Latest Interiors: Nouvelle cuisine
Latest Interiors on making your kitchen work for you – in both layout and style
Kitchens are important. A recent survey by Zanussi found that 75 per cent of home buyers consider a kitchen to be the deciding factor when making an offer. And no wonder – contemporary kitchens need to multi-task, sharing food preparation and eating space with living, work and play areas.
Handless Y System with quartz stone worktop, Intoto Kitchens, 01273 771469, www.intoto.co.uk/brighton
Get it right, and the heart of your home will be a sleek, uncluttered, efficient space for the whole household. Get it wrong, and – well, you’ll need to start again. The same survey found that up to 50 per cent of homebuyers replace the kitchen within three months of moving in. This week, Latest Interiors takes a look at what’s hot in contemporary kitchen design.
Kitchen setup
Open-plan kitchen and living remains the contemporary ideal: many new builds incorporate an open-plan cook/eat/living space.
In older properties, the trend is to combine kitchen and dining areas or knock through between front and back rooms to create space. Island units provide useful preparation, eating and storage space, and also help to mark out boundaries between different spaces.
In smaller properties and studios, innovative new ‘capsule’ kitchen ranges like Lina Quattro’s ‘opera’ and ‘studio’ ranges (www.lineaquattro.com) means you can now fit a stylish, uncluttered kitchen on just one wall.
These micro-kitchens incorporate some simple principles that make any kitchen seem roomy and uncluttered: they utilise all the available floor-to-ceiling space for storage, and incorporate plenty of adjustable lighting for different kitchen tasks. They also make use of small-size, integrated appliances, integrated bins, and allow you to shut all – or most – of the kitchen away behind chic, glossy doors.
Chestnut and Solero laminate door with chestnut laminate worktop Intoto kitchens, 01273 771469, www.intoto.co.uk/brighton
Kitchen style
Although bright colours are a strong trend in interiors this year, try to resist the temptation to fill your kitchen with a range of bright units and walls. Keep it bold but harmonious with neutral base units and doors, adding accents of bright colour and texture.
Glossy blacks, greys, off-whites and stone unit doors can be highlighted with bright coloured lights, coloured glass splash-backs (we love purple glass this season), pairs of bright units, and borders (coloured veneers can be used to highlight door and worktop edges).
Textured wood veneer (zebrano, olive wood, mahogany and black oak are very striking) bring texture and pattern into kitchens this season, too. Natural stone, concrete and corian (composite stone) worktops in glossy black or slick white that give a solid, chunky finish are
very on-trend. They are also hardwearing, and should give many long years of service.
Contemporary space
In any size or style of kitchen, effective design focuses on the ‘working triangle’ – the space between refrigerator, oven and sink. If the three points are too far apart, time and effort are wasted in food preparation. Put the three points too close together, and the space will feel awkward and cramped.
The optimal distance travelled between the three points should be around 6m (20 feet). Storage for frequently used items should be organised within the triangle – your pots and pans, regular ingredients, mugs and so on.
Anything else can be planned into the peripheral space, along with non-food activities. Think about what you want to use the space for, and ensure you’ve catered for home-working, laundry, entertaining and whatever else you might use this hard-working space for. Well, you might as well get your money’s worth…
