By Suzana Mikolova 
If you love your kitchen, you could probably wander through a kitchen store for days. In your mind, you’ll be trying out tile, countertops, and cabinets in your own kitchen, preparing for yet another remodel. This isn’t always a healthy or smart way to shop, though, especially if you ever want to actually get that remodel done. Before you head to the kitchen store the next time around, try one of these shopping methods to help you complete your trip more quickly and get to the remodeling part even faster.
On some trips, you really do just need to look around. This is true if you’re getting ready to do a kitchen remodel but aren’t quite sure what you want to do. In this case, take a notebook. If the store manager will let you, take a camera to snap some pictures, as well. If you’re going to paint your kitchen, grab some paint chips from the hardware store to take along, as well. On this trip, all you’re doing is gathering ideas and taking notes on the colors, textures, and particular items that you like best. Make sure you’re descriptive enough that you can actually remember what you were looking at when you wrote down your notes!
Once you know what you need, it’s time to start making lists before your next trip to the kitchen store. If you’re like a lot of people, your remodel will go in stages. You’ll probably head to the store more than a couple of times during a full remodeling session. Think through all the things you need to do and the order in which you need to do them. If, for instance, you’re painting your cabinets and replacing countertops, you’ll probably need to rip out the old countertops and then paint the cabinets before replacing the countertops again.
Either way, at this point, you should be going into the kitchen store armed with a detailed list of everything you need. Write down measurements, quantities, and as much other information as you can. This way, you get just what you need, and you don’t have to come back to the store when you aren’t ready to be back there quite yet. This will make the remodeling process work more quickly so that you can get your kitchen function and beautiful before you know it.