Nothing says inviting like a cozy cottage kitchen. With these few easy tips, you can create the perfect space to make friends and family feel right at home.
Open and Airy
Do away with bulky cupboards. Instead, consider placing open shelves where your upper cabinets would be. Proudly display your dinnerware on these shelves. If your dinnerware consists of mismatched items, that’s okay. It only accentuates the cottage look.
Saving space by installing the microwave over the range has been standard kitchen protocol for years. But that practice is on its way out. As home buyers begin to favor universal design principles, keeping necessities accessible for the entire family becomes ever more important. Consider moving Continue reading →
Long gone are the days when kitchens were dreary workspaces, hidden behind closed doors. Today’s kitchens are central to everyday living and special-occasion entertaining, often doing double duty as family rooms, offices and media centers, as well.
“The kitchen is truly the focus of the home today,” says New York-based interior designer Andrew Suvalsky. “A great kitchen design will give essential clues to how the rest of the home can and should develop.”
To meet the growing demand for showstopping kitchens, manufacturers now offer cabinets, countertops and fixtures in all of today’s most popular design styles, from Old World to modern, city chic to country cozy. And your options aren’t limited to what you’ll find in the kitchen showrooms, either. Andrew and many other designers also turn to antiques stores, high-end furniture makers and salvage resellers when sourcing kitchen projects.
Whether you’re designing your kitchen to match the decor of other rooms, or planning your whole home’s look around the kitchen, you can make it a beautiful reflection of your personal style.
Open and inviting, country kitchens allow you to enjoy the feeling of a weekend getaway right in your own home — even if you’re smack in the middle of suburbia (Check out our Farmhouse Style Sinks by Bates & Bates). Farmhouse tables and furniture-like cabinetry are popular conventions, and an eclectic mix of finishes helps create a comfortable, lived-in look. Country colors range from primary red, yellow and blue to aged tones of cream and pale yellow; whatever hues you favor, mixing rather than matching is the country way to go.
Sleek, sexy and sophisticated, the modern kitchen is designed to keep clutter to a minimum. Reflective surfaces and high-tech materials are central to the most modern kitchen, and exotic woods add a touch of luxury without frills or fabric. Iconic midcentury seating, including Bertoia stools and chairs by Eames and Cherner, are often chosen for a classically modern look; seating made of Lucite and highly polished woods is often chosen for a more current interpretation of the style.
Whether the space is large or tiny, cottage kitchens are designed to feel cozy and enveloping. With their homespun touches and imperfect finishes, cottage-style kitchens are always one of a kind and serve as the perfect backdrop for offbeat art and collectibles (Check out our country style Kitchen Island by Lyn Design). If you’re an avid flea marketer, this style will allow you to turn your weekend finds into everyday pleasures. To marry serious cooking with whimsical style, look for high-end appliances in white or retro colors.
Where function meets family friendliness, you’ll find the contemporary kitchen. The look is a carefully curated mix of materials: new and old, casual and polished. And because cooking with company has replaced cooking for company as the entertaining ideal, today’s kitchen has plenty of room for hosts and guests to work and interact. Add gourmet cooking equipment, comfortable, durable seating and lots of open space for a kitchen perfectly suited to 21st-century living.
Imagine a small hotel in the South of France, or a contessa’s villa on the Amalfi Coast. The colors are sun-dappled. The surfaces are elegantly timeworn, and the atmosphere is pure romance. To replicate that Mediterranean ambiance anywhere, look for Provencal fabrics in rich tones of russet, cobalt and ochre, warm-toned wooden cabinetry, and handmade ceramic accessories. Rough-hewn textures, copper pots and rush seats add the final touches.
Whether you live at the beach or just wish you did, you can count on cool shades of blue, green, white and sand to create a vacation-time mood. Seagrass and wicker seating are casual, comfortable and coastal. Fabrics and flooring (Get the look! Check out our natural stone flooring by Agora!) designed to stand up to wet bathing suits make coastal-style kitchens easy to care for, and window treatments that allow for maximum sunlight will have everyone in let’s-get-to-the-beach mode bright and early.
If you yearn for a time when materials were solid and craftsmanship was king, Old World design will embrace you in history and luxury. Look for dark mahogany finishes with lots of carving and detail, countertops with ogee or bullnosed edges, and stone or wooden floors. Add historical accessories and heavy fabrics, and enjoy time travel comfortably in your own home.
Turkey on Thanksgiving, ham on Christmas Eve and chocolate chip cookies after school. A traditional kitchen is the perfect backdrop for a life that centers on family, friends and holidays — but its clean, comfortable look is welcoming 365 days a year. Paneled or glass doors on cupboards contribute timeless style, and latched or icebox hardware is often added for period detail. White tiles add a clean look and help reflect light, and artisanal or vintage-look light fixtures add special touches.
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Galley kitchen remodeling can be a great way to take a kitchen space that’s already efficient and functional and add elements that increase both its utility and attractiveness.
In general, galley kitchens are smaller spaces, which can be a great benefit to anyone involved in cooking or food preparation. The famous “work triangle,” which co-locates the refrigerator, stove and sink, offers maximum efficiency with minimal steps between the various components. The tradeoff is that sometimes the space can feel cramped, dark and not terribly welcoming to guests. A galley kitchen remodel can address all of these concerns via some simple tweaks, many of which can be achieved on a budget or even without raising a single hammer. Continue reading →
When it comes to designing your home’s interior, the architectural style of your house will largely dictate your choices. If you have a midcentury modern home, you will probably lean toward sleek and modern. A bungalow might be filled with Shaker style furniture and craftsman details. And if you have a home in the country or in the woods, then you can’t go wrong with a rustic design motif. These designs conjure up images of aged building materials and the oranges, yellows and browns of autumn. Here are 10 tips to help you design your rustic dream kitchen.
Popular media and industry publications often analyze the return on investment of a kitchen and/or bathroom remodel. Remodeling 2015 Cost vs. Value Report, conducted by Remodeling, found that on average, a homeowner can expect to spend approximately $16,700 on a midrange bathroom remodel and will recoup approximately 70% of the cost at resale. The average cost of a midrange kitchen remodel is almost $57,000, and a homeowner can expect to recoup approximately $38,500 of that cost when they sell their home. Kitchen and bath remodels increase home value, and homes with renovated kitchens and baths tend to sell faster than those that need updating. Continue reading →
Do you need more kitchen storage? Are you on a budget? Is it not possible to tear down walls to add more space? We have 11 tips, to get even the tiniest of kitchens to accommodate your needs! Continue reading →
Do you often find yourself worrying about the stress of your day while you shower? Do you find yourself listing all of the things that have to be done, and the things that didn’t go as planned as the water falls all around you? Maybe it’s time for a different shower experience. With Hansgrohe, your daily shower can be the most relaxing part of your day.
A clog in your kitchen sink drain could cause dirty water to back-flow into the dishwasher and contaminate the inside of the washer tub. Some municipalities require you install an air gap between your dishwasher and garbage disposal or sink drain to avoid such an occurrence. You can install an air gap in a single afternoon without the help of a plumber. Dishwasher air gap kits are available with everything needed for the air gap, but not the additional hose required to attach the gap to either the sink drain or the disposal.