Designing a luxury kitchen

A big beautiful kitchen in your luxury home starts with a good design.  The very first priority, whether you’re designing it yourself or if you’re working with a professional, is to look at your lifestyle and to consider that activities in the kitchen must be supported by the layout and amenities in the kitchen.  Only then can you create a map of your kitchen, understanding the workflow that needs to take place there.

Designate your workspace

When designing the flow you can establish where designated work areas should be.  Once you’ve identified the primary spaces, either for food preparation, cooking, clean up, dish storage, paperwork areas and entertainment hubs, then you can decide where cabinets should be placed.  Designate areas for each of these activities. Once you’ve decided where these work activities will go, you’ll know how the cabinets will be used.  You’ll know what things should be placed in your cabinets.  That leads to an understanding of what needs to go inside each cabinet, whether it’s shelving, drawers, slots, lazy susans etc.  The cabinets support the function of each designated area.

How your kitchen will look

Once you’ve figured that out, you can design the esthetics of your cabinets.  The colour, the finish, the pulls and other hardware.  So often people look at the type of cabinets they want first.  That really comes second.  The layout comes first. Next, in thinking of esthetics, bring in a variety of textures and depths to help give space added definition in your luxury kitchen.  Function is the most important, but it can’t all be practical.  Embellishments, creative touches and beauty make your kitchen a lovely place to be in.

Change it up

Not everything in your kitchen design has to match.  You might like all your cabinetry to match but it’s really not necessary.  It can be a great look if your upper cabinets are white and the lower ones are oak or painted blue.  All of the cabinets don’t have to be hung at the same height either.  A row of cabinets can be broken up to give the eye some relief, especially in a luxury kitchen where there is generally a great deal of square footage to work it. The eye needs to travel.

Who's cooking?

Who will be using your new luxury kitchen?   If you love to entertain and enjoy hiring a personal chef or caterer, a commercial-grade kitchen might be more your style.  Again that goes to identifying your lifestyle, in Step 1 of our process.  Perhaps you need more than one refrigerator or more than one dishwasher.  Butler’s pantries are very popular now but you may want to design one that’s twice the size.  Do you need a four or six-burner range?  If you entertain, what should your kitchen be able to handle in terms of load?

A kitchen fully loaded with fantastic appliances and room for a full catering staff could be a good selling point for buyers who want a luxury home and don’t cook themselves. Features such as wine storage and refrigeration, high end appliances and smart technology are important resale features in high end homes.  People are looking for refrigerator drawers that look like cabinets, warming drawers and built-in features like cappuccino makers.

Part of the resale charm of a great kitchen is that people see expensive add-ons in the kitchen and it speaks to the quality of the rest of the home, whether it’s been upgraded to the same level or not.