Design Inspiration from Floor To Ceiling® For Your New Kitchen
Think Furniture
An island work- station is the design feature most people want in their kitchen. That has been true for several decades and remains true today. The island was the first component of kitchens to take on a furniture flavor with the addition of decorative legs, counters with sculpted shapes and other decorative elements. Now, that trend has been sprouting all over today’s designs.
- Free standing cabinets for specified purposes have become an important ingredient of current kitchen design. What appears to be an antique pie-safe may actually be specialized storage for bake ware or a canned goods pantry.
- Familiar L or U-shaped designs with continuous counters joining long expanses of cabinetry have given way to kitchens outfitted with distinct, free-standing units, each serving specific functions.
Another aspect of this trend is seen in the use of decorative elements to direct the eye to one area in the kitchen such as the cooking center.
- Use large scrolled corbels to support a custom wood hood over a commercial style range; flank it with spice cabinets embraced by fluted columns for stunning visual impact.
- Create an appealing food preparation area with the appearance of an old fashioned freestanding sink. Install a farm style sink in a cabinet with decorative legs and doors with gathered fabric inserts. Add the finishing touch of a wall-mounted faucet to complete the look.
Whatever your kitchen vision includes, your Floor To Ceiling® designer can help you bring it to life.
Think Retro
Perhaps the most prominent trend in kitchen design is following the trend in design throughout the home, back to the future!
- The best of traditional design inspires the best of current design. Whether your taste runs to the ornate styling of Tuscan provincial, the form-follows-function movement of nineteen fifties America, or even further back to the Bogart era of the 1940’s, a look back is the look forward.
Your Floor To Ceiling® kitchen designer will help you get the look of yesterday that you want today.
Think Color
Color infuses everything kitchen. Softened yellows, spring greens, oceanic blues and muted reds are everywhere - partnered with a parallel trend toward rich, earthy hues. Whatever your home’s color scheme, now it flows right into the kitchen.
- Cabinetry is available in a carousel of colors. Mix or match it with more traditional wood finishes.
- Glazed or burnished finishes over colors are important and add richness and texture to the design.
If yellow or red cabinets aren’t your cup of tea, use liberal amounts of color in paint or wall coverings.
Your Floor To Ceiling® kitchen design specialist will show you how to see your dream kitchen in living color.
Think Function
Beautiful as they are, today’s kitchens are not just painted ladies. A good design will be personalized to fit your particular needs.
- Need to house a large mixer or juicer? China service for 24? Canning equipment? A vintage wine cache? Hobby supplies? Every cooking gadget sold on late-night TV?
- Would an island increase functionality in your kitchen? To calculate the possibilities of an island in existing space, go to An Island to Treasure.
Make sure your Floor To Ceiling® kitchen designer knows your storage needs. There is a storage solution available for anything you might want to conveniently stash.
- Another aspect of function is the quality of the moving parts of the cabinetry. Today’s quality drawer glides feature self-closing mechanisms and better-than-ever support because they rest on each side of the drawer bottom. Hinges are easily adjusted, too. And interior organizers like wastebaskets, pantry pull-outs and even lazy susan’s have high performance hardware to take the everyday wear and tear busy families dish out to their kitchens.
Ask your design specialist to demonstrate the quality of the functional hardware used on fine quality cabinetry you’ll find at your local Floor To Ceiling® showroom.
Think Passion
Are you ardent about art glass? Is golf your gratification? Inventory your indulgences and display them in your new kitchen.
- Glass inserts for cabinet doors present the perfect opportunity to show off your prized objects. Or ask your designer to plan open shelving or create niches to display prized objects. Choose a wallpaper border with your favorite sports or nature motif.
- Display a passion for detail by carefully selecting decorative enhancements on the cutting edge of interior fashion. Metal door inserts and panels (like punched tin or stainless steel) reflect a revered piece of the past when they were commonplace to fine cabinetmakers.
- The vast array of decorative hardware for cabinetry is greater than ever before, with more metals represented. Toss that shiny brass of the ‘80s. Today’s cabinet pulls and knobs display a more complex art form, with bronzed, etched, oiled or rusted finishes and deeply carved shapes sometimes representative of nature, sports or kitchen objects.
Explore the possibilities with your Floor To Ceiling® designer. Showcase your individuality in the design accents you select.
Think Outside the Oak Box
No trend in built-in cabinet design is more important than the trend away from oak as the default wood species.
- The movement toward less textured woods began on the coasts and has spread rapidly throughout the heartland of the country more recently. Hard maple has become the favorite, closely followed by cherry, birch and others woods that exhibit a less grainy or textured appearance. These woods present the best background for the latest trend in finishes that includes impressions, glazes, wipe-offs and other purposely applied complexities. To complement a more rustic décor, woods such as hickory, alder and pine, that exhibit characteristics like pinholes, knots and other naturally occurring verities represent a parallel trend.
Think Outside the Square Box
One of the most prevalent and interesting trends in cabinet design is also one of the easiest to achieve.
- Staggering cabinet height both at the top and the bottom of wall cabinets creates interesting architectural aspects. This design direction for wall cabinets is also reflected in base cabinets set at different heights, but which developed for an entirely different reason – to provide universal accessibility to both contents and counters.
Whatever the purpose, style or accessibility, cabinetry in various heights has become a definite trend to be reckoned with. Consider it as you work with your Floor To Ceiling® design specialist!
