Kitchen Concepts Plus
Salisbury, MD

Allyssa Warden grew up with a desire to create. Not only did she spend hours drawing entire towns with The Sims and later with Chief Architect software gifted to her by her grandparents, she also got hands-on experience during three years of Building Construction classes in high school. It was her grandfather, a builder, who first inspired Ally with the woodworking projects they would complete together. “We’d drive to Lowe’s to gather supplies and we’d spend the weekend building whatever random piece of furniture I deemed important at the time,” she says. “To this day, I still have tables, bookcases and benches made in my grandfather’s shop with our signatures on the back of them.”

Fast forward to 2017, when Ally graduated from Virginia Tech with a B.S. in Residential Environmental Design, an NKBA-accredited Kitchen and Bath Design Program. She began working as a kitchen and bath designer along the Maryland and Delaware shore and in 2020 joined the design-and-build firm Kitchen Concepts Plus in Salisbury, MD. A Certified Kitchen and Bath Designer (CKBD) since June 2021, Ally juggles multiple responsibilities, including consulting with potential clients, devising creative solutions, reviewing budgets and checking in with installers on-site. “My favorite part of my job is the creative-design process,” she says. “Most people can’t see their spaces the same way designers can, so to see their reaction when we take their wish list and translate it into their project is always rewarding.”

“There is always a new trend, a new way of doing something, a new idea, product or solution that we’ll miss if we aren’t intentional about learning something new.”

Her personal design style incorporates a little of this and little of that. “If I could sandwich Craftsman, Grandmillennial, Transitional and Shabby Chic together, that’s what my design preference would be,” she says. Her openness is also reflected in the word she chooses to describe herself: student. “There is always a new trend, a new way of doing something, a new idea, product or solution that we’ll miss if we aren’t intentional about learning something new,” she says.

Married to an “amazing” husband with whom she shares a “perfect” four-year-old daughter, Ally strives for a work-life balance by cooking, reading and enjoying family time bowling, playing mini-golf and going to the zoo and movies. On her life’s must-do list? Visiting architecturally rich cities such as Savannah, Charleston, New Orleans and Laurel, MS of HGTV’s “Hometown” fame.