This is a collaborative post
At the start of the year, many of us plan out our goals for the months to come and budget for them, too. If you’re keen to refresh your home in 2023, you may be considering upgrading your kitchen.
This part of the home is one of the essential elements of any property, so it’s worth doing right. Ending up with a kitchen space that you and your family adore comes down, in large part, to having the right blend of style and function. Here are steps to help you achieve just that.
Choose a Theme and Style That Will Match Nicely with the Rest of Your Property
Don’t just see your kitchen in isolation from the rest of your property when planning how it will look once remodelled.
As you check out home improvement magazines, blogs, social media sites, and other houses for inspiration and ideas, keep in mind what the rest of your home looks and feels like and ensure you don’t stray too far from this, unless you’re planning to renovate the entire property over the coming months and can change a lot of it to a new style and get a cohesive decorating option in turn.
You want the cooking zone of your home to feel nicely tied to the other spaces of your place and for it to feel natural rather than out of place when compared to other rooms. As you pick out new designs for your kitchen, you might also like to come up with an overall theme or designer style to focus on.
For example, you might be after a Hamptons-style feel, want to create a contemporary or country kitchen vibe, or perhaps hark back to the art deco days.
Regardless of what look you’re going for, you must also keep function in mind. There’s no point picking out something that’s super stylish and trendy right now but that you think will likely date in a couple of years or that you’ll get sick of quickly.
Kitchens are one of the more costly rooms in a home to renovate, so you don’t want to have to re-do the work before too long.
Carefully Consider the Layout
One of the biggest functional factors to focus on is the layout of your kitchen. If you get this wrong, the space will never feel quite right, and you’ll likely get frustrated by it very quickly. There are numerous things to consider, layout-wise.
For instance, you don’t want anything stuck awkwardly anywhere, such as a large refrigerator that you have to try and navigate around, or that’s simply jarring from a visual perspective.
Also, think about how you tend to use your kitchen. You’ll generally want to have appliances and features such as the sink, dishwasher, oven, stovetop, and fridge within easy reach of each other as you prepare and cook food and clean or put away dishes.
You can even have some of these machines built in behind your kitchen cabinet doors if you like everything to look streamlined, too.
Plus, don’t forget to consider the height of your benchtops. One of the major benefits of putting in a new kitchen is that you get to design these things to your liking.
If you’re short, you may prefer lower benchtops than standard, while if you’re tall, you might find that higher-than-usual benchtops make working in the kitchen easier for you and much more ergonomic.
Spend Enough on Materials and Finishings
To get a nice balance of style and function in your kitchen, spend enough money to get quality materials and finishings.
Your kitchen will probably get a lot of use, not just for food preparation but also for eating and general family time. As such, it’s best if you can invest decent money into fitting it out with goods that ensure it’s not only functional but also beautiful.
For example, choose easy-to-maintain yet striking benchtop materials and cabinetry, along with splashback tiles, flooring, lighting, and even an elegant small ceiling fan to help keep the space cooler. Choose decent appliances that you’ll enjoy using, and that will last for many years, too.
The right materials and finishings will also help you save money because they shouldn’t date too quickly, will be easier to maintain and keep looking good over time, and should last well and not need replacing quickly.
Where your budget can afford it, it’s worth putting money into features such as quiet-close mechanisms on drawers and doors, easy-to-access slide-out shelving, and fingerprint-resistant handles and appliances.
Other ways to get a good blend of style and function in your kitchen are to pay attention to lighting, ensuring you have layers of light for functionality but also pretty light fixtures that help to tie the space together, and pick out one or two statement pieces for the room. This could include the lights, fans, tiles, cabinetry, or even look-at-me appliance colours.
Take your time choosing every element of your new kitchen so that this remodel project ends up just the way you’ve imagined it, and you have a beautiful cooking, eating, and entertaining zone to enjoy for years to come.
Disclosure: This is a collaborative post