Live In Kitchen Luxe

What features add a sense of luxury in a kitchen?

We can all point to a kitchen that has wow factor and a sense of luxury, but what are the individual components that contribute to the overall effect? 

The list below offers key areas where careful thought and the right choices can add real value and a bit of kitchen luxe.

These ideas are about pushing the design of a kitchen from good to great and will cost little more than a bit of consideration. 

Pay Attention to Your Colour Palette

Make sure the colours in your kitchen tie in with the rest of your home. Continuity is key.

A complementary paint colour adds little or no extra cost to a kitchen remodel, but can add a great amount of flair to the kitchen. There is also no reason why your kitchen must be one colour. Consider having two colours in your kitchen – upper cabinets in one colour, lower cabinets in another. How about a colour highlight? A display shelf in contrasting colour can make a bold statement and when it is only a different paint colour, the cost is minimal.

If you are unsure about colour, talk to your designer.

Show off Your Tap

Unfortunately, I’m not allowed to talk about Hugh Jackman in a kitchen blog. Fortunately, choosing a beautiful tap for your kitchen can add an additional focal point and provide great wow factor.

A new tap does not have to be expensive. If you shop around you will find some wonderful options, just make sure they will accommodate the thickness of your benchtop. Some of the cheaper brands are only designed for thinner benchtops.

If you are choosing a large heavy tap make sure it is mounted in the benchtop, not the sink (so purchase a sink that does not have a tap mounting area).  A large heavy tap will flex a thin stainless steel sink and will actually feel cheap. 

Some taps offer an optional bracket that can be purchased to allow mounting in sinks. Keep in mind that for natural stone benchtops you may need this bracket anyway depending on how close to the sink cut out your tap needs to be mounted.  Finally, make sure you have enough depth in your benchtop to mount your fancy sink and gorgeous feature tapware!

Open Shelf Units / Floating Shelves

Open shelving not only gives your kitchen a style lift, it is also on trend, keeps clutter off your benchtop and provides an opportunity for you to display your styling skills.

Open shelves make it easy to update the look of your kitchen in future as displayed items may be updated to fit with current trends – a much cheaper solution than upgrading your kitchen cabinets each time the style wind changes.

Glass Doors

If dusting is not high on your list of priorities, consider adding glass doors to display shelves. Glass doors do not add a great deal to the cost of a cabinet and provide the same opportunity for staying abreast of trends as open shelving – without the requisite dusting.

Fill the Space Visually

A blank wall in a kitchen can make the room look sparse and sterile. When updating your kitchen, consider all of the walls in the area and how you are going to use them. Artworks; floating shelves; feature tiling; a row of cabinets or windows all offer different qualities to consider.

Appliance Cabinets

Keep your large appliances out of sight without putting them out of reach to save clutter.

Invest in New Appliances

While this may seem like more of an expense, it can save money in the long run. Few people realise that large appliances, such as dishwasher, oven and cooktop are more likely to fail after being disconnected, moved and reconnected.

If the new kitchen is built around your old appliances only to have them fail at the grand opening, it will be more expensive to have them replaced immediately as there would be limited time to shop around for the best deal. The kitchen may also have to be modified to house the new appliance if it is a different size or if the connections are at different points to the old appliances.

If you are purchasing new appliances, consider having integrated appliances. Integrated simply means the appliance is specially designed to have your own door front attached to the front to camouflage it within your kitchen.

Extend Your Cabinet Height

Going higher with cabinets is generally better, however if you have 4m cathedral ceilings it’s going to look a little strange and you’re going to need a fireman’s ladder. Higher cabinets obviously provide more storage space. They also draw the eye upward and can make a tight room feel more spacious and add that extra bit of kitchen luxe.

A bulkhead above the cabinets makes the kitchen look truly built in, solid and well finished.

Premium Details

Decide where you want to direct your attention and upgrade or rethink your choices when remodelling. There are a few areas where our attention is naturally drawn in a kitchen – benchtops, splashbacks and doors.

• Benchtops – if a premium benchtop is sought but the budget is tight, consider placing the premium benchtop only on the island.

• Splashbacks – splashbacks range widely in price, it may be possible to achieve a similar effect with a different material. For more inspiration click here.

• New handles on your kitchen can actually make you feel like you have a brand new kitchen! With so many options available, it is another easy method of keeping up with trends.

Lighting

Lighting is often erroneously left until after installation. It is understandable as there are a great many things to consider within the kitchen. But don’t be tempted. Lighting plays a huge role in the function and life of a kitchen. Task lighting enables you to see what you are doing; feature lighting adds style and under cabinet lighting brightens areas often left in the shadows. The overall effect is worth it!

Style For Kitchen Luxe

Styling is the difference between a warm welcome and a cold hello

We’ve collected some kitchen styling tips to up the kitchen luxe in a blog post here.

Focus on Flooring

Can make a kitchen feel like it fits within your home or really let it down. If you limit yourself to an existing footprint (just to save a change in flooring or a complete resurfacing), you’ll limit your design and have the same or similar layout to what you already had. If a job is worth doing, it is worth doing well.