Ideas & tips for your kitchen

Posted: 28 April 2011 by Metricon Homes

Tags: layout, modern

“No matter where I serve my guests, it seems they love my kitchen best.” The famous old rhyme highlights the central role that kitchens play in all our lives … and today they’re so much more than somewhere just to cook a meal. Kitchens are where people gather to chat, discuss their news of the day, share a quick snack and make arrangements for the rest of the day. In some cultures, people almost seem to live in them!

Little wonder, then, that recent kitchen trends are all about convenience, cleanliness, easy-on-the-eye aesthetics, and flowingly integrating the kitchen with the rest of the living and dining area.

One much more common feature that demonstrates this is set to be “raised servery”. This “back to the future” blast-from-the-past was very common in the 1950s and 50s. A very sensible retro idea, now brought bang up to date with great design and modern materials, it essentially entails taking the central kitchen island bench and elevating a portion of it to serve dishes and meals onto. Not only is this practical and convenient - add a couple of stools and you have an impromptu breakfast bar - but it’s aesthetically pleasing too.

The raised section “hides” food preparation and dishes from the rest of the room, creating a neat and pleasing eye line. The raised servery also adds architectural presence to the kitchen, creating a “look” that is both substantial and satisfying.

Integrated with this more thoughtful servery design you can also expect to see display areas for knick-knacks and artworks to turn the kitchen into much more than merely a functional space. Open corner shelves in the servery, for example, can be used to display antique cooking tools, cookbooks, feature art glass plates or bowls, knick-knacks or whatever takes your fancy. In a trice, the kitchen becomes a venue to express your creativity in more ways than one.

Throw in Euro-style stainless steel appliances, some carefully positioned windows to “bring the outside inside” (and allow natural light to flood in an illuminate the cooking areas) and it’s easy to see how the kitchen can become a relaxing and invigorating place to be, rather than a chore. Now sink microwave and coffee machine “into” the walls, and provide plenty of “hideaway” cupboard space – and can one ever really have too many cupboards in a kitchen? - and you’re getting close to the perfect “Masterchef” kitchen. Splash out on a butler’s pantry as well, preferably connected to the garage so you can move groceries easily into the space even when it’s tipping down with rain, and you have the perfect set up.

Metricon’s Point Cook displays showcase some of these new ideas, and loads of other design and decoration tips throughout the home. Grab your notebook and come on down.