The kitchen often receives the most traffic in the house, whether you’re eating a meal there, making a guest a cup of coffee or just talking to your family or friends. If you make meals for your family, you’ll spend even more time in the kitchen, so it’s important that you and your guests feel comfortable.

Layout

When designing your kitchen then, the first thing you need to think about is what space you have to work with and how all the different elements will fit together. There needs to be enough room for people to move around easily and so that you have enough space while you are preparing a meal.

This is where experts will talk about the “Golden Triangle” which refers to how you position the three things you use most in your kitchen (usually the cooker, fridge and sink). The theory states that these elements must have enough space between them so that there is enough room for you to work in. These work areas are supposed to be no more than 3 metres apart.

A streamlined kitchen

When it comes to the look of your kitchen, streamlining surfaces create a neat and sleek looking kitchen and can free up space, which will allow you to move around easier as well. By hiding away appliances, in drawers or behind doors, the kitchen appears tidy and clean. You can even make cupboard handles disappear with invisible angled ‘finger pulls’.

To hide away cutlery and crockery, you will need enough storage space. Drawers maximise storage space, with deeper drawers suitable for pots and pans and wider drawers suitable for cutlery.

Another option for storage is warming and cooling drawers, which often have stainless steel interiors and removable bins. You can even find in-drawer microwaves!

For a storage space that adds an antique element to your design, you can use freestanding pieces like hutches or armoires.

You can use your walls creatively too by mounting cookbook holders for your recipe books or installing a wine rack. You can also hang utensils from a splashback – a vertical covering on a wall behind a sink or above a work surface which protects the walls and also decorates it. A splashback can be composed of various materials, such as glass, metal or ceramic tiles.

To stick to a streamlined-styled kitchen, you could have your splashback in the same material as your benchtop. Or if you’d like to create a point of visual interest, you can make your splashback stand out with a different colour or texture.

Many kitchens nowadays include islands, many of which have excellent storage spaces. Different islands serve different purposes, for example a cooking centre or an entertainment hub (with a beverage centre or wine refrigerator) as an island can become a social area in your kitchen. If you are uncertain about using an island or are remodelling your kitchen, a table as an island will be your best option as you can move it around. Always important to consider with an island is enough space between the island and the other appliances and enough room for a walkway.

Style and colour

Choosing the style of your kitchen can be a difficult decision as there are so many different kinds, from French country or English cottage to rustic, Victorian or Tuscan. Then you consider mixing and matching your styles or blending traditional with contemporary styles. To help make your decision, decide if you’d like something classic or modern.

If you want a change for your kitchen, but something less drastic, a simple change of colour might be just the answer. Colour instantly brings life to dull kitchens and can improve your kitchen’s look completely without costing a great deal. There are many different options of colour as well as different materials.

Painting your cabinets makes the biggest statement as they usually occupy a major part of a kitchen. Walls can get a new look by installing new tiles or you can add a splash of colour through bright curtains. However, instead of looking at these elements separately, it’s a good idea to create a look where the cabinets, walls and curtains work together.

Many people agree that colour impacts your mood and affects how comfortable you feel in your environment. This year, experts have agreed on the colour trends as being creamy neutrals, veiled violets, greys, greens and bold turquoise.

When deciding what colour scheme you want to use, look at the colour wheel, find out about colour categories and learn about hues and shades, warm versus cool colours. Think about what kind of look you are going for and what emotions you want to inspire. Do you want something classic and neutral or do you want something that will stand out and make a statement?

Often, people prefer to use the classics – neutral colours like your whites and creams, while others prefer darker tones. These can make an impact but can be overwhelming in smaller kitchens, so you might want to use bolder colours in certain parts of your kitchen, like the bottom row of cabinetry or in splashbacks. You could have cabinets, countertops and walls that match and then create a focal point somewhere else in your kitchen with a bold, contrasting colour.

Don’t forget about adding other design elements too, such as hanging crockery and cutlery, flowers, vases, bar stools and different kinds of lights.

Lighting

Lighting is also important to consider as different lighting can affect colours differently. Instead of having a uniform lighting plan, you can use cabinet lighting, spotlights above cooking and dining areas and ceiling lights with dimmers. Diffused light and using lights and shadows can make a kitchen look more attractive.

After first thinking seriously about what space you have in your kitchen and how you will lay out the different elements, you can start to have fun with the design of your kitchen. It will take some time, but by the end of the design process, your kitchen, if not brand new, will definitely look it!

Bar Keepers Friend, available from DIY/Hardware stores is what the manufacturer of a very popular brand of composite quartz sinks normally uses to remove stains etc from Composite sinks

Most Composite Granite/Quartz Kitchen Sinks are supplied with the maitrial cast a bit thinner in the size and shape of the standard UK tap hole on the underside of the sink.
To remove required tap hole, perforate the moulded outline on the underside of the sink with a small size drill bit and simply tap the piece out. You can even get circular saw drill bits from most hardware suppliers that make an even cleaner tap hole.