Proven Ways to Open Up a Small Kitchen
Don’t let a dark, dreary and cramped kitchen dampen your love for cooking and eating or even entertaining. With a few smart tweaks, you can boost its look and enhance its functionality and make it appear bigger than it really is. The right kitchen redesign, renovation or remodel can even make your kitchen the centerpiece of your home, if you make the right changes. All it takes is a little creativity, expert advice, and the help of highly skilled contractors who can turn your vision into reality.
Here are some of the best ways to open up a small kitchen:
Play with textures and opacity
Expand the space with see-through or opaque materials that let light in, reflect light or multiply it. For this approach, glass is your best bet. Install glass doors on your cabinets. Choose glass tiles for your backsplash or for a statement wall. Mirrors, glass tabletops and glass counters all add that light, bright and fresh appeal.
Let the light in
Another way to make the kitchen appear lighter and therefore more expansive is to use good lighting. The right choice and placement of lamps, light bulbs, ceiling lights and track lighting will make working in the kitchen easier and safer, too. Maximize natural light as much as you can. Adding or resizing a window, installing a skylight or adding a glass wall – these are some of the changes you can make to add more light while saving energy at the same time.
Slim it down
If you need to add floor space and lessen visual bulk, choose furniture and fixtures that are sleek and streamlined. Choose tables and chairs with thin legs. Even your faucets, curtains and other fixtures can follow the thin and slim theme.
Use color strategically
The traditional choice is to choose white and pastel colors to make the room look more open. But this will depend on the layout of the area and the amount of natural light coming in. If the room doesn’t get that much light, an all-white approach may only make the kitchen appear dingy. For some kitchens, painting the walls with deep or darker colors that make the “flow” seamless does the trick.
Use storage smartly
Clutter can make a room look more cramped than it is. Freeing surfaces and counters and putting stuff away can solve this problem. Open shelves, raised breakfast bars, recessed nooks on the wall and vertical cabinets are not only useful for containing your kitchen and pantry supplies, but can also direct the eyes upward, making the room appear taller.
If you would like more ideas about how to open up a small kitchen, contact your local Fox Cities plumber at Turek’s Plumbing today!