Kitchen is first thing you see, Design ideas
In the next couple of months I'll be replacing my kitchen cabinets with brand new unfinished wood cabinets. One of the first things you see when walking through the front door is the kitchen (as shown in the picture below). I'm trying to decide how to design it with a realistically affordable budget.
My house is small as you can see, so I'm hoping for a clean feeling design that will make my kitchen look bigger. I attached a collage of what I'm going for in my sunroom (which is right outside the kitchen window) so you have a better idea of what my taste is.
I really like the natural wood kitchen cabinet look with black hardware, but I'm not sure if that will do the opposite effect.
Comments (13)
Stacey Monsen
2 years agoRelated Discussions
OK, Shameless First Thing You Can Already Help Me With (LOL!)
Comments (6). . . a "Dallas, The TV Show" theme (Bling Meets Cowboy). DD just got back to me and the party may be the week after Valentine's Day. With a "Dallas" theme, the girls can go pretty, sexy or tongue-in-cheek slutty. They could probably raid their own closets or that of their friends for their outfits. The guys would only need to wear a pair of blue jeans along with some sort of appropriate shirt. They could bill it as "Cowboy Hats & Boots, Optional". Heck, they all have jeans and, depending on what their date is wearing, they could wear a sports coat or blue jean jacket, too, if they wanted. No need for complicated or expensive costumes . . . which are hard to come by in February anyway (LOL). So, any ideas for decorations and food, if they go that route? I'm thinking "Bling Meets Cowboy"....See MoreWhat was the first thing you chose for your kitchen?
Comments (56)I just posted my almost done kitchen recently. The cabinets are a similar to robin's egg blue and the backsplash and paint will be white. Marble counters with white vintage sink. I realize that this type of kitchen isn't for everyone, but I definitely did pick something that enhances my mood everytime I spend time in it. The way I figured out it would make me happy was to go through SO many magazines and books. For a year. It was easier for me b/c I knew I wanted the style to match the house......then whenever I saw a kitchen with painted cabinets I thought it was so beautiful, but I could never do that. Literally, when I saw these pictures my heart would leap in a happy way. For a while I thought I was going to do an all white kitchen that would be like a canvas and I'd add accent colors that would make me happy. I was settled on that b/c it was rational. All the while I was still looking through magazines and books, trying to focus on white kitchens, but whenever I saw a colored kitchen I'd almost stop breathing. All of a sudden I took the leap and committed to permanent color and I couldn't be more happy that I did. Here is a link that might be useful: My Kitchen...See MoreWhat's the first thing you'll cook in your new kitchen?
Comments (36)OK Celine, after the whole foods parking lot video, I just will never think of quinoa the same way. Though I'll know how to pronounce it: rhymes with "bra". As it turns out, we crawled into the chocolate chip and pancakes camp. I've yet to make the granola. But dd1 insisted on making spice bars for a school potluck (to which I'm not invited? wha?) and dd2 needed to make choc chip cookies (though this hardly needed baking as all she wanted was the raw dough in truth) and there were some rotting bananas that I had to make into banana bread. Then it was father's day so verbotten meat (lamb) got roasted and eggs had to be scrambled because life without scrambled eggs is pretty close to a life not worth living....Last night, like mnerg, we actually had pancakes (p. 357, Diet 4 Sm Planet) for dinner; that's how syrup-starved we all were. We've been busy here today! And the other night we did the obligatory paper-on-the-cc-burner to great acclaim. The young, strapping hungry hombres just-back from the field had to settle on outdoor-grilled food because I couldn't quite tackle the new indoor beast at the time, but we all enjoyed the simmer-road-show. But truthfully, the very first thing that got made? It was boiled water for pasta. Isn't that pathetic? The second was to stew up some inedibly sour fruit. Funny how plebeian cooking turns out to be. Recipe for green chile stew? Here's for spice bars: boil 1 cp water and 1 cp raisins, remove from heat, stir in 1/2 cp apple sauce (or oil) and let cool; add 1/2 c sugar before all the way cool. Stir in 1 egg when cool. Sift tog dry ingred and add to wet above: 1.75 cp ww pastry flour, 3/4 t salt, 1/2 t cloves, 1 t soda, 1 t cinnamon, 1 t nutmeg (opt: chopped walnuts, 1 t allspice(ick)). Bake 20 min in 13x7x2 pan @ 375. When cool frost w/butter-cream: 2 cp confect sugar, 1/4 cp butter, 1 T milk, 1 t vanilla....See Morefirst time owner: kitchen layout ideas (need some coaching)
Comments (34)Dojey - don't be embarrassed, I think sometimes that we can become so accustomed to having our homes in a state of disruption and dysfunction that we forget how we used to cook and have real food in the house. I think that happened to us last time. We still have not reverted back to getting into cooking everyday, and it has been two and a half years since we got the kitchen back functioning. Sometimes renovation just sits and we do other things instead. I still have one kitchen cabinet door to sand and stain. Out of 30 doors and 20 drawer fronts, I missed one. Turns out it was sitting at my carpenter's shop. Two summers I have not gotten it done. THIS summer, I am going to do it. And I will sand and re-stain old trim and install it, too. I used a re-used kitchen in my remodel. I like your plan. The work area is big enough to not feel cramped. You have the island to "defend" your space from interlopers, you have extra space on the right side of the stove, and you have LOTS of storage. The horizontal upper cabs are nice and modern. In my first kitchen remodel, in 2003, I had 6 running feet of 8 ft. tall pantry cabinets. They were just cabinets with shelves, no pull-outs. We only had room for 12 inch deep cabs, and they worked fine. I did have room at the end for a utility cab, and it was 2 ft deep. It held the vacuum cleaner and other cleaning supplies. In my experience, a 2 ft deep cabinet that is just shelving is TOO deep for storing foodstuffs. Cans and boxes will get lost. Your cabs by the garage look like they might be that deep, so I wanted to warn you. If you use pull-outs for food, that deep is good. Deep cabs are good for appliances, but not for food. My current home had a horrendous 40" deep by 30" wide pantry cab. I had to stack foodstuffs on stair-step shelves along the sidewalls, put anything in the middle in baskets, and use a grabber to pull baskets to the front to get things. It was one of the reasons we remodeled. They should make the builders who create such stupid designs live in them before they sell them to an unsuspecting public! Welcome back. Are you feeling excited to get working on your new kitchen?...See More
housegal200
2 years agolast modified: 2 years agoPlease show your living room. The layout of the living room could help solve the problem of your kitchen being so "in your face" when someone enters the front door.. For example, if you floated your sofa so that it faced your entryway, you could create a bit more separation betwen the kitchen and living room. An attractive console cabinet behind the floating sofa would also give your storage on the kitchen side. But we need to see your entire living to see how layouts might help you create an inviting space when people enter without seeing so much of your kitchen.
Kitchen behind floating sofa:
In any case, it's always nice to enter a living space with a sofa, coffee table, comfortable chairs inviting people to come in and make themselves comfortable.User
2 years agoI realize that one photo distorts reality, but the first thing I see is your ceiling fan. If you need it, make sure you think about how your kitchen relates to it visually. Don’t keep looking at your kitchen without it. If you can change the ceiling fan to something else, you’ve got more options.
The design of your blue and white pillow would be nice in a runner that runs the entire length of your kitchen work space, not just in front of your sink. Black hardware sounds like a great choice for your cabinets
But I want to say I think your space is a great candidate for open panels that are room dividers. I would put one one each side of the opening. On the side closest to the keyboard I would out square pub table so you can have another work space.
If I can find good pictures to show you what I mean, I’ll post them. Here’s a start, even though it is not a kitchen and the panels are too wide
Chic Black and White · More InfoUser
2 years agoOk, so none of these are perfectly right for your space but it gives you some idea. You can get laser cut panels in just about any design, color, width height.
MacDougal Manor · More Info
Fretwork Fretwork Room Divider / Design panels · More Info
Silver Lake Project · More Info
Laser cut room dividers in geometric patterns · More Info
Georgetown Renovation with Laser-cut Sliding Screen Divider · More Info
Architectural metal panels for windows in bars and restaurants · More InfoYou could have something like this behind the screen (or just a plain bar-height table)
Pemberly Row Solid Wood Space Saver Dinette Set with 2 Square Stools in Teak · More InfoStacey Monsen
2 years agolast modified: 2 years ago
elcieg
2 years agolast modified: 2 years agoYou give no dimensions, or other photos of the living room; and this photo isn't quite your opening to kitchen, but you need to close kitchen off, visually. Start by moving the sofa so back is to the kitchen. You can position sofa so there is plenty of walk around space.
housegal200
2 years agolast modified: 2 years agoStacey Monsen
2 years agohousegal200
2 years agoStacey Monsen
2 years agohousegal200
2 years agolast modified: 2 years agoAll right. New ballgame now that everyone can see the entire space. Some suggestions are totally different than my previous comments since I didn't have the necessary visual information. Warning, my suggestions are based on treating the living room, dining, and kitchen as a single space so they all work together.
Your kitchen, by the way, is already a decent size. Some serious decluttering, plus moving kitchen equipment like slow cooker, big pots, baking stuff into your utility room would give you a perfectly workable, well organized kitchen. (If there's space in there, get those steel shelves from a big box store for big pieces you don't use daily.) If your cabinets are in decent shape, think about painting them a creamy white to continue the cream color of your living room pieces so that it harmonizes.
Living room:
--It's a shame your living room furniture is so oversized for the space and all squished together at one end. To unsquish them and bring more light in the room with better flow, float the sofa to face the wall where the map is. (This creates an entryway behind the sofa.) Move the big chair in front of your windows so more light can come into the room--kind of this idea below. Note, especially, the sheer white curtains all on one rod to let in maximinum light--like another wall.
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--Across from the sofa, get a long, low cabinet/bookshelf/or table and put your TV on it. Eventually add art around it so you have something personal and pleasing to look at besides a black screen.
Kim Johnson- art · More Info
--In the corner where your current TV stand is (Sell on Craigslist), get a small round dining table and a couple chairs so you can get rid of the huge black piece blocking the kitchen entry.
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Kitchen:--Alternatively, if you must have a dining table in the kitchen then a pretty rectangular table up on legs with a chair on each side and half the depth of the black one would be much more attractive than that huge piece. Think rectangular bistro set. A wood top one, if you wind up keeping the cabinets white/cream, would add richness to the kitchen
Others have made good suggestions. Get a great looking tall, counter depth Smeg refrigeror in a wonderful color since it's visible from both areas. (This is a small Smeg. There are larger ones. GE has a vintage line in colors as well.) Note the tidy, rattan basket on top instead of visual clutter.
Your kitchen/living room setup could look like this (flipped) so it all hangs together.
houssaon