave the finalist kitchens emotional depth. Not every original feature deserves rescue, of course. Some cabinets have served bravely and are ready for retirement.
The practical approach is selective preservation. Keep what is structurally sound, useful, beautiful, or meaningful. Replace what creates safety problems or interferes with everyday function. The result should feel like the next chapter of the house rather than an entirely unrelated book.
Choose One or Two Memorable Moves
Amateur remodelers often worry that a restrained kitchen will look boring, then attempt to install statement tile, dramatic lighting, bold counters, colorful cabinets, open shelves, mixed metals, and a heroic range hood all at once. The finalists suggest a calmer strategy. The Montauk project uses graphic flooring. Hunt Sunday House has its steel door, sculptural pendant, and thick concrete-counter ledge. The D.C. rowhouse relies on the dialogue between black cabinetry, marble, brick, and painted wood floors.
A room becomes memorable when its strongest elements have space to breathe. Select a small number of ideas that belong to the building and repeat supporting materials elsewhere. Restraint is not a lack of creativity; sometimes it is creativity after it has had coffee and reconsidered its decisions.
Photograph the Process, Not Only the Finished Kitchen
Finally, document the renovation. Photographs of the original layout, demolition, hidden conditions, material tests, and construction details help explain later decisions. They are useful when locating pipes or wires, resolving warranty questions, planning future work, and remembering why a seemingly simple project consumed so many weekends.
The 2018 finalists remain compelling because their kitchens are more than finished images. They record choices, constraints, discoveries, compromises, and personal histories. That is the central experience of amateur remodeling: the finished room matters, but the problem-solving journey is what makes it genuinely yours.
