Your kitchen is one area of your home that is used a number of times on a daily basis, by most members of the family. Whether your teenager is rushing in to grab a piece of toast before school or your preparing a family dinner, there is a great deal of foot traffic in the kitchen. If you’re lucky enough to be building your new home or are undergoing some renovations, you should create a kitchen that will last a lifetime. Your kitchen has so many different aspects that need to be considered, from your floors and countertops to your appliances and your cupboard space. Read on to discover some helpful hints on how you can create a timeless and hardwearing kitchen in your home.

Floor Coverings

As aforementioned, the kitchen is home to one of the highest volumes of foot traffic in your home. If you are creating a kitchen to last a lifetime, you should always choose a durable and hardwearing surface. Not only do your surfaces need to withstand foot traffic, but they should also be able to measure up to various spills and dropped jars. Tiling is often a popular choice for kitchen floor coverings, as it provides a durable surface, while still remaining to be aesthetically pleasing. Tiles are also easily cleaned, making it great for those accidental spills!

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Bench Surfaces

While floors take a great deal of foot traffic, countertops also experience a great deal of usage. Your bench surfaces should be constructed using a durable material and quality design. Quartz kitchen bench tops are now a popular choice amongst many reputable home builders, as they offer a sleek and sophisticated appearance, while still maintaining their longevity. Your bench tops should also create a great deal of workable area within your kitchen, so be sure that the design maximises your use of space.

Timeless Appliances

Appliances are a major part of most kitchens and should be considered when designing or revamping this new area of your home. Stainless steel appliances are a great addition to any kitchen, as they provide a timeless look that won’t easily become out-dated. Choosing quality appliances will make a noticeable difference to your cooking experience, with the quality evident with use.

A Usable Space

Finally, when creating your new kitchen, you should ensure that you are designing a useable space. While you may want to add absolutely everything to you kitchen, keep in mind that you don’t want any area that is cluttered an unusable. Smart storage solutions are a great way to get the most from your kitchen, with modern options including utility towers that offer a great new way to effectively use your space.

Feeling bored of your home’s interior design? Make your living space a reflection of your taste and imagination. Your deepest and wildest shades of your personality should come leaping out from the walls. The lighting arrangement should be the maze that leads to the window into your soul. The decor should be your physical statement on the earth, it should bellow out with power and vigor to those who enter the room. Your home’s rooms’ style and decorating theme waltzes around your heart and without any words, encompasses all that is you.

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Green as grass

A botanical dining room is something you don’t see very often; in fact it’s a little too outlandish for most. However, If you replaced the floor, with complex patterns of Aztec, or a sprouting spiral cement tile art, the room would come alive with vegetation. As green is a light color, often associated with nature, wildlife, earth and stillness, any food or any cuisine eaten in the room, won’t look out of place. Green is a neutral color; not too bright, not too dark. The chairs and table can be made out of wicker and a dried and stiffened bamboo. Sushi roll-up mats would make for great plate board at the table. The same material should be used for coasters, just to keep the table uncluttered. For when your family is dining later than they should be, you could have candlelight holders made out of a clear see-through plastic or glass. The light shade style would captivate the bliss of untamed nature if it were like a ball of twisted hay or a tumble weed. The light would peer through the many gaps as if it were free-floating, it could have the ability to spin independently from the bulb attachment. Simple, humble, and yet artistically clever.

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Passion, flare and furiosity

If you want your creativity, and precision of taste, flavors and combinations in the kitchen to punch out with unmistakable snap, stamp your heels no further than a Mexican theme. Set the mood vividly with a rose colored wall paper or paint scheme. When sunlight peers through, the red shall transform the yellow rays into a blood red or a shimmering yellow like the sunset of the Mediterranean. For the table, nothing, but nothing, will do besides a rustic, strong and large wooden table. Preferably you should look for something that’s a little lighter, for example, like a honey color. The sauce pans, pots and frying pans should all be in a deep, thick and heavy black. Something like a cast iron material for all three would be very bold. For the utensils, you should aim for something that’s a real dark brown. Authenticity is crucial to get the proper feel of Mexico, so make sure they’re also made out of wood. On top of the shelves or somewhere where there’s free space, you could stand earthen clay pots as these are used for storage for pickled sweet red peppers. Placing flowers in the room, is simply up to you, they won’t take anything away, nor will the look out of place.

Spicing up your kitchen always breeds excitement, however unless you know the right ways to  make the most important space in your home stand out, then you’re going to have a few problems on your hands. If you follow the rules of kitchen design, then there’s no doubt that you’ll be left with a very safe and functional kitchen, as well as a cooking environment that will last for many years to come. From lighting to counter tops, there are many ways to enhance your kitchen space, and depending on the theme you want to install, you could have a brand new kitchen without breaking the bank! Let’s take a look at some of the rules of kitchen design.

The Triangle

You may not have heard of the triangle, but most kitchens implement this design technique in order to save time moving between appliances. The triangle consists of a refrigerator, a stove and a sink, and they’re kept close together to allow for convenient movement in the kitchen. Not only are these some of the most used appliances in the kitchen, but kitchen design would be completely different without the use of the triangle.

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When it comes to the triangle itself, the sides don’t have to be the same length. As you’ve guessed, the triangle is imaginary, however keeping these core appliances within 5-8 feet of each other will dramatically increase efficiency. If you like to cook alone, or you have a small family, then the application of the triangle will be hugely beneficial. To further improve the triangle, why not move your dishwasher into the space between two of the appliances.

Assessing Your Kitchen’s Needs

Before you start a project as big as redesigning your kitchen, you have to know what you need, what you want to change, and what you want to keep. Without a solid plan of refurbishment, you may find that your original budget goes out the window, as you start to buy things that you don’t necessarily need.

The first step to redesigning your kitchen is to understand what you want to change, and why. Next, is to determine a budget for the changes you want to make, as well as the length of time it will take you to complete the refurbishment. The last thing you want is to reduce your cooking space for a longer time than necessary. Finally, after implementing the changes, you’ll need to complement your new kitchen with up to date appliances, colour and lighting, to ensure the theme lasts as long as possible. Surf online to see a great selection of the latest appliances for your kitchen!

Different Types of Lighting

Kitchen design isn’t all about the physical aspect of the space in front of you, it’s about how that space is perceived. To improve the perception of your kitchen, different types of lighting can be used to illuminate space, or create shadow. From task to decorative, accent to ambient, try out different lights in your kitchen, and in different places. For example, you’ll want your chopping area well lit, however you could have ambient lighting under cupboards to enhance the floor design.

Summer is fast approaching which means that it will soon be time to take the entertainment outdoors. If you want to impress your friends and family with the standard of your barbeques, brunches and garden parties, the one thing that you should consider doing is building your own outdoor kitchen.

For a lot of people, an outdoor kitchen is the height of luxury and the perfect way to entertain when the weather is good. I mean, imagine sipping a cocktail on the deck while the birds sing, the flowers bloom, and your dinner cooks over an open fire. Bliss, right?

If you decide that an outdoor kitchen is for you, there are a number of things that you will need to consider to ensure you get it right, but if you pay attention and think carefully about your wants and needs, you’ll be able to build the perfect outdoor kitchen in no time at all.

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An Extension of Your Living Space

First and foremost, you should think of an outdoor kitchen as an extension of your living space. A well-built outdoor kitchen will add value to your home if it is able to offer shelter, shade and comfort. This means that you will need to locate it in an area that is near trees, or where you can easily erect an awning to keep the area cool when you’re cooking in the hot summer months, and you’ll probably want to install an outdoor heater for the cooler months., This might be starting to sound expensive already, but you can get a loan quickly, and if you do the job right, the value of your property should increase as a result.

Think About the Surroundings

As I mentioned above, your outdoor kitchen should be an extension of your indoor space, but it also needs to fit in with its outdoor surroundings. Ideally, you should locate your kitchen as close to the house, on a patio or decking, as possible, so that there is a seamless flow from indoors to outside, and you should try to incorporate as many of the same colors and materials in your outdoor kitchen as you would find outside.

Additionally, you should take a look at the colors and textures present in your garden and try to incorporate some of them into your design too. For example, if you have lots of plants and trees in your garden, using bamboo or other natural-looking woods would be a good idea, and if you have lots of bold, bright flowers, incorporating pinks, oranges and yellows into your kitchen and awning will help everything mesh together in spectacular style.

Planning the Layout

You probably spent a lot of time planning the layout of your indoor kitchen, and you should do the same with your outdoor space. Of course, there are some further considerations to make when you’re planning the layout of an outdoor kitchen. After all, there are no walls, windows or doors to work around. Most of the best outdoor kitchens tend to be designed a simple ‘L’ shape, which leaves adequate room for all of the necessary appliances, with plenty of space left over for dining.

When it comes to outdoor kitchen appliances, you should always try to plan your layout so that hot appliances like fire pits and grills are separate from cold appliances, such as the refrigerator.

Finally, you will want to create your design so that there is ample space for you to chop, peel and prep with ease.

Which Appliances Do You Need?

Of course, in order to adequately design your outdoor kitchen, you will need to decide on which appliances you want to have in your new kitchen area. There are a mind-boggling number of appliances you can use outdoors from a basic gas grill to a wood-fired pizza oven and from a standard refrigerator to a kegerator made specifically for keeping beer cool. Take some time to explore your options and pick out the items that will best enable you to cook, relax and entertain your guests in style.

Choosing Materials

We know that, when we build an indoor kitchen, we must choose materials which are hardworking and able to stand up to a lot of wear and tear, and this is even more important when designing an outdoor kitchen. After all, your new kitchen will not just be contending with your messy cooking style – it’ll need to hold its own against the elements too! That means that you need to choose tough materials that will hold up well and which are easy to clean and maintain. Stainless steel is a good option because as well as being very strong, it will reflect the colors of the garden back, for an attractive look. Another great material to use in an outdoor kitchen is tile. You can buy tiles in a vast range of colors and styles, so you can easily choose something to match your current style, and you can wipe them clean.

Sweat the Small Stuff

Once you’ve planned the location, layout and materials you’re going to use to create the ideal outdoor kitchen; it’s time to start thinking about all those little extras which make a space feel prettier and more personalised.

One of my favorite ways to decorate outdoor space is with simple solar powered lanterns or fairy lights. They will add a bit of sparkle to evening parties and ensure that you can see what you’re doing when you’re cooking.

Of course, you will probably want to install some more powerful lights, so that you can still see what you’re doing when it’s really dark. You could buy battery powered wall mounted lights if you need to save money, but if you have the budget to spare, wiring up some outdoor lights on the wall closest to your outdoor kitchen would probably be a good idea.

Potted plants and flowers make a great addition to any outdoor kitchen space, helping it to blend in with the rest of the garden, and adding little points of color and interest too.

Furniture

Of course, furniture is the most important part of any outdoor kitchen (apart from cooking apparatus). After all, there is little point cooking up a storm on your gas grill if you have nowhere to enjoy it afterwards. In an ideal situation, you should choose outdoor furniture which is moisture resistant and which can stand up well to the sun. Rattan furniture with waterproof cushions is always a good choice, as it’s hardwearing and attractive, but visit your local garden center and see what catches your eye.

No matter what furniture you choose, you will want to install an awning or gazebo over your seating area, so that if it does start to rain, your food won’t be ruined and you won’t be drenched by the downpour.

Citronella

If you want to be able to enjoy your spare ribs and a cool beer without having to swat away all manner of bugs, you will need to invest in some citronella candles and incense. These smell perfectly pleasant to the average person, but insects really do not like their scent and will give any area where they are burning a wide berth.

Party Time

Once the hard work is over, and your perfect outdoor kitchen has been designed and built, it’s time to enjoy yourself. Invite a few of your best friends over and celebrate the new addition to your home by cooking a backyard banquet that blows last year’s barbeque straight out of the water. After all, an outdoor kitchen should be enjoyed!