Our Tips for Designing a Kitchen to Love

The kitchen is the centre point of the home and, in our opinion, the most important room in the house to nail. We are sharing our top 10 tips for designing a kitchen you will love, for many years to come.

Budgeting

The number one starting point to designing a kitchen - how much do you have to spend on this room? Be very mindful of your budget when making selections and get quotes whenever possible. Try to factor in an allowance for unforeseen circumstances - this will mean you are able to finish the kitchen to the level you want without making compromises or blowing the bank.
The budget needs to cover appliances, cabinets, hardware, tapware, benchtops and splash back, just to name a few. You will usually also require additional trades to your builders such as chippie, plumber, tiler, electrician and painter. It takes a large group of professionals to bring this room together. After all, it is the most detailed, thought out and important room in any home. Take your time in the initial planning phase.

Theme & Research

The look and feel of this space sets a tone for the entire home, both internally and externally. You want the home to feel cohesive, not confusing. The kitchen always sets the mood for your bathrooms and laundry, and while you don’t need to have the same cabinetry, it just must be complimentary.

When using Pinterest as a way of collating your favourite looks, here is our tips for getting the best result without overwhelming yourself. It’s great to have boards that are broad to begin with, but when it gets down to a chosen theme/style, you need to be more specific with the finishes. Make a new board just based on the kitchen you are actually designing, funnel your ideas down to more specific boards. For example, you will need:
Cabinetry: you need to decide on timber/no timber, two-pack painted finish in white or in a lovely soft colour
Hardware: integrated handles or hardware
Appliances: integrated appliances or not (more on this below)
Benches: how thick you like the benches to be
Shelving: do you want some open shelving for styling
Furniture: bench stools at the centre bench and how would this look.

Collect your inspiration pictures, take your time, and right notes on each photo reminding you of what exactly it is that you like in the picture so when its time to share, your tradies can see your desired outcome.
Grab all your samples and put them together. Whenever possible take your samples to the space that will become your kitchen - seeing them all together in the true light is essential!

Appliances

Choose the type of cooking appliances you want first. A visit to Winnings Appliances or similar is a great start. You will need to decide on things such as wall oven or freestanding oven, gas cook top or inducted, microwave or no microwave, single sink or double sink, type of fridge/freezer set up you like best i.e. integrated or not integrated.
These need to be chosen initially because the kitchen is designed around them and their measurements.

Accessories

Consider - is this a kitchen designed for an at-home chef, a simple style of home cook, a house you are flipping or a forever home? This would mean a differing selection of kitchen cooking accessories and inclusions that would suit the end use better. If it’s a house to flip, you keep it fairly simple. If it’s your forever home, you could go all out. Inclusion options include. ie pull out cooking oil draw, hidden spice rack storage, pull out bin and recycling area, butlers pantry, integrated breakfast zone, filtered water tap such as Zip (requires more cabinet space under the sink), filtered water and ice making components to your fridge.

Lighting

There are multiple types of light to factor in - natural light, task lighting, mood lighting and sensor lighting (consider for a butlers or pantry light).
Do you like the look of wall lights, pendants lights, LED strip lighting, or all of the above? When choosing the more ornamental type of lighting such as pendant or wall lights, consider how much you like them when both on and off. You may like a light fitting by day, yet when it is lit, the effect it has is underwhelming, so make sure you can see how they look by day and by night.
Consider the type of light - blue, day or warm lighting . We always use warm lighting. We are always conscious to not over-light a room and this applies to the LED strip and down lights, do not overlook this.
A hot tip from us - make sure your LED strip light runs all the way behind the extractor. Often electricians may note that the extractor has its own light and will run them either side. This creates a disconnect in the lighting when the LED is both for function and mood. Think about the result when the extractor light is off.

Layout

It’s always good to play with at least 3 layouts first. Think about how you like to use a kitchen, what makes sense functionality-wise. Consider these options matched with your choice of cooking appliances. Some appliances will cancel out certain layouts. Sinks on the centre bench or on the back run always decides on the length of the runs you are dealing with which equals useable prep space.
When dealing with small spaces we usually always have to pull the sink onto the centre bench, where as bigger kitchens you do not. And if you can afford the room of having a butlers pantry, it can be beneficial to have a sink in there as well, which clears counter space in the main kitchen for all coffee and tea making requirements meaning less clutter which we love.

Bench & Kicker Height

In recent times we have seen a trend of the bench height increasing up to 950mm. I would suggest this when you have tall clients, but for average rule of thumb we use 920mm, as this suits short and tall people. You will find project homes are still working around the 900mm mark.
When you allow yourself a little more height you also gain draw depth, or bench thickness, so if you are having a 100mm thick bench top I would be inclined to consider a 950H if it suits the clients.
You can also shrink the height of the kicker. The average is 100-150mm which allows for unlevelled floors. But when building new homes that tend to be more level you can actually gain back some draw depth again by going down to a 50mm kicker. If you like to make cabinetry appear to look like it’s floating you can request that the kickers be set back as far as possible 150mm.
Put a measuring tape in your car and when you’re at your friends house see what they have and what it feels like.

Benchtop Material

When it comes to to stone tops, do you prefer the durability of a manmade look-a-like stone, or are you more of a natural kinda person and can except that it will require more maintenance. If you want a product that is bomb proof then you would be inclined to consider porcelain, other options are concrete, timber and micro cement (which we would avoid if possible). We have also seen a resurgence for a tiled bench top, which we would avoid due to the grout getting grubby with time.

Mixing Metals

You may think that you should not mix your metals colours i.e. if you have a black tap, you must also have black handles, yet we totally disagree and like to mix my metals, creating layers. You will find that certain metals act as families - spend some time on Pinterest and see this in action. We believe two metals are better than one.

Trades & Professionals - Your Team

The most important part of the process is choosing your dream team. Recommendations are essential, and when a person comes highly recommended you will usually have to wait a little longer. Tradies also work mostly as extended teams so ask them who they would suggest, as they would never suggest someone that would make them look bad. When it comes to pricing, we would suggest as a general rule of thumb that you do not go for the cheapest, as you know that will usually result in poor quality. Quality comes at a price and considering how long a kitchen usually stands in a home it’s important not to cut corners.

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If you are interested in our design services and have a potential project that you need help with, please get in touch.

Skylights: Create Directional Light

Lighting is one of the most important design elements to consider when building a house. Lighting adds ambience, it’s functional and the strategic use of lighting can completely change the way a room feels.

A much overlooked design tool is using skylights to create directional light. The point of this being to highlight design features by determining the shape and direction of light flow into a space.

Creating a ‘Lightbox’

Rather than just using a skylight in its given shape and light just flowing directly from the skylight as in a standard skylight installation, we create a ‘lightbox’ around the skylight using framing and gyprock between the ceiling and the false ceiling. 

This space between the skylight and false/dropped ceiling can be referred to as a ‘ceiling void for a skylight’ when discussing with your builder.

Light can then flow out from the skylight in the path determined by the lightbox. You can see the difference in the images we have here - by creating a ‘lightbox’ we are able to direct the light flow and highlight the complete shelving unit - all while using the same size skylight.

Standard skylight installation

Creating a lightbox for skylights

Skylights in Bathrooms

This technique is especially useful in bathrooms, highlighting the vanities or above showers/baths.

We also add extractors or ventilation in this section, hiding it from sight - another huge advantage of using this technique.

Lighting

It can also be used beautifully in bedrooms or living areas which have limited natural light where you want to create light over a particular feature for example, a built-in shelving unit or over the bedhead.

If you aren’t using skylights, you can add LED lighting in the same way. 

Spend or Save: Which Rooms are Most Important

Which rooms to focus on? It’s not only about budget allocation - it’s also about where to focus design energy, where to create something special and where you can keep it more simple. If you are limited by budget, which in most cases we are, it’s also very important to allocate budget correctly between your most important rooms in the house. We are sharing how we prioritise both budgeting and focus, room-by-room.

Generally, as a rule of thumb - our focus in terms of budget goes on permanent fixtures rather than styling items. Styling items will change over time, however permanent fixtures will be a much longer-term investment. This is why kitchens and bathrooms are so important.

1. Kitchen

The kitchen is the heart of the home - it is by far the most important room in the house and generally the most expensive to build or renovate.

A kitchen should be designed around the users needs - is it a family home, a holiday home, an entertainers home etc. The kitchen will also include pantry or butlers pantry.

The kitchen incurs some significant costs such as cabinetry, plumbing and appliances.
Expect to spend between $50-100k to renovate or build a kitchen depending on the size and scope.

2. Master Ensuite

A space to retreat, to unwind and relax - a sanctuary in the home, specifically for (generally speaking) the homeowners. As such, we prioritise the Master Ensuite and create something special, specific to the users needs.
A bathroom is also a higher cost room to renovate or build - due to plumbing, tiles, baths/sinks, & tapware.

3. Lounge Room

The lounge room is another central communal space - it’s a space for both family and guests to enjoy. While this room is often about furnishings and styling, there are opportunities, if your budget allows, to include various design elements to elevate the room including fireplaces, built in and custom furniture.

4. Dining

The importance of the dining room is less about budget and more about how the space is used. This is a space to share a meal with loved ones so we believe it deserves thought and planning in order to create an inviting & comfortable room.

Some things to consider in this space - natural light, size & shape of the dining table (can this be suited to intimate meals as well as larger affairs) and comfort of the table/chairs.

5. Master Bedroom

This one speaks for itself - the Master Bedroom is generally for the home-owner and is an expression of the user. While furniture & soft furnishings are important in this space, we focus on a design element that makes the room feel truly special for the client. Lighting sources are very important to consider as it affects the ambience of the room.

A wardrobe is another important feature to consider in terms of allocation of space, cabinetry and functionality.

6. Powder Room

This is a room both guests and the family use. It is a space that needs careful thought and planning as it is generally quite small, yet needs to function well and tie into the rest of the house design.
Tip: use a cavity sliding door as opposed to a swinging door to save space.

7. Shared Bathroom

This ranking is not so much about budget, because a bathroom will be a significant cost, this is more about design energy - a shared bathroom is often a space used by multiple people, its less personal and is often used by kids and guests. So this is the reason we are less precious about the shared bathroom as opposed to other spaces in the home. It should be functional and meet the needs of the users. A component you can save money on is tiles as there is a lot of budget friendly options available, where as tapware which is important to buy good quality.

8. Kids/Guest Bedrooms

Kids bedrooms are more about the styling and furnishings so they can evolve as children grow. They can be mostly blank canvases that can be suited to the current needs of the home i.e. young children, teenagers retreat, study/office or guest bedrooms.

9. Rumpus Room

Often a secondary lounge room, dedicated to play. This room will need to evolve as needs/use changes so best to limit permanent fixtures in this space.

9. Laundry

This is a utility room, so its use is practical in nature. This is not a room seen or used by guests so you can keep it simple and functional. This room requires cabinetry and plumbing, both of which require careful planning and execution.

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If you are interested in our design services and have a potential project that your need help with, please get in touch.