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You don't have to sacrifice style for function. I'll show you how to get both with a smart
and beautiful kitchen design.
This kitchen went from dated and dysfunctional, to lovely
and livable, and all it took was some thoughtful design.
One of the main goals was to open up the space. You can see how boxy and closed in it was
with this peninsula cutting the room right in half. Pulling it out created a more open,
free-flowing footprint, and unified the space. And removing the soffets
instantly added height and light to the room.
These two simple structural changes made a big difference not only in
how the kitchen looks but how it functions, which was the second goal, better functionality
-- and in a kitchen....that means storage.
To maximize storage, the kitchen incorporates a mix of cabinetry styles; from traditional
closed cabinets, to open shelving, even
specialty pieces like this corner cabinet to corral odds and ends.
This is one of my favorite design elements of the whole kitchen,
it's this top hinged wall cabinet, that lifts right out of the way and behind it
creates an appliance garage where you can store large appliances
or other things you dont want sitting out on the counter top.
Pull everything out, do your work and
then tuck it back away and its all out of sight.
You can also come up with your own unexpected configurations of cabinets.
This wall was totally unused. Now, we've added three layers of
shallow upper cabinets that create almost a furniture-like piece and provide so much
great storage, as well as gorgeous display space. So what was wasted space, is now fully functional.
Making the most of those 'wasted spaces' is the route to really boosting your storage.
So utilize corners, make drawers do double duty, add on to insides of doors, it's
all about finding simple solutions to your everyday problems, with a little help of course
from Lowe's Creative Ideas.