What Makes Award Winning Kitchen Designs?

Redesigning your kitchen can be a complicated process, and making decisions for your space can often come down to the smallest of details. A high-quality kitchen design company can assist you in making design decisions and build a kitchen that directly fits your home and lifestyle.

If you want to design your own kitchen, there are a few tactics for going beyond the basics of kitchen design. With careful planning and budgeting, your kitchen can be built to match award winning designs. But what exactly does it mean for a kitchen to be award winning?

Award Winning Kitchen Desgins

Every home presents design challenges for the kitchen based on the size and layout of the space.

Here are eight elements of kitchen design that can elevate any kitchen space from a conventional design to an award winning design.

#1 Visualization Technique

Before beginning any kitchen design and remodeling project, a careful consideration of the available appliances and layouts for your kitchen is a must. Begin by asking what features are the most important for the kitchen’s users. Many professional kitchen designer companies are in consultation with architects and general contractors in the early steps of the visualization process, and will draw up floor plan designs for the existing space before even beginning the official design.

#2 Mastery of the Basics

All kitchens, award-winning or not, map out a basic layout technique regardless of spatial constraints. If you have researched kitchen design or layouts in the past, it’s likely that you have come across this layout before- it’s called the kitchen work triangle. The basic principle is that the space between the sink, refrigerator, and stove in your kitchen should form a triangle-shaped workspace. The goal of this workspace design is to maximize functionality without reinventing the wheel. The kitchen design triangle remains central to all award winning kitchen designs.

#3 Open Floor Plan

Many major remodeling projects for new kitchen designs involve altering the shape of the room to fit a more open design. This often prioritizes a connected kitchen and entertaining space, and utilizes a kitchen island as a multi-functional center point. This makes the kitchen more accessible, with multiple entrances into the kitchen’s work triangle. The open floor plan also often assists in providing more natural light for the kitchen. Some award winning designs are specifically designed to open up into an area which can feature natural light more prominently.

#4 High-Quality Appliances & Countertops

The kitchen’s appliances and countertops are sometimes chosen primarily for their practical uses, and sometimes chosen primarily for a design purpose. The best kitchen designs contain appliances and countertops that support both the specific functional uses of the kitchen as well as the design. The countertop in particular is often a centerpiece of the design colors and general aesthetic of the kitchen. A popular choice for the more luxury kitchen is a quartz countertop- the color and pattern options are extensive, and its durability is a standout.

#5 Flexible Storage Options

The kitchen countertop may be the centerpiece of the kitchen that is the most visually appealing, but creative storage solutions also have an impact on the kitchen having a minimalist appearance. All features of the kitchen should be within reach, but not all features need to be visible at all times.

A well-designed kitchen is home to a wide range of cooking materials, instruments, and dishes, and having all of these tools on hand is critical to creating a high level of functionality for your kitchen. Everything within an award winning kitchen has its own home and storage solution to maximize the value of the space so it doesn’t look cluttered or messy.

#6 Lifestyle Matching

Consider how your kitchen is used and who is using it. How many people use the kitchen at the same time? At what times during the day is the kitchen occupied? Do people like to eat in the kitchen? Now consider your ideal kitchen. What features and aspects of the design are important to get right based on how your kitchen is used? Is the kitchen more of a social space?

Perhaps your kitchen could ideally support entertaining visitors and house guests. The best and often award-winning kitchens are developed for the specific use of the house’s residents. For example, kitchens built for a younger family’s use may change the countertop material or kitchen drawers for a safer environment.

#7 Lighting

There are two parts of designing the lighting features for the kitchen: natural lighting and task lighting. Task lighting is the more functional lighting, and should be built to highlight the three major points of the kitchen work triangle: stove, sink, and refrigerator. Task lighting fixtures can be central in providing a modern and clean appearance for a kitchen, and are often major points for design visualization.

Natural lighting, by contrast, can be added to a kitchen design through more open designs. A skylight for the kitchen area is a popular feature that can increase the natural light. Natural lighting, like the task lighting, can provide the desired modern appearance for the kitchen.

#8 Quality Cookware Products

For award-winning kitchens, the details matter just as much as the centerpieces. What pots, pans, and other cookware is your kitchen built to support? Where will knives, utensils, and other tools be stored? Make sure there is room for small appliances such as toaster ovens and microwaves. When forming the overall design for your kitchen, don’t be afraid to look into where the smaller details fit in.

Conclusion – What Makes Award Winning Kitchen Designs?

The surest way to achieve an award-winning design for your kitchen is by working with a professional custom kitchen design company throughout the process. Kitchen design companies can also provide support after your new kitchen is built should any part of the construction not work out as planned. Remodeling and redesigning your kitchen takes a lot of work, and achieving your original vision is difficult (though certainly not impossible!) to do without a designer. The kitchen is an important part of any home, but with custom kitchen designs, it can become your favorite room in the house.