Sometimes there are limits to where you can go with size alone, when you decide to update your kitchen. The proportions of a charming bungalow, for example, might be worth preserving for their own sake – or they might cloak load-bearing structures that just aren’t going anywhere. Whatever the apparent limitations, it’s good to know that size alone is no reason your kitchen can’t sizzle.
In fact, what’s true in so many design challenges often comes into play in the kitchen. We find that the obstacle points the way to the solution. Just as the world’s favorite cuisines came from societies in which you had to find a use for everything, so too, in design, it can be the pressure that produces the diamond.
Connect to the Life of the Home
The size of your kitchen is no reason not to take advantage of the biggest change of the past century, where kitchens are concerned. You can connect the space you have to the rest of the flow of your home. Way back when, a kitchen was a place where people prepared meals behind closed doors, and then presented them – voila! – with a flourish and a swinging door. That hasn’t been the way it works for a long time, and eventually home designs caught up with that fact.
Today’s kitchen is the heartbeat of the home. Cooking is less and less seen as one person’s solo domain; more and more as a couple’s or even a whole family’s chance to rub elbows a bit, at the beginning or the end of the day.
This doesn’t mean your kitchen has to be big enough for everybody. It only means that it has to be connected. As far back as the 1960’s, pass-through counters and breakfast stools began to define the border between the kitchen and the family room. More and more, that opening has expanded further and further, until kitchens often appear to be a kind of stage, or showcase, in full view of the dining room, living room, or even the media room.
Arrange for Comfort, Convenience, Efficiency
Ever visit the home kitchen of an accomplished caterer or chef? Often it is not large. What you notice is how everything is arranged like a drummer’s drum set. Everything is right where the hands would naturally reach for it. A whole array of pans becomes a design element when hung there in order, in full view. Chopping boards are stacked vertically, like file folders in an office, for quick and easy use. The knife set – the personal toolkit of the trade – is in easy reach and arranged by type, in order.
None of these touches that bespeak an expert’s kitchen require a lot of space. What’s called for is resourcefulness – a constructive view of what space is available. This is what we bring, together with the perspective of many kitchens behind us, and the talent for listening to how uniquely you would like for your kitchen to look and work and feel.
The Joys of the Galley Workstation
One solution for space that’s become extremely popular is the Galley Workstation. Inspired by the efficiencies demanded on a yacht, the galley places what you need, where you need it. Each arrangement is composed in answer to the individual vision and desires of the persons or the family who are going to use it. In a way, the galley is a particular distillation of what makes any kitchen a pleasure, large or small.
Considering your needs and desires first and connecting them with the finest concepts that design has to offer, this is our passion and our pursuit. Let’s have a talk about how you’d like your kitchen to feel, and we’ll help you decide then how it should look. We can help you bring that feeling to life.
