What’s Happening in Western Springs?

We are proud and excited to be included in Michael Menn’s renovation of a lovely home in Western Springs. As part of the overall renovation, we’ve been called in to work on the kitchen, mudroom, first floor powder room and master bath. We’ve worked closely with architect Bonnie Rosenburg of the Michael Menn team to create fresh and updated spaces. Here are some “before” photos! Stay tuned for the finished project sometime in March or April!

Designing Kitchens that Promote Healthy Eating

You’re probably aware that if you want a drop-dead gorgeous kitchen that elicits an awed gasp from your guests and brings a smile to your face every time you walk in, an experienced kitchen designer is your best bet to achieve your goals. Did you know that kitchen design professionals can help you meet your functional goals too?

Today’s homeowners are often concerned with healthy eating habits for their families but don’t necessarily think to mention that goal to their designer. It’s a topic I like to bring up with clients because there are many design tools that can help promote healthy eating. Here are a few:

Kitchen Layout
Studies have shown that room design, furniture and appliance placement, and lighting provide an unconscious influence on both food intake and food selection. Keeping healthy options close at hand and tempting choices hidden can make a surprising difference. An experienced designer can help you make choices that are beautiful while guiding your family to a healthier lifestyle.

Convenient Storage
Experts in healthy eating advise keeping your kitchen well organized with the healthy options close at hand. If you have to dig through a cluttered cabinet to find your juicer or your steamer, you are less likely to utilize it. Cabinetry is now as functional as it is beautiful. Cabinet and drawer interiors can be custom designed to make previously difficult to reach areas easily accessible. Options like built-in narrow pull-out pantry units can stop healthy items being shoved to the back of a deep cabinet.

CabinetOrganizing
Storage solutions from Rev-A-Shelf (left and center) and Dura Supreme (right)

Specialty Appliances
Refrigeration units are available with smart temperature controls to keep produce fresh longer. You can select glass door modules that will draw your family’s attention to healthy options while modules with custom cabinetry panels store cold items you prefer your family enjoy sparingly. Undercounter refrigeration units are widely available in both drawers and doors. You can design a snack center away from your main work area stocked with healthy drinks and snacks with easy access for your kids. You can also integrate a steamer module or a indoor grill beside your range for healthier cooking options.

SubZeroWolfAppliancesRefrigerator drawer and built-in steamer by Sub-Zero and Wolf

Size and Color Cues
Here’s a tip you can integrate on your own. In one study, students offered food on red plates ate less while foods offered on plates in more welcoming, safer feeling colors like white, blue, and green ate more. Storing and serving healthy options on the safe, calming colors will encourage your family to eat more of those options. Less healthy options meant for rare treats can be kept in red containers as a subtle cue to help dissuade your family from grabbing that snack on the run. In addition, the average plate size has increased alarmingly over the years. Select dinnerware sets that include the smaller 9 inch plate, or select plates with wide ridged edges to help influence your family to serve up smaller portions at mealtime.

color and size options
Fiesta Mix dinnerware, Wickford dinnerware, and Pyrex storage set from Macy’s.com; Vintage Red Cookie Canister from bedbathandbeyond.com

Check out more great design tools and ideas for encouraging healthy eating habits on our pinterest board.

Beyond the Barbecue Grill

The fourth of July is almost here and summer cookout season is in full swing. Outdoor entertaining used to revolve around a barbecue grill, a cooler full of ice for beverages and multiple trips into the house to utilize the kitchen appliances. Outdoor design options were similarly limited to rustic motifs that evoked camping experiences. Oh how times are changing! Today’s homeowners have options abounding for designing beautiful outdoor kitchens that lack only air conditioning in modern conveniences.

Check out this contemporary outdoor kitchen from Viking Range. It looks like it could practically take flight!

Viking Outdoor Kitchen

Besides fresh air and sunshine, outdoor kitchens can boast another advantage over indoor kitchens – mobility. If you want your outdoor appliances to be built-in features, no problem. If you prefer the ability to move your outdoor kitchen around, perhaps from patio to poolside, that’s no problem either. Here’s a perfect example from Kalamazoo Outdoor Gourmet. Have your old-world style pizza oven built-in or portable on a pizza oven station.

Pizza Ovens

Most of us are familiar with the amazing new grills on the market today, but the outdoor cooking conveniences don’t stop there. Warming drawers, refrigerators, freezers, beverage stations, keg tappers, sinks, dishwashers, and even vent hoods are all available to create fully functional outdoor kitchens.

Kitchen Options
(above left: Viking Range, center: Kalamazoo Outdoor Gourmet, right: BBQ Guys)

With kitchen options like these, you might never want to cook inside again. Enjoy your summer cookouts! Check out more cool outdoor kitchen designs and options on our pinterest board.

Looking for Great Appliances? Think Jenn-Air!

Recently, I had the pleasure of being selected to be one of a handful of designers from around the country to attend a special two day designer forum presented and hosted by Jenn-Air and led by Ellen Cheever- a rock star in the world of kitchen design. It was an exciting and enlightening couple of days! Jenn-Air put us all up in a lovely boutique hotel in downtown Chicago called the Palomar. We were whisked off for an afternoon of demonstrations and of course food, at the beautiful World of Whirlpool penthouse in the Reid- Murdoch building. For those of you who don’t know it, it’s the building downtown with the big clock tower on it facing the river. We got to tour the inside of the clock tower and look out at the spectacular view of Chicago!

The following day was another intensive day filled with demonstrations of the vast product line that Jenn-Air offers. Here are some of the insights that I came away with:

  • Jenn-Air is a premium line of appliances, but with prices that usually fall below other premium brands.
  • They offer some fabulous ovens that can even remember your favorite recipes!
  • If you’re looking for a new cooktop, consider induction as opposed to gas or electric- it’s 90% efficient as opposed to 55% for electric and only 45% for gas. It also remains cool to the touch.
  • Ventilation can be cool! (no pun intended ☺) Jenn-Air offers down-draft that is quiet, powerful, and can be duct-free.
  • Have you ever seen a refrigerator with an Obsidian interior? You should check out http://jennair.com/obsidian-refrigerator for a peek!
  • From your morning coffee until your final clean-up after dinner, Jenn-Air has the appliances to make your life easy and entertaining fun!

Here are some photos! For more photos, see our pinterest board.

Designer Kitchens

So, you’d like to redo your kitchen. Great! You should work with a kitchen designer! “What? I don’t need a designer for my kitchen,” you think. Well, here is a list of things that a kitchen designer can do to make your kitchen re-do better than you dreamed.

  1. They’ll get to know you, how you use your kitchen and what’s important to you and your family before they design anything.
  2. They will take that information and incorporate it into a plan that allows for the best flow and function for you.

  3. They understand the decisions that need to be made, when they need to be made, and can assist you in keeping the look cohesive and stay within your budget.
  4. They understand how to talk with the contractor and various trades to ensure that what gets built is what you had envisioned.

These are just 4 of the many reasons that having a kitchen designer on your team is a great idea. In upcoming posts we’ll discuss how to select and work with a designer. Here’s to a fabulous result!!

Little Things Mean a Lot

There’s a saying that’s attributed to Mies van der Rohe – “God is in the details”, and I agree.  In the world of design, it’s the attention to small details that can really make a difference.  For example; in a recently completed kitchen project we were confronted with the challenge of making unsightly electrical outlets less obtrusive.  Ideally, we would have moved the outlets up to the underside of the cabinets, so the back splash wouldn’t be visually interrupted.  Unfortunately, we could not move them so we came up with an alternative trompe l’oeil (fool the eye) detail to camoflage the switch plate portion.  I called upon my friend Bonnie Lecat of Bonnie Lecat Designs www.bonnielecat.com, to paint the switch plates to blend in with the tile of the back splash.

Here are the before and after photos:

"Before"

Yes, I know the color combination of white switch plate and brown outlet is hideous.  The contractor just did that because he knew we were going to change it.

"After"

That switch plate practically disappears.

Again, it’s a small detail, but it makes the project as a whole much more “finished”.

Bonnie creates beautiful murals and fine decorative faux finishes for your home or commercial space.  You can find her at [email protected].

 

Creating Your Dream Kitchen Part 1

I recently spoke to some people who are planning to re-do their kitchen, so I naturally thought it would be a good topic to talk about here.  Kitchen and bath remodels are the best investments that you can make in your home- both for your own comfort and the added resale value that they bring.

So, just how does one go about creating this dream kitchen? It starts with identifying the areas in your kitchen that are frustrating because they don’t work correctly or make things more difficult for you.  You might think about traffic flow- does your kitchen allow for good flow, or are people always bumping into each other?  In our kitchen (pre-remodel, of course) some genius decided that the best place for the refrigerator was right smack-dab in the main traffic pattern through the kitchen!  Not great for people moving through the space, or a busy cook trying to get to food in the fridge.

How about storage?  Do you have enough of that? (Does anyone, ever?) When you open your cabinets do you need to practically empty them if you want to find one thing? 

Then there’s counter and work space- how’s that working for you?  Do you have to lug all of your recipe ingredients someplace far away from the sink and the fridge- and the trash can? 

really messy kitchen

Does your kitchen look like this?

How about your cooktop/stove, sink, dishwasher and fridge?  Are they older than the hills?  What about their placement to each other?  If you want to fill a pot with water, do you have to walk far from the sink to the cooking area?  Does it cross a major traffic pattern? 

What about those small appliances- toaster (or toaster oven), microwave, mixer, blender, food processor, etc.  Where are they and are they convenient and neat- or just all over your counters?

Taking the time to really identify what doesn’t work in your kitchen is the first step in creating a beautiful, functional new space.  Sometimes, you know immediately why it doesn’t work, and sometimes you’re just so used to dealing with it the way it is that you don’t even think about it.  If it’s really hard to identify what could be better, try a little outline of the steps needed to create one of your favorite recipes;  let’s say brownies.

Ok, for those of you who use a pre-made mix, this’ll probably be somewhat easier. 

  • Step 1.  Assemble your ingredients:
  • eggs, butter, flour, vanilla, chocolate, sugar, salt, baking powder or soda (depending upon your recipe!)
  • Step 2.  Assemble the necessary utensils:
  • mixing bowl, spoons, measuring spoons and cups, spatula, baking pan, double boiler (if melting chocolate)

Ok, now how much time did it take to find and corral all this stuff?  Was it more time than it’s worth? Hmm, that might mean that your storage areas don’t work together well.  How long would it take you to get everything back to where it belongs? These are the things to think about when planning out that dream kitchen! 

What’s your main kitchen complaint?

kitchen countertop with several appliances, cutting board and food on it

What do you think of this work space?