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…!