Kitchen Ideas
Helping stool. No kitchen with kids should be without a helping stool — make sure yours is tall enough to let your smallest child reach the sink for hand washing. Keep at least one section of counter cleared of potentially dangerous items (like the knife block) and make that your child’s special helping spot. A basket of kid-size cooking tools and an apron would make a nice addition.
Visible, consistent storage. Cut down on calls of “Where is the … ?” by storing the most frequently used food and supplies in pullout drawers, wire baskets and open-top bins. By the same token, try to store things in the same place every time — your family members will (one would hope) eventually get to know where things are if they are always in the same place. For young kids just beginning to learn how to help themselves to a snack, store all of the things they need for snack time in one place and label it with a picture.
Easy-care surfaces. Marble counters are gorgeous, but they stain — and it’s not fun to be constantly reminding (read: nagging) others to wipe up spills immediately. Avoid tile, or if you must have tile, choose forgiving dark grout rather than white. Stainless steel, Corian and engineered quartz are great tough countertop materials; butcher block is great too, if you can embrace the inevitable scratches as part of the charm. Classic linoleum and Marmoleum floors are easy to maintain; wood is fairly easy too, although spills should be wiped up right away.
When that wasn’t really working for them, they replaced the cabinets with deep drawers and shifted the butcher block top to create a bar overhang. Then they filled in the remaining countertop space with a stainless steel countertop. Not only is the new, slightly shifted configuration more functional for the way the couple uses the kitchen, but its slightly asymmetric appearance plays with the eye in an original way.
A copper-topped Ikea hack in Portland. Chris and Jennifer McCormick gave their Oregon kitchen a big makeover, balancing high- and low-end items. For example, the island is from Ikea, but they swapped in Restoration Hardware pulls and added a copper top. A hinged leaf can flip up to provide more surface area.
Over a barrel in Ontario. Homeowners Meaghan Gizuk and Trevor Arthur are very resourceful when it comes to using salvaged pieces around the house, and vintage wine barrels pop up in several rooms. In their kitchen a barrel topped with Carrara marble is small enough to walk around but just the right height and size for prep work.
Legs of iron in Washington. Salvaged pieces can lend an industrial look, and a big part of the industrial vibe in Cari and Greg Horning’s Washington kitchen emanates from the island. The legs are salvaged iron pieces, topped with a soapstone counter. Matching stools contribute to the look, also fashioned with salvaged iron legs but topped with reclaimed wood.
Of course, losing some upper cabinets is not for everyone. This is just food for thought if you’re planning a kitchen remodel, or want a smaller change that will make your kitchen feel new to you. If you’re on the fence or hate the idea of having to dust open shelves, consider a few cabinets with clear glass doors. They’ll open up the view, maintain your current storage potential and lighten things up while closing out the dust.
When dealing with today’s open plans, a lot of architects and interior designers tell me they don’t want the kitchen to look “too kitchen-y,” which is kind of funny, but I get it. For example, this kitchen is wide open to other rooms on the first floor. The shelves bring some living room style into the kitchen so that the view of it from the other rooms is pleasingly cohesive.
Clements has firm rules for prioritizing kitchen storage that will help guide you when you’re reorganizing your storage. You’ll have to do a thorough inventory and really think about how often you need every item (or if you use it at all). 1. If it’s something you use at least every other day, leave it out in the open. For example, everyday coffee cups, bowls and plates. 2. If it’s something you use once a week or less, have it in the kitchen but not taking up prime real estate in the most accessible areas. 3. If it’s something you use once a month, stash it in the pantry. 4. If you use it two times a year or less (turkey roaster, fondue pot, breadmaker), keep it in a storage area like the basement. 5. If you rarely use it and you don’t love it, donate it.
The shelf wall also adds character and function to her kitchen. “I really like that my guests can grab a glass for wine without feeling like they are snooping through my cabinets,” Clements says. When planning for open shelves, she advises figuring out everything you’ll want to fit on them and measuring first. For instance, she wishes hers were 9 inches deep instead of 8, so she could place wine glasses two deep, one in front of the other, rather than having to stagger them. On the highest shelves, she displays sentimental items like a beloved bird pitcher she received as a wedding gift. She stashes items like vases, flower frogs, candles and incense in the cabinets below. There’s also a liquor cabinet underneath the barware.
This is Clements’ kitchen, the one that got me thinking about upper cabinets in a whole new way. Instead of upper cabinets on every wall, she concentrated storage on interior walls, allowing her to keep a wall of windows and a more open space over her range. Shallow open shelves and a hardworking island provide the storage she needs. She thought carefully about how each would function. For example, she sized large bin drawers along the bottom of the island to fit things like jumbo cartons of Goldfish within her kids’ reach. A very small pantry (not shown) makes up for the rest. “Having a pantry that size means you can find storage for brooms, recycling bins and other things that tend to hijack the kitchen,” she says. She also stashes a library stool in there for hard-to-reach items on the high shelves in the kitchen.
Give those seated at the island a lovely view. Perches at the counter are so popular in today’s kitchens. Instead of looking onto a bunch of bulky cabinets, people seated at this island can gaze out the windows to the trees and at lovely personal objects artfully arranged among the everyday glassware and china on the open shelves.
The range and range fan sit underneath the center of the ancient wooden beam that formed the original kitchen’s inglenook fireplace. “The extractor had to be one with a very small vent to fit into the space,” Ashwin says, “and this was pretty much the only one we could find. Luckily it looks nice, too.”
If you’re nervous about color but sick of the standard options, consider slate. If you’re not ready for fiery orange or bright turquoise but are still intrigued by alternatives to the usual stainless, white or black finishes, try GE’s slate finish; it’s a more conservative modern option. “Slate is just so versatile,” Lenzi says. The slate finish is a warm, gray, low-gloss metallic hue that doesn’t show fingerprints. Due to the popularity of its Slate product offerings, GE doubled them in 2013 with additional refrigeration and cooking models.
light and lamps
White and light
Space and light
Color contrast with good lighting
LED Tape (Flexible Strip) Lighting LED tape illuminates this kitchen in two color temperatures. Above the cabinets an LED tape described as "normal bright" casts a white glow, while warmer white tape shines under the cabinets. LED tape is a flexible circuit board with attached LED chips that can be cut to size. The chips are dots of light spaced approximately every 5/8 inch; they come in different levels of brightness. The strips have a self-adhesive backing, making them easy to install almost anywhere.
Love the three lamps above the center table. Love the clarity of the room, though unsure if I want white cabinets... Tip: Use dimmers for all your lighting. More important, create zones for your lighting so you can shut down an area that isn't in use. When possible, install lighting for a main seating area on one circuit and perimeter lights on another. When you shut down lighting on the periphery, you reduce the amount of light bouncing off the walls, allowing for maximum comfort and customization. Tip: Do not skimp on lighting in high-activity-level areas. These may include the family room, breakfast and homework area in your kitchen, or anywhere you want to ramp up the energy level. When you calculate a range for required wattage, err on the side of more rather than less. And reconsider fluorescent lighting. Fluorescent options have come a long way, so take a look before you say, "No way." They provide the highest amount of lighting at the most affordable cost, making them great for ambient lighting. They do not generate much heat, and they use very little energy. These are not the 4-foot-long tubes you may be remembering from grade school; you can now get fluorescent lights ...
Love the color palette for the kitchen living room!
Lighting choices can also take cues from transitional style, defined by clean lines and lighter finishes. “People have been looking at dark, heavy scrolls for so long that they are wanting something light and fresh,” Kilgore says.
2. Does My Lighting Have Layers? A perfectly lit room has three basic layers: overhead lighting, task lighting and accent lighting. This bedroom pulls all those together — the chandelier for overhead, bedside reading lamps as task lighting, and accent lights above the headboard and artwork. This kitchen features several layers of light: The recessed cans provide overhead illumination, the pendant lights above the island illuminate the workspace and undercabinet area, and above-cabinet accent lighting gives the space a burst of savvy style.
Another example: Highlight the silhouette of a cabinet with undercabinet and in-cabinet lighting. “I think that indirect lighting under and above the cabinets should be mandatory in modern lighting design,” Kilgore says. She suggests using tape lighting to achieve a subtle illuminated line of sight. “Xenon lighting is an affordable choice for indirect lighting and costs less than LED lighting,” she says.
10. Add layers of lighting. In this kitchen seating area, the backsplash is lit, the artwork is highlighted and the cabinet interiors are filled with light. One central lighting fixture would not have had nearly the same dramatic result. Professionals build layers of lighting to create interest, intrigue and variety. In a room where everything is lit evenly, nothing stands out. Pick a focal point and perhaps a secondary focal point and highlight those. Add general ambient lighting and some lower lighting, like table lamps, for interest.
The lamp
Dreaming of that not so practical for the kitchen marble piece...
cleaned lined cabinetry
The window...
Color palette is warm enough...
Here is another great example of displaying books in the kitchen. Many older houses have small built-in shelves like these which may not be suitable to storing other items but are perfect for keeping books. In this example, the books are separated by color so that you get a beautiful aesthetic effect for the area.
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