Cook Up a New Kitchen

Joan Kohn's It's Your Kitchen, by Joan Kohn (Bullfinch Press)

Joan Kohn has hosted Kitchen Design on Home & Garden Television for nearly a decade, so it's no surprise that she knows a thing or two about kitchens. She shares those years of accumulated knowledge in It's Your Kitchen, which is as much of a useful how-to manual as it is a beautiful coffee-table book.

If you consider just the pictures, It's Your Kitchen is a dramatic journey through all forms of kitchen style and space. But if you actually read it, you'll find the book a thoughtful guide to renovating a kitchen or building a new one. Kohn leads you through every step of the process, from dream to reality.

Included are specific checklists, from getting initial ideas onto paper to hiring the right planners to ensuring that form meets function. No detail is left out. It's a veritable wedding planner of home design for what has become the most important space in the house.