Merillat Masterpiece Fairlane in Maple Burnished Praline
If your family is like most, your kitchen is more than just another room. These days, life happens in the kitchen. The kitchen is the hub of your home, the center of all the day’s activities. And even if you have a showcase dining room, you may actually eat most meals in the kitchen.
With your family’s busy schedule, things tend to overlap. Cooking, homework, bill paying, small talk…it’s all going on across the kitchen counter or at the kitchen table. The eat-in kitchen is the new normal, and when renovating your space you need to design accordingly to make it as family friendly as possible.
To begin, put some thought into how you want your kitchen to function – your lifestyle will dictate the design. Ask yourself what will help make your space operate efficiently and comfortably. Consider all of the ways in which you currently use your kitchen, where your children or other family members hang out, and then develop your solutions around these factors.
As the hub of the home, the emphasis on design style in today’s kitchen is greater than ever before. With so much of our time spent in the kitchen, it’s only natural that we’ve begun to gravitate toward cabinetry that looks like furniture, and appliances that are integrated into their surroundings or make a bold design statement of their own.
For those who can afford them, high-style, high-end appliances lend a wonderful aesthetic all their own to the kitchen. From professional six-burner gas stoves to glass-front refrigerators with architectural curves to retro-modern appliances in an array of crazy colors, there are a lot of great options from which to choose.
Posted by: Susan Prater, Director of Marketing Services on 07/01/2010 | Permalinks | Trackbacks
The New Merillat.com
I hope you’re enjoying Merillat’s new Web site! With a fresh look and innovative functionality, you’ll find it easier than ever to plan your dream kitchen. New features allow you to gather info on your own or be guided through an intuitive process to help you hone in on your design, layout and product preferences before visiting a showroom.
We know the Web is often the place where homeowners search for information and inspiration. We want to help homeowners combine inspiration with smarter kitchen design decisions that fit their lifestyles so they get the kitchen of their dreams.
Inspiration for the changes to the site came from our Merillat customers themselves in a usability study conducted by Merillat. Through this research, we learned that our consumers wanted changes that would improve the overall selection process and user experience. Today’s Merillat.com site combines the best of these ideas with additional industry research and includes:
In a small kitchen we know how hard it can be to keep things organized and flowing smoothly. It seems like stuff piles up everywhere, from the week’s worth of mail on the counter to your kids’ after-school clutter. Combine this with existing storage and work flow issues and things can get out of hand quickly. Take heart; you don’t have to put up with daily clutter and limited storage space. When planning a redesign, a few simple considerations can help make your kitchen a “clutter-free” zone and feel larger than it actually is.
Layout Options
The first thing to do when redesigning a small kitchen is to choose a layout that fits your space requirements and needs. Here are some options to consider:
L-Shaped Kitchen – This is the most popular design, appropriate for any size kitchen. The L-shaped kitchen is made up of two walls (or legs) and gives you the possibility of having a center island depending on your available space. In general, this design will have 2 or 3 appliances on one wall with the refrigerator typically at one end, the range or cooktop at the other end with the sink located in the middle. This shape of kitchen generally provides good traffic flow.
Movie Sets, Famous Chefs & Celebrity Athletes Inspiring Kitchen Design Trends Across the Country
"It's Complicated" Movie Set; Photo Credit: www.thekitchendesigner.org
The kitchens of celebrities, movie sets and famous chefs are influencing our design and style trend choices in many areas of the home, but especially in the kitchen. In this post, Sphere Trending, a trend spotting and design forecasting firm located in Waterford, Michigan, points out some noteworthy kitchens recently featured in film, television and magazines that have generated quite a buzz for their design appeal.
The recent film, “It’s Complicated”, centered around the eclectic and comfortable kitchen of the main character / bakery owner played by Meryl Streep. Designed by Beth Rubino, the kitchen captured the essence of the casual, “cleaned-up coastal” style currently experiencing an up-trend in home and kitchen design. The open shelving, curtained fronts, warm finishes and beachy color palette quickly made headlines on blogs and in design magazines as a trend to watch inspiring many to seek out ways to recreate the movie set kitchen’s relaxed style and comfortably chic look in homes across the country.
In today’s constantly changing, 24/7 world, you can read a new blog, pick up a new magazine or book to find new inspirational photos or to learn about new technology in products designed specifically for the kitchen and bath. How can you choose what is right for you? Here are a few suggestions from Sphere Trending, a trend spotting and design forecasting firm located in Waterford, Michigan.
If it’s individuality and style that you’re craving, a custom backsplash may be just the thing you’re looking for. Individually designed and created by Jo Omar for your kitchen or bathroom each “Funky Splashback” is hand painted and sized to each specific project. An alternative to ordinary tile, these unique designs are an innovative, one-of-a-kind alternative for your kitchen or bathroom.
The kitchen is, by far, the most important room in your house. It is the “hub” of most family interaction and entertainment and the design of your kitchen should reflect your unique lifestyle. Whether you are planning for your new kitchen, or redesigning/remodeling an old one, the style is important not only to the immediate user (you) but also to possible future users, such as growing children, aging parents or the next homeowner. There are so many ways to approach the design for any of these purposes, but first and foremost you should take the time to learn and appreciate your own design desires and preferences. Merillat’s Your Design Style guide will help you decide what design style best defines your preferences.
Let’s face it; the majority of homeowners spend more time in the kitchen than any other room in the house! We cook, eat, work and play in the kitchen every day. When planning a new kitchen design, it’s important to remember it weathers its fair share of damages with its endless supply of spills, bumps, drips, greasy fingerprints, dirty dishes, and foot traffic. Kitchen cabinets, counter tops, appliances and floors are all prone to a lot of this wear.
To conclude our flooring guide, below are additional types of flooring with both advantages and disadvantages. Our first post included information on wood, tile, vinyl and stone flooring. Now we look at laminate, linoleum and cork.
These are just some of the most common kitchen flooring options and each has its own distinctive features and qualities, as well as downsides. Use this as a guide in choosing the right flooring material for your kitchen…we think there’s a flooring option to fit every unique need!
Besides your cabinetry, flooring will be one of your most significant decisions when building or remodeling your kitchen. Deciding on the right flooring choice for your kitchen depends on several variables. Like other design elements, you need to weigh and balance the importance of each: style, functionality, durability, aesthetics, cost, etc.
With so many flooring choices available, it can be overwhelming to come up with the best fit for your kitchen and your needs. To help you along the way, we have created this handy two-part post describing the advantages (and disadvantages) of various types of flooring on the market today. So take a look and see which floor might work best for you!
