KITCHENS & KITCHEN-DINERS
The kitchen is often referred to as the heart of the home, so it's worth spending time thinking about the look and feel you want to create.
Kitchens can often be time-consuming to decorate. Even when there isn't a large surface area to paint, "cutting in" around all the kitchen units can take time. And often there are awkward areas that are visible and need to be painted, but aren't easy to reach.
If you're starting from scratch and having new units etc fitted, then to some extent you have a "blank canvas". In this situation, it's good to get the various contractors to talk and plan out together who is doing what, at what time, and in what order. Quite often I will go in after the old kitchen has been removed and paint the walls and ceiling before the new kitchen is fitted. I can then return after the kitchen fitters have finished to do any touching up that is needed, and paint any woodwork. This minimises the risk of getting paint on the new units, and also makes those awkward-to-reach areas much more accessible for me! I've worked in this way on a number of occasions with both Quoin Construction and Blueprint, both of whom I am happy to recommend wholeheartedly.
From a design point of view, as well as creating the right atmosphere it's really important in a kitchen to be practical. Surfaces need to be easy to clean and wipe down, so I'm not a big fan of using wallpaper too near to where food is prepared (although it can look great in kitchen-diners). Hard-wearing, easy-to-wipe paints really should be considered whenever possible. After all, you want your new kitchen to stay looking its best for as long as possible. I'm always happy to advise on choice of paints, and can arrange to have your choice of colour mixed in the most suitable type of paint for your kitchen.
PHOTOS - KITCHENS & KITCHEN-DINERS
In many cases I'm not a big fan of using wallpaper in kitchens, especially not in areas where food is prepared. It can be hard to remove splashes and stains from paper, and the steam from cooking can also make it peel away from the wall. Having said that, it can look great in a kitchen-diner, to create a different, more sophisticated atmosphere in the dining area. In this modern house half the walls in the kitchen/utility room, and all the kitchen units, were cream, so to inject some personality/interest into the room, we wallpapered the remaining walls (away from the food preparation areas)in a geometric pattern.
I love this modern kitchen!
It's very simple, and very clever in a way. It's entirely made up of shades of grey (not 50 though!). From the white of the ceiling, the pale grey walls and worktops, the mid-grey flooring, radiators and chairs, and the darker grey units, everything is somewhere along that white-to-black spectrum, so it all "tones in" and works together perfectly. And the customers can then add a splash of colour here and there as they see fit, depending on their mood, the season, or whatever. Any colour they like - it will never clash with the rest of the kitchen! Don't ever let anyone tell you grey is boring - I think it looks great!
Using white in a kitchen instantly makes the space feel cleaner, and often larger. It also creates a light, "airy" feeling, and really makes any colourful utensils, furniture or accessories "pop"!
To keep it looking clean, I used Crown Trade Clean Extreme paint on the walls, which is stain-resistant and scrubbable.
Usually my involvement in a kitchen is limited to painting, or occasionally (as above) some simple tiling. But on this occasion I was given the project of renovating an entire flat, and (with a little help when it came to fitting the worktops) that included fitting a new kitchen.
The following photos are in two groups of "before" and "after" shots. They're labelled, just in case you weren't sure!
Certain colour schemes seem to create the same atmosphere, regardless of what room they are used in. I've used the combination of various shades of creams with "duck egg blues" in a number of different rooms (living rooms, dining rooms, bedrooms) for different clients, and the result is always a classic, calm and natural feel. This kitchen-diner is no exception.
This spacious, airy kitchen-diner was painted very simply to enhance the "open" feeling of the room. The pale green walls give a calm, natural feel, but are so muted that they simply act as a backdrop to everything else in the room without detracting from it. The fewer different elements and colours the eye needs to take in, the larger the room feels.
We don't just do contemporary! Here's a more traditional, almost farmhouse style kitchen. All the units/shelves/dressers were painted as well as the walls, in a very pale cream. As above, this was done in order to try to make the room feel open and airy, and in order that the decorating did not detract in any way from the lovely traditional furniture and kitchen units.