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A kitchen as heart of a home
Article by Persephone Nicholas, supplied by New Zealand Renovate magazine.
According to Sonia Simpfendorer, director of Nexus Designs in Melbourne, creating a kitchen you love is about flair, not fashion.
Once upon a time a kitchen was simply the room in which food was prepared and cooked. Those days are long gone: these days the kitchen is arguably the hardest working room in a home. It’s a multi-functional gathering and entertaining space where families and friends prepare and share food and drink, work, catch up on emails, supervise homework and much more.
We’re asking our kitchens to work harder than ever before – and wanting them to look good too. Sonia Simpfendorfer, director of Nexus Designs in Melbourne, believes the secret of a hardworking, good looking kitchen is in the detail.
“The kitchen is still the hub and heart of the home,” she says. “It’s a place to nourish the body and the mind at the same time. Creating a great kitchen is about finding something that you really love rather than comparing yourself to everybody else and what they have. Don’t do something just because it’s fashionable – fashion doesn’t last.”
The return of colour and texture
Simpfendorfer says her clients are moving away from the classic look of reconstituted stone and white cupboards and are looking for ways to stamp their individuality on the kitchen space. “People are looking for more surprises and interest now. We’re introducing much more colour and texture these days and we’re creating features like fully tiled walls which bring real warmth to a kitchen.”
She says colour can bring joy to a space and suggests choosing a coloured finish for the interior carcasses of one or two cupboards. “We have a client whose crockery cupboard is painted a beautiful blue-green colour inside. It offsets the china beautifully and makes her feel happy every time she opens the cupboard. It’s a small detail and not extravagant but it really looks stunning.”
Nexus Designs, www.nexusdesigns.com.au
Keep it forward-facing
People must always be put at the heart of a kitchen – without compromising on functionality. Simpfendorfer believes that the key functions of the kitchen – food preparation, cooking, refrigeration and dishwashing – should be forward facing wherever possible. She sees it as a trend that has filtered down from commercial kitchens that has been made popular by TV cooking programmes.
WK Marble and Granite Kitchen, www.wk.com.au
Read more about the kitchen as part of a home in the Autumn 2012 issue of New Zealand Renovate magazine, available from 15th March 2012.
This article was provided by New Zealand Renovate magazine - New Zealand's first and only magazine solely dedicated to home renovations. Article by Persephone Nicholas.
Refresh is very cost effective. Because of our scale and industry partnerships we buy at a better rate than typical renovation builders and can therefore be more cost effective for our customers.
Project management takes cost out of the project. By managing the entire project and having good processes we are able to take inefficiencies and costs out of the project and avoid those unexpected surprises.
The quality and cost of a successful kitchen renovation depends on managing the electricians, plumbers, tilers, chippies, painters and a host of other sub trades. Refresh will help take cost out and ensure a quality result is achieved for least hassle.
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