Kitchen Couture

Welcoming Islands
If space allows, kitchen islands are seen as a mandatory element of remodels. Not only do they provide additional storage for pots and pans, recyclables, dishwashers, beverage refrigerators, and microwaves, but they also serve as your kitchen’s command center. Here, meals are prepared, homework is completed, and friends gather.

Don’t expect to see many standard rectangular islands. Multiple island heights create a natural separation between cook and guest. Islands curve at either end to create more robust space for gathering. Quality craftsmanship is evident in the use of rich woods and high-end countertop materials. “They look more like furniture and less like cabinets,” Danberry says. “You’d swear that some of these islands were a desk out of the White House.”

Although installing a cooktop on your island might sound handy, make sure to consult with your remodeler first. Traditional hoods on the island could potentially create a visual barrier, and down-draft vents need a considerable amount of make-up air (air that is brought in from the outside via a mechanical system linked to the furnace) to work appropriately. And although the cook’s side of the island might sit at a lower elevation than the other side where the guests are, consider whether you want a dirty cooktop at the same place where you eat, Danberry suggests.

Smart Appliances
From cars to BlackBerries, convenience drives the American lifestyle. It’s the same in kitchens, specifically with appliances. “More appliances are manipulated [specialized] such as built-in coffeemakers and convection ovens,” says Todd Polifka, sales director at Vision Remodeling in Little Canada. “They speak to people’s urgency and lack of time. The cooking process is much shorter now.”

Technology enables such convenience in the kitchen. Rather than employing the simple bake and broil settings, new ovens have a dozen or more cooking controls, including built-in steaming capabilities. Refrigerators feature built-in computers with Internet capacity and digital recipe storage. No longer relegated to the countertop or mounted underneath upper cabinets, microwaves now slide out from lower cabinets at the push of a button. Cooktops use induction, a swift, highly energy-efficient form of cooking that heats only the pot or pan rather than the rest of the cooktop. Commercial-grade appliances are still popular for those who want to cook like the professionals while other remodels implement more modestly sized appliances from European manufacturers such as Miele. For those who don’t want to make a strong design statement with large stainless steel appliances, cabinet fronts are still a popular option to make refrigerators and dishwashers seamlessly blend into the rest of the kitchen.

The convenience factor is evident in the amount of appliances as well. Separate beverage chillers, warming drawers, independent ice makers, pizza ovens, dishwasher drawers designed to do small loads, and wine refrigerators are all common additions to high-end kitchen remodels.

Appliances are designed to partner with your cabinets and countertops. Whereas some cabinets are becoming deeper to accommodate larger appliances, some of these appliances are losing depth and gaining width instead. For example, McDonald points to refrigerators—usually twenty-eight to thirty inches deep—that are twenty-four inches deep to accommodate standard-depth countertops (twenty-five inches). “To make up the cubic feet of space needed, refrigerators are wider,” he says. “In deep refrigerators, everything is stored behind something else. Who knows what’s living back there. With wide refrigerators, you get to see everything in there.” These wider refrigerators tend to place the refrigerator on top and the freezer on the bottom, rather than situate the units side by side.

Another prominent feature in this and other types of refrigeration units is French doors—another space saver because two shorter doors open up rather than one large door, which eliminates the blockage of passageways.

Hit Counters
Countertops are a highly worked surface, and the material used on them should reflect as much. Remodelers report that the most common types of materials used in countertops are granite and engineered stone products such as Cambria or Silestone. Other products, including solid surfaces (such as Corian), wood/butcher block, and concrete, are also used, just less frequently.

Because some of it is manufactured in Minnesota, granite remains a popular choice for kitchen countertops because it doesn’t cost much to ship it. Its availability in multiple grains and colors, as well as its durability, also appeals to consumers. If you want a more uniform look to your countertops, then quartz-based products are the way to go, recommends Johnson. “Because quartz is manmade, it’s the same color every time,” she says. “You don’t have to worry about mineral streaks as you would with granite.”