For most of us the kitchen is the beating heart of the house. The place where we connect, reflect and create. The place where we relax, kick back and break bread. A great kitchen is so much more than a place to store and prepare food. It’s a spiritual place where we reaffirm our humanity, reinforce familial bonds or enjoy a quiet cup of coffee on a winter’s morning. For most homeowners their dream kitchen is not the one that came with the house. To achieve it, they’ll need to work with a general contractor who specializes in kitchen renovations. Below we’ll look at a half dozen kitchen renovation ideas to help get your remodeling process off the ground.
6 Great Ideas for Kitchen Renovations
If you enter into any type of home renovations without a workable concept and set budget you’re asking for trouble. The problem is coming up with workable ideas that dovetail with your tastes and desires can sometimes seem a daunting task to say the least. Below we’re going to look at 6 ideas that should help put wind in your kitchen remodeling sails.
Create an island – If you have adequate room in your kitchen few things will activate that space like a kitchen island. The island is not only a multitasking master, allowing you to centralize food prep, add much needed storage and facilitate use of the other appliances, it’s also visually compelling. A well-executed kitchen island with a natural stone countertop and pendant lamps overhead can turn a moribund kitchen into an attractive, evocative and highly versatile space. Great for cooking, food presentation, morning coffee and a gathering point during holiday parties.
Upgrade your countertops – Your general contractor can tell you how much beauty and timeless functionality natural stone countertops can add to a kitchen. Quartz, granite, marble and more endow a space with immediate gravitas. They’re also relatively easy to maintain and will last for decades or even centuries if properly cared for. It’s hard to overstate just how much of an effect upgrading from say, tile, to granite or marble will have on your kitchen. And the best part? It’s way more affordable than you imagine.
Install open shelves – Open shelves are quite the hot item when it comes to kitchen renovations. Homeowners are beginning to appreciate both the expressive and practical aspects of open shelf design in the kitchen. In one area it can facilitate an artful presentation of your finest dinnerware, vases or antique drinking vessels. In another area it might be the idea place to store cookbooks, canisters of dry goods, ancestral portraits or ewers. Open shelving breaks down the barriers between us and the workings of the kitchen. While at the same time making small to moderate spaces feel more expansive and airy.
Lively things up with color – While the classic white kitchen can be a beautiful thing when executed properly it’s 2019 for crying out loud. Time to add some color to the most used room in the house and lively things up a bit. We’re not talking about turning it into the set of Sesame Street. Just adding color accents here and there to create focal points, set a mood or create visual motion. The color injection can be as subtle and low-key as a piece of hand painted porcelain on one of your open shelves. Or lime green plates and bowls on those open shelves that echo the color of the bowl of green apples on the kitchen island. Or red cups on the shelf that play off the complementary green in the granite countertop.
Don’t forget the lighting – With the advent of LED lighting virtually any lighting effect you can imagine is doable and won’t cost you much of anything once installed. You can easily create compelling theatrical lighting effects that create focal points and establish different moods using different light combinations. Place recessed LED strip lights under the cabinets to generate a quiet, ethereal mood and play them off against track lighting. Shut the LED lights down entirely and fire up the Tiffany pendant lights over the island to create an entirely different type of look and feel.
Install a backsplash – A backsplash along the main countertop that echoes another aspect of the kitchen design is a great way to tie things together thematically. A checkerboard backsplash adds an evocative, homey feel to the kitchen without your having to go full-on country.
The Bottom Line
Kitchen renovations are still among the most exciting and satisfying of any home remodeling projects. Before you undertake any renovations however, make sure you talk to the GTA’s premier home renovations general contractor: Milman Design Build. We’ve helped scores of Toronto homeowners unlock the potential of their kitchens and we can do the same for you.