Kitchens are on my mind a lot these days. I’m hoping to renovate mine within the next year. Consequently, I have been hauling home many of the kitchen design books from the collection to help me with the planning. Here are my current favourites.

House Beautiful Kitchens offers a great selection of classic design. Think white cupboards, marble counters, subway tiles and stainless steel combined with a centre island painted grey or black.

It’s a winning combination shown with many variations on the theme. Occasionally punched with colour, their classic combo might feature a cobalt blue backsplash or spindle chairs painted Moroccan red. When they paint, they identify the source. If you love the colour and want to make it your own, you’ll be very glad that they did. (Moroccan red is Benjamin Moore.)

Country Living Kitchens are more relaxed and family friendly with interesting open shelving. I am attracted to a kitchen where a sturdy shelf is mounted across a long stretch of windows.

In the Kitchens book from This Old House, the use of colour is the main event. Not just splashes against a neutral background, but colour lavished on cupboards and walls. The colour is often combined with very contemporary design and feels fresh and invigorating.

So many great possibilities and so many, many decisions.

- Jane

When I bought my condo, I acquired a kitchen that was built almost 30 years ago – 70s-style cupboards and all original appliances. Within the first year the stove began to act up. The timing buzzer would go off randomly, any time, day or night. If you overlooked this very annoying glitch, the stove worked quite well. I investigated repair, but ultimately concluded that it was not money well spent.

A shiny new stove arrived, all slick stainless steel and black glass, and moved into this very 70s kitchen. It positively glows in contrast; hence I call it The Shrine. Above The Shrine hangs a builder’s grade hood fan which had an almond finish with a brown plastic trim strip. Although pulling off the trim strip improved it a bit, I decided to paint the hood with stripes.

Here is what I did:

• Cleaned the hood thoroughly to remove grease spatters and sanded the almond finish.
• Blocked off stripes with masking tape.
• Painted several background coats with my favourite milk paint, colour brick red.
• Painted stripes with colours mixed from tubes of acrylic paint.
• Painted 3 topcoats (recommended by the manufacturer) of urethane finish.

Here is what I learned along the way:

• I f I were doing it again, I would paint the red background colour over the entire surface before masking out the stripes.
• When you paint stripes with acrylic paints, you need to pull off the masking tape while the paint is still wet. If you wait for it to dry, you will pull off part of the stripe with the masking tape.

I am happy with the result. The effect is a colourful awning with a finish which I hope will last until I update the rest of the kitchen. And it makes me think twice about renovating the kitchen. I'm still having fun with the old one and feel a lot less inhibited about experimenting with old surfaces.

If you want to see what an expert can do, check out Annie Sloan's Painted Kitchen. She tackles walls, cupboards and furniture.

No hood fans.