Your Kitchen – The HUB

How your Kitchen functions as a gathering place for friends and family, not to mention all the other things a kitchen needs to do.  

Our Kitchens store food, cookware and dishes. Provide space for us to make our meals and maybe even eat them there too. They are spaces for kids to do homework and families to gather. When designing a kitchen for a developer’s spec house we’re thinking about every family but when designing your home, we’re thinking about you, your family, what you need and what you want.

This NJ Spec house has a large kitchen with space for a table that seats 8. The island is long enough for at least 4 barstools. The space is so large it provides plenty of gathering space with a connection to the family room you see in the distance. But not all Kitchens are alike.

This NYC Kitchen, in addition to the expected food storage and cooking activity, we also managed to make room for displaying pretty things acquired from the client’s travels (inside the built- in hutch), allowed for wall space to accommodate art and even a place for dining. The table and stools were from a previous apartment and we liked them a lot and so made room to include them. Having space in your kitchen to sit and eat a meal is an absolute luxury in NYC. When family gathers they always want to be in the kitchen with us while we prep. It may be the least we can do to provide our friends and family that place to sit and keep us company! Practically speaking, with the table butting the wall, we knew a wallpaper would be a good idea to protect it from nicks and damage to an otherwise only painted wall. It’s a backdrop that’s useful and decorative coordinating with all the elements in the space. And especially the back door! We had the benefit of seeing a neighbor’s renovated apartment and noticed how the doors had been stripped down to raw steel. It was love at first sight and we had the same done here. They go well with the industrial modern of the stools and table of steel and concrete. Neighborly Inspired design worthy of a friends & family gathering.

This kitchen was very carefully renovated. There were two important criteria for the renovation. First, it had to illuminate, not distract from the elaborately hand painted ceiling (Ca 1920) and second, it had to accommodate family visiting from overseas and the regular meals they’d experience together. 

Before we created this peninsula with a range for cooking and a breakfast bar for eating, we had the client live with a bar cart in that place so they could imagine living with the cooktop there. After weeks of living with the piece of furniture as a temporary place holder for the new design the client felt confident it would be just the right configuration.

It not only allowed for the client to cook and face family sitting on barstools, it also allowed for a huge bank of windows providing a fantastic view of the garden. Nobody gets that many windows in a kitchen! Regular pancake breakfasts happen here now!

We take into consideration everything that is important to your family from how the space needs to function, who it needs to accommodate and how it makes you feel when you are in it. 

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