Kitchen Chatter

A kitchen renovation can completely transform the heart of your home from a dark and dingy hole to a vibrant place for entertaining family and friends. Below are just a few examples of recent renovations by A-Plan Kitchens’ customers. We think you’d agree the transformations are dramatic – but we’d like to see some more.

Before	After
Before	After
Before	After

So send us your Before and After photos of your kitchen renovation and we’ll post them up on our website, blog and Facebook pages. The best kitchen transformation as judged by our readers will win $300!!

Go to it!

I hoped you’ve enjoyed my blogs to date from the world’s greatest kitchen fair. Sadly, my European jaunt is coming to an end. But I’ve taken over 600 photos at Eurocucina and in the coming weeks I’ll reflect more fully on the future trends in kitchen design. In the meantime, I thought I’d put together a fun blog about the things I saw and liked with no particular theme or emphasis.

Gardens in the kitchen

Need some fresh basil for your paste sauce? How about this miniature hothouse for your kitchen wall so you can grow your fresh herbs nearby? Pretty cute, don’t you think?

Now this kitchen is almost bringing the home garden indoors! It’s bordering on overgrown but isn’t it beautiful? I just love the idea of having so much greenery around. It also compliments the use of natural materials like timber and stone in this kitchen.

Fun and funky lighting

I’m not sure what’s hotter, the lights or the chillies? Aren’t they great?….the lights I mean! Talk about creating a feature for the room!

I just had to include these – what a fantastic and creative use for a bunch of saucepans! ScanPan may not be impressed but this is one of the most spectacular lighting displays I’ve ever seen. Incidentally, check out the use of fresh tomatoes in the walls of this kitchen display, it was one of the most funky exhibits at Eurocucina.

 Isn’t this coloured chandellier just beautiful? A variation on a well known theme but doesn’t it reinvent the traditional concept a give it a whole new meaning? I love it!

Removable finishes

Imagine being able to change the finishes on your cabinets to suit your changing tastes or colour schemes? Well, with these cabinets you can do just that!  These finishes pealed off just like giant fridge magnets. That’s clever!

Cute brushes!

What do a bunch of cute coloured brushes have to do with kitchens, I hear you ask? Well, nothing really…I just liked them!

More blogs and more ideas when I get back to Oz….Bye for now.

Sue 

Like most of us, I grew up in a household where the kitchen was isolated from the rest of the house.  Now, thanks to our changing lifestyles, the kitchen has become central to the modern family home. It’s the place to entertain family and friends, to prepare and share meals and to catch up at the end of the day. This central focus on the kitchen has increased the need to integrate its design and function with surrounding areas of the house. Appliances are now seamlessly integrated behind doors or even bench tops…and the kitchen itself has been cleverly integrated with other rooms. These trends are even more apparent at Eurocucina in 2012.

Now you see it

 The tall cabinet doors in this simple but elegant kitchen open to reveal pantry storage, wall    oven, microwave, wine cooler and wine racks. When closed there is nothing to be seen. 

There's a galley below

This kitchen is almost invisible thanks to its sunken cook top with inverted wok burner and heating element. The bench top cover slides over the cook top to create a seamless island bench.

Is there a kitchen here?

This gorgeous timber bench top  looks more like a piece of Scandinavian modular furniture thanks to its integrated cook top and adjoining, seamless solid surface bench top with matching white, handle-less wall cabinets.

Just one big living space

This beautiful open plan kitchen seamlessly flows into the adjoining living room. Note how the use of the same wall paper and timber finish on the kitchen cabinets, bench top and open shelves creates a continuity between the two areas. 

A kitchen becomes a lounge room

Clever design and colour choice has enabled this kitchen to integrate smoothly with its adjoining lounge room. The off-white wall cabinets commence in the kitchen and flow into the lounge area while the lounge furniture is reversed out into brown tones to match the kitchen interiors. Brilliant!

More ideas to come…!

Sue

Eurocucina has always been a showcase for colours when it comes to kitchens but this year many have said that the GFC has cast a somber mood on the kitchen displays. While it’s true that muted colours and the use of natural timbers and stone is strongly represented, bold colours are still to be seen in large numbers. In this blog, I wanted to show how colour can be used to create a mood and make a statement when it comes to kitchens.

Making a bold statement

Orange is a stimulating and exciting colour which is seldom used in such a bold way as this kitchen. Here the strong use of orange on the cupboards and island bench is offset by the contrasting white on the splash back, the tall cupboards to the right and the clever drape inserted in the island around and below the cooktop. A masterful design touch is the reverse orange on the open shelves and the brilliant free form light above the cooktop. Wow!

How cool are these colours?

By way of contrast to the orange, the use of these cool blues has a calming effect. The aqua blue recalls the ocean and the fabulous curved shape of the island bench is reminiscent of the prow of an ocean liner. The use of a soft grey in the amongst the blue and green panelling provides a mute contrast to strong colours and reflects the stainless steel of the bench top and surrounding appliances. A stunningly beautiful kitchen!

Oriental flavour

The use of two shades of red (warm & cool) and a strong yellow contrasts with a continuous thread of black on the benchtop, table and in the furniture – tying both this kitchen and adjoining dining/living area together. The choice of furniture and rectangular styling evoke an oriental flavour to this amazing space.

Licorice allsort

This simple black and white kitchen has been lifted into another dimension by the fabulous  use of lime and raspberry pink on the surrounding panels. There is nothing elaborate in the cabinetry, just a beautiful balance of colours and great styling make this a kitchen which stands out from the crowd.

Excitement plus!

The red in this kitchen not only screams out – ‘look at me’ , it provides a dramatic contrast and adds warmth to the surrounding timber cabinetry. Also the high gloss finish on all the red surfaces enhances the texture of the adjoining timber. You can see why Ferraris are most commonly red! 

Not from the bronze age!

I’ve left this kitchen until last because it’s just so stunning! The shape of the island bench with its accompanying open shelves creates almost a sculptural piece…but it’s the clever use of colour which helps to make such a powerful design statement. The choice of peacock blue and bronze is a masterstroke and the clever addition of yellow elements in the styling is brilliant!

Kitchens like these inspire every designer!  More to come…

Sue

Eurocucina is a barometer of exquisite taste and as you’d expect there are hundreds of beautiful kitchens here. But there are also kitchens which are so ‘over the top’ in design …and others which are just weird and wacky. Before I get to the absolutely gorgeous, I couldn’t resist showing you a selection of kitchens which are truly ‘out there’ – in a place on their own!

Now this is baroque!

This kitchen would not look out of place in the Palace of Versailles and the candelabra absolutely belongs, doesn’t it? Take note of the onyx benchtop and splashback, each with lighting behind. Well, what sort of onyx benchtop doesn’t have back lighting, after all? The decorative work on the cabinetry is exquisite, if a touch elaborate! 

Marie Antoinette - come back, all is forgiven!

If Marie Antoinette were to be reincarnated in the 21st century, she’d belong in a kitchen like this, don’t you think? If you reckon I’m joking, take a look at the woman on the far right of the picture!  The curve in the (checker board backed) island is matched by the curve in the waterfall chandelier above and this is echoed by the uniquely shaped range hood. 

Every kitchen needs a column...or two.

What self respecting kitchen doesn’t deserve its own columns? And this one would be positively naked without them! Perhaps this kitchen may be out of place in the average Australian suburban home…then again, if you had high ceilings…? 

The 'Ettamoogah Pub' kitchen

It’s exquisitely detailed, every component is hand crafted and its very expensive…so where would you put this kitchen? Well it’s so eccentric, I could picture it in the Ettamooga Pub! Then again, if you have truly eclectic tastes – this could be the kitchen of your dreams..?

There are butterflies in the kitchen!

This is a beautiful kitchen, the craftsmanship is outstanding and it’s got more butterflies than the tropical hothouse at the Melbourne zoo. Let’s face it – it’s a fantasy kitchen but no less outstanding for that…

Anyone for a brandy and a cigar?

I just had to include this one. When I saw this kitchen I thought I’d stumbled into the Melbourne Club! Just a bit of decorative joinery to enhance the range hood and island bench!  It makes you feel inclined to dress up for breakfast, doesn’t it? 

 Hope you enjoyed this brief tour of the weird and wonderful. More exciting kitchens tomorrow!

Sue

Sue joins the throng at Eurocucina

They came from the four corners of the globe to the greatest kitchen show on earth and once again, Eurocucina didn’t disappoint!

As a woman, I’m happy to confirm that size doesn’t matter – but at the FieraMilano, it’s hard to ignore the scale of the place. After all, there are 24 pavilions (each half the size of the exhibition space at Darling Harbour) and it takes a bus just to get from the entrance to the kitchen and bathroom pavilions, although you can use the moving walkway if you’re feeling fit and you’ve got the time!

 So what were the initial impressions after spending the day in the first of three pavilions devoted purely to kitchens and bathrooms?

Now that's a curve!

Well, after the dominance of straight clean lines in kitchen design, curves are back…and in a big way! Bold colours have always been popular in Europe but now they’re being used in combination – to tie one area to another. The trend towards integrating the kitchen with its surrounding living space continues apace. And the baroque style in kitchen design is alive and well  – Gianni Versace would no doubt approve!

I’ll be reporting on these and other trends in the next few days but let’s start with kitchen curves.

Everything curves from top to bottom

Wow, the curves are everywhere…benchtops, doors, splashbacks and even cooktops have joined the trend! Take a look at this kitchen where everything from the top to the bottom curves – and isn’t is beautiful? Not so easy to build, but easy on the eye!

Move your benchtop to suit your kitchen

And this blue and white kitchen not only featured curved cupboards and benches but the l-shaped bench closest to camera could be rotated inwards or outwards towards or away from the kitchen to change the kitchen configuration completely. 

That’s Eurocucina for you. In the next few days, I’ll show you some kitchens that will surprise and amaze you. Kitchens with style, kitchens with taste, kitchens with…butterflies! Yes, you heard me right!

Now, that's groovy

Before, I go – one more kitchen with curves. Talk to you tomorrow….

Sue

By the time you read this, we’ll be somewhere over the Indian Ocean heading for one of the world’s great fashion capitals – Milan. In many ways, Eurocucina could be likened to the fashion ‘catwalk for kitchens’, as it’s where everyone in the world comes to ogle the boldest, the brightest and sometimes most bizarre looking, kitchen designs.  Love it or hate it, there’s no doubt that Eurocucina is where the latest and greatest ideas are on show, so what kitchen designer wouldn’t want to be here?

 So standby!  From Tuesday 17^th April, I’ll be uploading stories and images from this exciting event. Who knows, the kitchen of your dreams may be on display!

Happy reading….!

Sue Terley

Senior Designer

A-Plan Kitchens