Depending on your lifestyle, the kitchen will either be the room where you spend most of your time when you’re at home, or the least of your time when you’re at home.
Of course, personal preference will come into play somewhere, too. Not everyone wants to spend hours coming up with recipes and cooking up home delights, and a microwave meal is usually the quickest of all quick fixes. Others love their kitchens, and will happily spend hours at a time experimenting with foods. If you’re a parent with a large family, you might not have much choice!
Regardless of how you feel about your kitchen, you’re going to want it to be clean, tidy, and functional at all times. In terms of fixtures and fittings, it can be one of the most expensive rooms in at home to have fitted with everything you want.
Here are our top 5 ideas for brilliant, inspirational home renovations.
Unique Wood Cabinets and Features
While rustic, country inspired kitchens are growing in popularity, they are soon going to reach the stage where everyone is doing it and they lose some of their charm.
Instead, you could go for a unique wooden look using reclaimed wood throughout your kitchen. This works brilliantly, as you’re guaranteed a kitchen unlike any other, and are sure to love the fact that, while everything is different and mismatched, it actually feels like it fits together perfectly.
Another option is to not have kitchen cabinets in the traditional sense, and instead use your reclaimed wood to create shelves, plate holders, and other features throughout your kitchen.
Marble Work Surfaces
Sometimes, we just don’t have the financial capability to be able to afford a total kitchen refit. When we find ourselves in this situation, the best solution is to look at how we can lift the appearance of the kitchen in the biggest way possible.
One option, and one that we love, is to upgrade to marble work surfaces. While marble has been around for years and is popular in bathrooms and as a fireplace surround, there is no denying how much of a lift they bring to a kitchen.
Choose the color of your marble based on the color of your kitchen; remember that, as with fashion, black goes with anything.
Hidden Appliances
If you’re the sort of person who hates your kitchen, and would rather not be reminded where you are while cooking dinner (or waiting for the microwave to ping), then hidden appliances are a great way to turn your kitchen into any other room in the house.
Rather than a small upgrade, installing hidden appliances is usually done as part of a wider upgrade and kitchen fitting. Given the work that needs to be done, it probably works out cheaper to go for the total refit rather than just adding new features here and there.
A Technology Paradise
Who knew that a kitchen could be a techie’s dream? If you’re a technology lover and haven’t got the latest fridge, ice making machine, 21st century coffee maker, or grill steam cleaner, then you’re missing out.
If you aim to spend as little time in the kitchen as possible, then you could at least go for a microwave that looks like it might have come from the Starship Enterprise.
For something bigger and better, it is difficult to go wrong with a SMEG fridge.
Laying Down the Floor
Most of us tend to go for laminate kitchen flooring as it’s easy to wipe clean. Newsflash! Tiles look miles better and are just as easy to clean, they are no more slippery than laminates, and will stand up to any pets or footwear for a lot longer.
Your biggest concern with a tiled kitchen floor is ensuring it’s installed correctly, so don’t just choose the most cheap and cheerful builder in the local directory.
Inspirational Kitchens
Modern kitchens are very much the hub of the home, whether you love yours or not. Ensure it is designed and decorated in a manner than fits the bill, so whatever amount of time you use it for, you’re getting everything you need from your kitchen, and much more to boot.
Author Bio: Terance Nichols is an interior design consultant who has pioneered transferring the principles behind sliding wardrobe doors in the bedroom to inspirational designs for hidden appliances in modern kitchens.