When you imagine your dream kitchen, what do you see? Perhaps beautiful countertops, shiny new appliances, a colourful backsplash or a social place where friends and family can gather?
Kitchens are the most popular room in the house to remodel for good reason. We are all finding ourselves spending more time at home and cooking more frequently in our own kitchens, so it only makes sense to want a culinary space that stands out in the best way possible. Fortunately, you can create your very own dream kitchen in just six simple steps!
1. Decide the Kitchen’s Primary Function
Take a moment to think about how you currently use your kitchen and how you would like to use your kitchen if you could ideally change a few things. Depending on your lifestyle, you might use your kitchen for frequent cooking or social entertaining. Your kitchen might be highly functional or mostly decorative based on how much you like to cook, versus how often you dine out at restaurants. Choosing your kitchens desired function is a great starting point for deciding which kitchen design ideas you should focus on and which ones are a lesser priority.
2. Keep in Mind the Kitchen Work Flow
Like most rooms in a house, a kitchen needs good flow to ensure that people can move around freely without bumping into furniture or each other. However, flow is especially important in the kitchen because there’s always something that needs to be promptly tended to when preparing meals and handling the clean-up.
Kitchen design ideas with an island often work well to improve flow because islands create a natural barrier to guide foot traffic and encourage movement in an orderly way. Consider the tried-and-true concept of the “kitchen work triangle,” which involves the placement of the sink, stove and refrigerator. With this design concept, you’ll want to keep each of these kitchen fixtures between four and nine feet apart without any big obstacles in between them.
You can also improve kitchen workflow by organizing the space into work-zones, which requires grouping appliances that you use for similar tasks in the same zones. There are five basic zones that you can divide a kitchen into: consumables, non-consumables, preparation, cooking and cleaning. With these kitchen design ideas and modern concepts in mind, you might place your stove and oven near the microwave, for example. The dishwasher might go next to the cupboards where you store your dishes, and your refrigerator might go near your prep station for washing and cutting fresh fruits and vegetables.
3. Don’t Forget About Storage
If there’s one thing that homeowners dream about more than anything else, it’s storage. We always seem to need more of it, yet as soon as we have more storage, it instantly gets filled up. Can you relate?
In addition to the pantry and cupboards that your kitchen already has, you can try clever storage hacks in the kitchen, such as under-the-sink drawers that pull out for cleaning supplies and maximizing your vertical space by storing infrequently-used items on top of high cabinets. Other ideas include installing a slide-out prep station above your kitchen trash can, keeping small items organized in small baskets so they don’t get lost in big drawers and hanging bulky items (think cutting boards and colanders) on the side of lower cabinets.
4. Pair Your Lighting to Your Design Style
It’s easy to focus on the big structures and appliances when designing a dream kitchen, but lighting can really make a huge difference and help you stay within your kitchen remodeling budget. Lighting in a kitchen should be bright and invigorating to wake you up in the morning and help you be safe and see what you’re doing for evening meal prep after dark. Track lighting is great for illuminating hard-to-reach areas in the kitchen, while recessed lighting is popular in kitchens because it can be dimmed and even controlled with your smartphone.
In addition to these practical and functional lights, you can also add personality and targeted illumination with a pendant ceiling light. Pendant lights look great over kitchen islands and bar seating areas, as well as in small dining areas that are within the kitchen space.
Kitchens with a modern or industrial vibe look great with the Pegasus Minor Pendant Ceiling Light because of its unique cement finish and minimalist shape. For a touch of rugged charm consider the Arion Pendant Ceiling Light for your kitchen and get that edgy ambiance you've been looking for.
5. Spoil Yourself with Top-Tier Appliances
With all of today's modern appliance features and high-tech perks, a fridge isn't just a fridge, and a stove isn't just a stove.
Your dream kitchen deserves dreamy appliances - top-tier pieces that are functional, fashionable and built to last. We offer the very best kitchen appliance brands in the industry, including the Cafe brand with its customizable design hardware to reflect your personal style. From crisp and bold matte black refrigerators to smooth and relaxed matte white ovens and bright and shiny stainless-steel microwaves, Cafe offers a refreshingly new approach to kitchen design.
6. Make It Social with Seating
Some kitchens are purely functional spaces for food prep, but if you want your kitchen to have more of a social vibe, you're going to need some great seating options. Some are large enough or configured in such a way that there's room for a cute little breakfast nook with its own dining table set, like the modern- Olson 5-Piece Dining Set. Barstools are also a wonderful option if you have an open counter space in your kitchen so that guests can spend time with you while you prepare meals but not be in the way.
Are you ready to take the leap and start the journey to your dream kitchen? Shop at The Brick online or in a store near you to make your kitchen dreams a reality
