KITCHEN CONFIDENCE
Meticulous planning is the key to creating a new kitchen that looks great and functions e ciently
John van Doormaal from Innovative Kitchens has learned a thing or two about kitchen design during his more than 30 years in the business. We asked him to share his top tips for creating a super-successful new kitchen: 1 Do as much research as you can before you engage a kitchen designer. Look at interiors magazines for inspiration, and put together a scrapbook or Pinterest page to take with you when you brief your kitchen designer. “is helps to give us a good idea of what style you are after,” says John.
2 Take a tape measure when you visit showhomes and kitchen showrooms, so you can get an idea of scale. “People often want more in the kitchen than they can actually fit,” says John. As part of John’s custom design service, he provides not just a detailed floor plan, but also computer imaging elevations that show the kitchen design in three dimensions.
3 Set yourself a budget before you brief your kitchen designer, and be clear about whether it includes just the cabinetry, or the plumber, electrician and appliances too. “Every job is different, and we can find a solution that will work with just about any budget,” says John.
4 Research your appliances early in the process, but don’t get pressured into buying them until you’ve checked with your kitchen designer to make sure they will work in your space.
5 Get expert advice. Even if you’re intending to buy pre-fabricated units, it’s worth paying for a couple of hours of a professional kitchen designer’s time to get the layout right first. “If you’ve never done it before you’re bound to make expensive mistakes,” says John. “But a designer like myself with years of experience will be able to look it over and give you quick advice on how to make it work. If you’re upfront and honest about your needs and wants, most designers will have no problem with it.”
6 At the least, attend a kitchen design seminar so you know what the process involves. “I do a few seminars a year,” says John. “Most of the response I get is that people had no idea how much there was to think about.” John’s seminar includes nine “red flags” that commonly trip up homeowners, including installing an induction hob without realising they need more power than usual, installing a rangehood without allowing for ducting, and positioning power points behind a glass splashback, to name a few.
“Put together a scrapbook or Pinterest page to take with you when you brief
your kitchen designer”
During their design research, Oliver and Ella had seen matte black tapware coming through, so they decided to use that in the main bathroom. “It’s modern and right on-trend,” says John. “e Eclipse collection is our most popular design and the Eclipse double drencher showers are outstanding – I have recently installed two into my own home!”
e couple wanted sleek, modern bathroom fittings to complement the tapware, so John put them in touch with Marcus Wycherley at bathroomware manufacturer and supplier Newtech. A quick spin around the Newtech showroom with Marcus brought them up to speed with bathroom trends and helped them choose basins, vanities, toilets, accessories and a beautiful freestanding
Lexington bath.
“With two kids under three, baths are a daily occurrence,” says Oliver. “We’re resigned to the fact that the bathroom door will probably be left open a lot of the time, so we’ve chosen the most beautiful bath we could find, since you’ll see from the hallway.”
“e theme of the Lexington bath is that it’s stone-shaped,” says Marcus. “It’s an absolute statement of a bath. You’ll want to have the door open all the time because the bath looks so good!”
For the main bathroom, they also chose a Newtechdesigned integrated basin that, at 130mm, is slightly deeper than most basins to be practical for family use. It’s paired with a sleek minimalist vanity in stained plywood.
With Oliver’s height in mind, the couple chose a slightly overheight Sorano toilet pan. With its small footprint, rimless technology and removable seat it’s been specifically designed to be easy to clean. “I’m excited about the overheight toilet,” says Oliver. “I’ve got two kids so it’s my only safe space.”
Oliver and Ella thought they knew what they wanted for window treatments, but a meeting with Teresa Butler from Curtain Studio sent them down a different track.
“ey had pictured venetian blinds at the kitchen window,” says Teresa, “But the window is 170mm bigger than any blinds or venetians, which means they would have needed two sets of blinds with a gap in the middle. So shutters were a great option because you do them in panels and you can tilt the shutters to let in as much of the light and the view as you like.”
e huge sliding doors between the living area and the deck were another challenge, measuring more than 8m wide and 2.7m high from floor to ceiling. “at’s a big window,” says Teresa. “ey wanted a heavy, fully lined curtain, but that would have covered nearly a metre of window space when it was pulled back. If you want to do that you need a wall on one side so you can stack the curtain back.”
So she recommended they install a sleek blackout roller blind with a sheer linen-look curtain over the top for daytime sun control and privacy. e black blind fits inside the window frame so it almost disappears into the dark joinery, and can be automated by wifi from a smartphone or device. For the curtain Ella chose a sheer linen-look fabric called Biella, which is half linen and half polyester. “People love the linen look but 100 per cent pure linen is difficult to maintain and keep its looks,” says Teresa. “It moves and shrinks with the heat and light and also crushes, whereas you can get a lovely linen look at a more affordable price that’s also more durable, fade resistant and low maintenance. It’s a really practical solution for busy people but it still gives them the dramatic but soft floor-to-ceiling look they want.”
e couple are enjoying visiting the site to see their home evolve. “We’re both really busy with jobs and kids, but we get to go down there every now and then and go wohoo,” says Oliver. “It’s a pretty exciting part of the build and now the foundations are down we’re feeling on much safer ground. So far things have been going pretty smoothly and I put that down to our architect David Ponting. Our builder James is also phenomenal. Like anything in life it’s about the people you have around you. If you have good people everything tends to go quite smoothly.”