As I mentioned last week, I am in the process of renovating and redecorating our apartment. Everything we own is about 15 years old and falling apart. One of the biggest pieces to this puzzle is redoing our kitchen, which you can see in the photo above.

No, that is not just a part of our kitchen. That’s the whole thing. I will pull back so you can see for yourself.

If the kitchen was any smaller, we would not be able to fit a sink in there. The funny thing is, this isn’t even the smallest kitchen I’ve had in Manhattan. In one apartment, we had a stove and a fridge just sitting there in the hallway. No cabinets, whatsoever. We all kept our food in our bedrooms. That’s NYC living for you.

What can be done to such a tiny kitchen? I’m hoping, quite a bit.

First step in any home renovation project is making a mood board, figuring out what appeals to you, and then sharing them with everyone else involved. In my case, that’s Emma Beryl from Home Polish.

I also need buy-in from Mike, but he cares more about functionality than design. Like, I don’t really need to talk countertop material with him, but he’s going to want to weigh in on the size of our fridge. Or whether we have a single or double sink. (After 15 years with a double, we’ve learned we only use one side and can stick with a single. We also have never turned on the garbage disposal once, so we don’t need that either.)

Since we are dealing with such a small space, I want our new kitchen to look simple, modern and streamlined,  but I wasn’t sure what that entailed exactly. What materials? What appliances? What colors? After spending about an hour on Pinterest, it all became very, very clear. I started to notice common themes in the photos I was pinning— like marble slab waterfall counter tops that are counter height with wood pockets for stools underneath. How’s that for specific?

Currently, our counter is two levels, so for the past ten years, Mike and I have had a silent battle over whether our kitchen clutter belongs at the counter height (that’s where I like it because it’s more hidden) or the bar height (that’s where Mike likes it because then he has more space to cook.) Having everything at counter height instead of two levels puts an end to that battle completely and also looks much cleaner, which will hopefully deter us from putting anything on there at all. Wishful thinking, I know.

Emma also pointed out that all the kitchen photos I pinned had no hardware on the cabinets, a pretty major detail that I didn’t even notice.

So, without further ado, here are 8 photos that are inspiring our kitchen renovation and why I gravitated to them…

1. I like how everything is simple, white and streamlined.

Source: Leibal

2. That’s the marble slab waterfall countertop I was talking about.

Source: Nicole Franzen

3. I love the wooden pocket for the stools.

Source: Style at Home

4. See how clean it is when none of the cabinets have any hardware?

Source: My Modern House

5. I like how this space maximizes cabinets and drawers underneath the counter. Plus the blonde wood is pretty gorgeous.

Source: Blog Lovin’

6. I like the mixture of modern white and rustic wood.

Source: Blog Lovin’

7. I love the playful lighting with the hard modern space.

Source: Trendland

8. Uhhhhh…I think Mazzy threw this one into my Pinterest board when I wasn’t looking.

Source: Toxel

So, what do you guys think? Do you like this direction? Do you think it will work in my kitchen? Will Emma and I be able to pull it off in my teeny tiny space??? Stay tuned!

If you’d like to follow my home decorating journey on Pinterest, you can follow along here.