A new industry study just made something explicit that a lot of North Shore homeowners had already started to feel. The Home Improvement Research Institute (HIRI) 2026 Project Decision Study, covered by Kitchen & Bath Design News on June 26, found that 65 percent of homeowners now remodel the kitchen because they want it to look and feel different, not because something is broken. Only about 29 percent said repair was the primary trigger. The rest of the study is the piece worth paying attention to: 59 percent of those homeowners hire a professional, and 81 percent of the ones who do say the professional strongly shaped the final result they got.
That is a real shift, and it changes the order of the decisions you are about to make. When a kitchen project is being driven by look and feel rather than by a failed dishwasher or a rotted subfloor, the design decisions are no longer the last mile. They are the first mile. And the person who leads that first mile turns out to be the person shaping most of the outcomes homeowners actually remember five years later. The rest of this piece walks through what the study means for a 2026 North Shore project, what it does not mean, and what to look for if you are about to bring someone in to help you make those calls.
What Did the 2026 HIRI Kitchen Priorities Study Actually Find?
HIRI is a nonprofit research institute funded by manufacturers, retailers, and trade groups across the home improvement channel, and its Project Decision Study is the piece of research most kitchen and bath professionals watch every year to understand what is actually motivating homeowners. The 2026 edition, previewed in the Kitchen & Bath Design News article “Aesthetics, Comfort, Lifestyle Termed As Kitchen Priorities,” found that the primary trigger for a kitchen project has flipped. For years, the top answer was some version of “something broke” or “it stopped working.” This year, the top answer was aesthetics, comfort, and lifestyle. Sixty-five percent of homeowners cited that cluster as the reason they were doing the project at all. Repair-driven kitchens dropped to roughly 29 percent, and other motivators like a growing family or a new home purchase filled in the rest.
Two more numbers from the study matter for anyone planning a project this summer or fall. Fifty-nine percent of homeowners doing a kitchen project said they hired a professional to lead it. Of those, 81 percent said the professional strongly shaped the final design and product choices. In plain English, when a homeowner brought in a pro, that pro was not just executing a list of pre-picked selections. The pro was actively steering layout, materials, and finishes, and the homeowner credited the pro for the result. This is the number that surprises people most when they see it. It says the kitchens homeowners are the happiest with in 2026 are the ones where they trusted a professional to lead the design decisions, not just source the products.
There is a small caveat worth naming. The study measures homeowner-reported satisfaction and perceived influence, not resale value or dollar ROI. The design decisions that don’t age out of style five years later are a related but separate question. What HIRI is measuring is the front-end experience of doing the project: who was in the room when the important calls got made, and whose fingerprints ended up on the finished kitchen. On both counts, the pro was the primary hand.
Why Does Aesthetics-First Change Who You Should Hire First?
When a kitchen project is triggered by a repair, the sequence is straightforward. Something failed, you need it working again, so you find a contractor, you swap in like-for-like or slightly better, and the design decisions are secondary. Cabinet color, backsplash tile, and hardware get picked at the end because the constraints are already set by what has to stay in place.
When the trigger is aesthetics, comfort, and lifestyle, the sequence flips. The reason you are doing the project is the way it looks, feels, and lives. That means the look-and-feel decisions are the whole point of the project, and the mechanical decisions have to serve them. Where the pendants land, how tall the island is, whether the range hood is a statement piece or a discreet insert, how the sightline from the family room reads when you walk in — those are not finishing touches anymore. They are the brief. Which is exactly why the study found that homeowners who hired a pro said that pro shaped the outcome. When the brief is “make this feel like a different room,” the person who can hold the whole room in their head at once is the one shaping it.
Practically, this changes the order of the calls you make. A repair-triggered kitchen project starts with a contractor and picks up a designer at the fixture-selection stage. An aesthetics-triggered kitchen project should start with a designer and pick up a contractor when the design is far enough along to bid accurately. That does not mean a designer replaces a contractor. It means the designer sets the target the contractor is aiming at. In a design-build process that keeps drawings, selections, and construction under one roof, that handoff is built in and the target does not shift on its way to the field. In the split model, the target has to survive the translation, and that is where the 81 percent number gets fragile — the design intent has to be tight enough on paper to survive a subcontractor’s coffee break.
How Does a Kitchen Designer Actually Shape the Final Result?
“Strongly shaped the final result” is a survey phrase. It is worth unpacking what that looks like in an actual project, because a lot of homeowners assume a designer’s job is to hand them tile samples and cabinet color chips. The 81 percent number is not measuring that. It is measuring the decisions upstream of the samples — the ones that determine which samples even make sense to be looking at.
Space Planning and Sightlines
The first shaping happens on the plan. Where the range goes relative to the sink and refrigerator, how far the island sits from the perimeter run, whether the pantry lives on a wall or tucks behind a pocket door, and where the seating faces are all decisions made before a single material sample enters the room. A designer sequences these against how the homeowner actually cooks, entertains, and moves through the space. That is why two North Shore kitchens with identical square footage and identical budgets can end up feeling completely different — one flows and one does not, and flow is a plan-view decision more than a finish decision.
Elevation and Proportion
The second shaping happens on the elevation drawings — the vertical views that show what you actually see when you walk into the room. Ceiling height, upper cabinet height, hood proportion, window trim reveals, and the reveals between cabinet runs and appliances all get resolved here. This is the layer most homeowners never see and where most kitchens quietly go wrong. A range hood that is six inches too short throws the whole wall out of balance, and no amount of beautiful backsplash tile will fix it once it is installed. The designer is the person who catches that in a drawing, not in a punch list.
Material Coordination
The third shaping happens across the materials. A quartz countertop that looks perfect in a small sample can read cold and clinical against a warm-tone flooring choice, and a warm cabinet stain can flatten under a cool-temperature LED. Designers hold all of the finishes against each other and against the lighting plan at the same time, in the same room, before they get committed. This is where 81 percent of homeowners are actually saying the designer earned it — not in picking a single piece, but in making the pieces agree.
Budgeting the Investment Where It Shows
The fourth shaping is honest allocation of the investment. Not every square foot deserves the same dollar. Designers who work in this market every day know where a homeowner will feel the money — the perimeter counter you see the second you walk in, the hood that anchors the wall, the island that anchors the room — and where a homeowner will not feel it. Cutting cost from the wrong place produces the “why does something feel off?” kitchen. Concentrating the investment where the eye lands produces the kitchen the homeowner tells friends about. This is one of the quietest ways a designer shapes an outcome, and it is the reason our North Shore kitchen remodeling engagements start with a scope-and-priority conversation before a single selection is made.
What Should You Look for When Hiring a Kitchen Designer?
If the HIRI study is right and the pro is going to shape roughly four out of five of the decisions you will remember, the process of choosing that pro is worth doing carefully. A few things separate the designers who consistently end up in the 81 percent from the ones who do not.
A Real Portfolio, Not a Style Reel
A portfolio of completed North Shore projects, in real homes with the finishes actually installed and the constraints actually resolved, is worth more than a curated highlight reel of vignettes. Ask to see two or three projects that are close in scope, budget range, and architectural style to what you are planning. If a designer can only show you the two or three trophies, they are telling you something about the depth of their book.
Design-Build or Designer-Plus-Contractor
The delivery model matters. A design-build firm holds design, drawings, selections, and construction under one company, which shortens the number of handoffs between the design intent and the finished room. A designer who works separately from a general contractor can still produce a beautiful kitchen, but the drawings have to be tight, the specifications have to be complete, and someone has to babysit the coordination. Neither is inherently better. What matters is that whichever model you are hiring, the seams have been worked out before your project starts, not during it.
A Consultation Format That Interviews You Back
A good first consultation is at least as much about the designer interviewing you — how you cook, how you host, who lives in the house, what has bothered you in the current kitchen for years — as it is about you interviewing them. If the first meeting is primarily a sales pitch about the firm, the designer is not gathering enough information to actually shape the project. Trust the meetings that feel like a conversation about your life more than a tour of theirs.
The Ability to Show You the Kitchen Before You Buy It
The homeowners who consistently report being “strongly shaped” by their designer, in a good way, are the ones who saw the kitchen coming before construction started. That means renderings, elevations, and real materials on a real slab under real lighting. A showroom is where this comes together, because it is the only place you can see cabinet doors, countertops, hardware, and lighting in three dimensions at the same time. If you are close to committing on a firm, walk their full-scale Northbrook showroom together before you sign. It is the fastest way to feel whether their eye and yours are actually going to agree.
Ready to Bring a Kitchen Designer Into Your Northbrook Project?
If your 2026 kitchen project is being driven by how it will look and feel rather than by a broken appliance, the HIRI data is telling you something worth hearing: the earlier you bring a kitchen designer into the room, the more control you keep over the outcome you are actually paying for. Book a complimentary consultation with our Northbrook design team, tour the showroom, and see what your kitchen could look like with a designer holding the whole room in their head from day one. Call us at (847) 208-2020 or request a consultation online. We work with homeowners across Northbrook, Glenview, Highland Park, Glencoe, Deerfield, Winnetka, and the broader North Shore.
Frequently Asked Questions About Hiring a Kitchen Designer
Do I really need a kitchen designer for a smaller North Shore remodel?
Smaller does not mean simpler. A 120-square-foot kitchen has the same layout, sightline, lighting, and material-coordination problems as a 300-square-foot kitchen, and the constraints are usually tighter because you have less room to hide a wrong call. The HIRI study did not carve out a size threshold below which a professional stopped shaping the outcome. If aesthetics and how the room feels are why you are doing the project, a designer earns their fee at any size. The place a designer is genuinely optional is a straight repair-and-replace where every existing dimension and material stays exactly the same.
What does the first consultation usually look like?
A first consultation is a working conversation, usually 60 to 90 minutes, either in the showroom or in your home. The designer will walk your existing kitchen with you when possible, ask how you actually use it, listen to what has frustrated you for years, and start sketching what a different layout could open up. You should leave with a clear sense of whether the designer understood your project and whether you can imagine working with them for the next several months. You should not leave with a signed contract on that first visit — good design decisions are not made under time pressure.
How does the designer fee usually fit into the total project investment?
Fee structures vary. Some firms fold design fees into the overall contract when the project moves forward, some charge a retainer that is credited back against construction, and some charge for design as a separate deliverable regardless of who builds it. On a typical North Shore kitchen investment, design costs are a small percentage of the total, and the HIRI finding says that percentage is where most of the perceived-value shaping happens. The clearer question to ask a firm is what you get for the fee — how many revisions, how many selections meetings, what drawings are included — rather than the fee alone.
How long before construction should a designer be involved?
For an aesthetics-driven project, plan on eight to twelve weeks of design work before construction starts, sometimes longer for larger scopes or unusual architecture. That covers concept, revisions, elevations, selections, and coordination with the trades. Homeowners who compress this phase to save calendar time are the ones who most often report that decisions got made under pressure and that the outcome drifted from what they had originally wanted. The 81 percent designer-shaped number is a lot smaller when the design phase gets squeezed.
Can I bring my own contractor if I hire your designers?
Yes, though the coordination burden shifts. When our design work is being built by an outside general contractor, we hand off complete drawings and specifications and remain available for design-intent questions during construction. Homeowners who go this route should be prepared to be more actively involved in coordination, or to appoint a clear point of contact between the design team and the outside builder. Most homeowners on projects north of a modest scope choose our design-build path for that reason — one contract, one point of accountability, and one team defending the design intent all the way to the punch list.
How does the aesthetics-first shift affect resale value?
HIRI’s study is a motivation and satisfaction study, not a resale study. What it does tell you is that homeowners are increasingly renovating to live in the house, not to sell it — which is consistent with the broader summer 2026 renovate-in-place trend across the North Shore. Kitchens designed for how a family actually lives usually resell well because they are legible to the next buyer as considered spaces. Kitchens designed purely to match a resale checklist often feel that way in person and do not always deliver the premium the checklist suggests.
What if I already have a Pinterest board and a materials list?
Bring it. A homeowner who has done the work of collecting references is easier to design for, not harder. What a designer will do with that board is edit it — help you see which images are pulling in the same direction and which are pulling against each other — and then translate the shared thread into a plan that will actually work in your specific room, with your specific ceiling height and window locations. The board is a great input. The plan is what gets built.