Deirdre Malloy is an independent kitchen designer based in Chicago with over 220 mid-budget renovation projects completed since 2012. She covers kitchen decor and DIY together because she believes design advice and execution advice belong in the same article. Her one-hero rule, that every kitchen needs one dominant visual statement and everything else submits to it, came from a project she had to redesign at her own cost. She turns down every luxury-tier inquiry that comes to her. She sources vintage hardware at flea markets every Saturday and maintains a twelve-year archive of photographed kitchen design failures from real rooms.
