5 Elements of an Artful Kitchen

Summer projects are underway in South Florida!  In fact, it's the height of the busy season for most design professionals here.

I don't have to tell you that a new kitchen is a big investment, in fact the kitchen is the most expensive renovation you're ever likely to undertake. It stands to reason that you'd want a kitchen that is tailor-made for you whether you can afford custom or not. This is what we're all about at Artful Kitchens.

The concept of an "artful kitchen" has many different facets.  It is not just about budget or the amount of space you have but the skill you employ using what is available to you. Here are five tips to consider along with some visual inspiration featuring products I saw this year at the Kitchen & Bath Industry (KBIS) trade show in Las Vegas. Implement these with style and confidence and you will be the proud owner of an artful kitchen!

1. Flawless Function

I'm all about artistic expression but a major part of creativity in the kitchen comes from devising flawless function. This quality is not something you see but something you can experience if artfully accomplished.  When I say function, I mean work centers comprised of cooking, clean up and food prep areas.

Those are the basics but you could have more such as a beverage center (think coffee, tea, wine), a computer station or a baking center.  If you have a two-cook kitchen, your layout should be designed so that any one of the major functions can be performed without anyone getting underfoot.

Following the guidelines set by the NKBA is a must to make sure all clearances are adequate. Sometimes we don't have a lot of choice about where to locate our sink or appliances but we can organize our utensils, dishes, pots and food items in a more efficient way.  Don't forget the more flawlessly your kitchen functions the safer it is. You don't have to be an expert at this, just think about how you use your kitchen so that you will be a good collaborator when it comes time to work with a professional.

2. Personalization

This is, without a doubt, the biggest movement in the design world.  An artful kitchen is your own personal statement customized to the way you live.  It could be a steam oven because healthy eating is your passion or it could be a lovely furniture piece with glass doors to display your grandmother's china. Include the colors you love.  Even though you must be mindful of your budget (everyone has one), strive to retain the essence of what you see as your dream kitchen.

3. Harmony

Harmony is one of the principles of design and a must for your kitchen.  Whenever I design a two-toned kitchen I like to ensure that different finishes and details are carried through the space to create a cohesive whole.  It's about how the floor relates to the cabinets and  how the cabinet hardware relates to the faucet. You get the picture!  It does not mean that everything has to match perfectly, it means elements should relate to and complement each other. It also does not mean that every element has to be perfectly symmetrical.  In fact, consider this permission NOT to be! I find that the best rule of thumb is to follow the architecture and style of the home you're in.  If, for example, the kitchen window is way off center you should work with that not against it.  Never force solutions by sacrificing function.

4. Focal Point

Every piece of great artwork has a focal point.  It is the "star of the show", so to speak.  In a kitchen it can be a sculptural range hood, a granite counter with big bold movement or actually a piece of art! It is the item that makes you say WOW when you enter the kitchen.  Just remember less is more here.  One great focal point is probably enough.  Too much and the statement gets lost. Less is definitely more.

5. Texture

The element of texture involves at least two of our senses, touch and sight.  The textures you are likely to come across include the glossy finishes popular in contemporary design, prominent wood grains which can be traditional or modern and smooth honed surfaces that are more matte.  A flat slab cabinet door is a great choice if you plan to use a wood with a lot of pattern and graining.  In this case the material is the decorative element of the cabinet.  On the other hand, if you are traditional and you are using white cabinets you can select a door with some molding or detail.  Also let the wild patterns either be on your cabinets or on your counter, both would be busy and distracting.

This is only the tip of the iceberg, so to speak.  There are many more tricks and methods to create an artful kitchen. What are yours?  Please keep in touch and contact me. Whether you need a quick consult or a full design layout I can help in person or virtually.

I'm located in the West Palm Beach area, so if you're local I can also help you shop for your kitchen products.

The New Wall Unit

If you have a twenty year old TV wall unit, chances are it’s a “beast”!  It wasn’t that long ago that TVs were nearly as deep as refrigerators and you needed three burly guys to carry one upstairs.  In other words, it may be time for a new entertainment center to go with your new streamlined TV.  Check out the following tips for sourcing a wall unit that is perfect for you.SizeThe depth of your entertainment center used to be dictated by your TV.  The good news is you can reduce what was probably 24” deep down to a skinny 12” and and find youself with a whole extra foot of space in the room!  Cool, yeah?  If you prefer the base to be a bit deeper than the upper section, 15” on bottom and 12” on top works well.  You may want to do this especially if you are going to leave your TV on a stand. Just check you TV specs to make sure the stand fits.To wall or not to wall  If your room is not very big you may want to go wall to wall with your entertainment center.  Just make sure you have enough space on the side walls to accommodate the depth.  It’s also okay not to go all the way up the the ceiling.  The benefits of this option are price, more of a “furniture” look and not having to interrupt your room crown.Remember the wiresA back panel behind your TV can lend a cohesive look as well as being a great way to hide unsightly wires.The perfect finishLast but not least consider that a painted finish, with no glaze in a standard satin sheen will be the most cost effective way to go and it will allow your unit to blend right into the surrounding woodwork, just like you added water and it grew there! If you’re after a true furniture look you can invest in a stain finish on Maple, Cherry or any number of woods.  This will be more expensive but you can still save a bit by leaving off the glaze.  Remember the the trend is towards simplification and clean lines.  Plus when you have a wood grain that should be the decorative element allowing you to use a very simple door style.  If you are looking to design your own entertainment center, send me your ideas and I can help you make them happen!

Bowled Over by Bolon

When did I visit Milan again? Oh yeah, April 2014.  Time flies.  You see the thing is, when you go to these sensory overloading mind boggling trade shows you bring it all home with you in the form of dvds, thumb drives, brochures, samples etc. The problem is when you get home it’s so busy all these bits end up sitting in a "some day" drawer.  Well guess what? Today’s the day.Back to Milan. I was there as a member of the Blanco Design Council (a fact that I am most proud of and grateful for) to attend the Salone di Mobile, the premiere European interior design and furniture trade show.  Fast forward to today when I decided to fire up a thumb drive called Bolon.  Let me tell you about it.Bolon is a Swedish flooring manufacturer but there is so much more to it!  The concept of fashion has a way of elevating even the most mundane of objects.  That’s what’s so intriguing about Bolon, started in Stockholm in 1949 by Nils-Erik Eklund.  He became a pioneer of the “green” movement when he decided he would make woven rag rug flooring  from the waste product of other flooring manufacturers.    The business succeeded, was passed on and has been run by his granddaughters Annica and Marie Eklund since 2003. That’s when fashion entered the picture.  The term “floored by fashion” was coined and fashion icon  Giorgio Armani decided he loved the product enough to use it in his shops, his home and on his yacht.  Savvy marketing by this latest generation of Eklands seals the deal.  You must admit this video, introducing their Silence line,  is intriguing enough to make you want to know what this product is all about!It’s an original type of flooring that I would describe as woven vinyl with a backing.  It can look natural or not, doesn’t seem particularly comfy on the bare foot but does appear to be bullet-proof, a definite plus for commercial spaces which is the main application.Today the focus is on global expansion and achieving a totally green product. Bolon’s list of clients includes not only Armani but also Google, Mercedes, Adidas, Reebok and Sheraton as well as leading architects and designers.  All design and production happens in Ulricehamn, Sweden. Today the focus is on global expansion and achieving a totally green product. Bolon’s list of clients includes not only Armani but also Google, Mercedes, Adidas, Reebok and Sheraton as well as leading architects and designers.  All design and production happens in Ulricehamn, Sweden.Bolon is available in rolls or tiles.  You can vacuum it or for deep cleaning it can be scrubbed with a brush and an all purpose cleaner (there are machines that can do this too).  Lastly vacuum again with a wet vac. If you want to delve into the specifics you can do that here. Interesting diversion, yes? Who knows what I'll unearth next! Stay tuned... 

Bake to the Future with A Smart Oven

Appliances of yesteryear barely resemble those that we take for granted today.  We have ovens that can remember how to cook our favorite recipes and even refrigerators that send messages to an of state location to report a malfunction!Here's how it works. Say you're away and your fridge goes kaput.  Said fridge sends a report to headquarters who in turn follow up with a phone call to let you know and to schedule a service call.  I was amazed when I heard that a year or so ago at a Miele appliance demo. Miele calls it "Remote Vision".   Sounds a bit creepy but smart creepy, no? The "smart" function is beginning to infiltrate most appliances but today I want to talk about ovens.Yesterday Tech Crunch announced the unveiling of  a new counter top “smart oven” by June, a teeny tiny company based in San Fransisco.  The new June oven features precision, intuitive function and modern convenience all in something that resembles a toaster oven.  It has a built-in ability to identify and even weigh food to suggest cooking methods and utilizes convection technology and  carbon fiber heating elements .  It also allows you to monitor your steaks with your smart phone. There's more, you can check it out here, but it still looks like a toaster oven.   It fits a dish as big as 11" by 16", so maybe a little bigger than toaster oven capacity.To be fair, there are already built-in "smart ovens" on the market.  Justin Landman of House of Appliances in Delray Beach, Florida says,  "Jenn-Air announced their wifi connected oven earlier this year. Dacor also offers a smart oven feature called Discovery IQ". The price tag on these starts at $3,600 for Jenn-Air and $4,400 for Dacor.The new June oven will be available starting next spring for $1,495 but you can reserve one for $95 now. You'll just have to get over the loss of counter space.         

Maison & Objet Americas Debuts in Miami

If you can imagine Fashion Week for interior design, most likely it would resemble the trade show Maison & Objet Paris.     Since 1995 brands have been debuting new collections and bringing fresh talent to the forefront at this biannual show.  Now its success has spawned a new version, Maison & Objet Americas  which was held at the Miami Beach Convention Center May 12-15.

Miami is at the crossroads between North and South America, both physically and culturally. In addition, as a home to Art Basel and the hugely successful Miami Design District, it is quickly becoming know as an art and design capital.

M&O America's Designer of the Year award went  to Brazilian furniture designer Zanini de Zanine.  His intense and very sculptural furniture design is influenced by the diverse culture he comes from as well as by his father, well known architect and designer José Zanine Caldas.

We spent the day at the Miami Beach Convention Center touring the booths at M&O Americas.  Here are just a few of my favorite finds.

Not only did I enjoy perusing the creatively turned out booths and exhibits, I also enjoyed listening to the world renowned talented and accomplished architect, Paola Navone.  She shared the stage with  Cindy Allen, Editor in Chief of Interior Design Magazine.

I connected with Ms. Navone  on so many levels as she was skillfully interviewed by Cindy Allen.   Navone loves and is inspired by the sea, calling it "liquid color".  Her creativity is driven by curiosity and she eschews perfection.  In fact she says, "I promote imperfection".  In the following video she differentiates artist and designer.

 It was a great experience and I'm so glad I took the time out of my busy summer season schedule to attend. Sometimes you just need that mental break and all the better when it is creatively inspiring and thought provoking. For more about the show click here.  Maison & Objet Americas will be back for round two in 2016, May 10-13.

Tile Tuesday: The Many Meanings of "Encaustic"

What is encaustic painting?As an artist, I love the sensuousness of working in the encaustic medium which I discovered in 2008.  Encaustic painting involves beeswax, resin and pigments in varying combinations.  They are mixed together and applied to a panel in layers which are fused  with a torch or heat gun.  This is where the name comes from.  The Greek work “encaustikos” means to heat or burn.Encaustic painting predates oil painting and was used to create portraits on mummy casings dating back to 100BC in Egypt. These paintings are known as the "Fayum" portraits. Many have survived because beeswax is extremely stable so the pigments do not fade over time. The technique fell into obscurity but was resurrected in the 1950s by artist Jasper Johns.  You remember this painting, no? It’s an encaustic painting! Fast forward to the twenty first century and you will find more and more artists working with wax and incorporating it into their repetoire.  The Name GameIn the pursuit of all things tile, while on my trip to the Cevisama tile trade show with Tile Of Spain, I discovered something called “encaustic tile”.  No one could actually tell me how it was connected to what I knew to be encaustic art  so I decided to find out. Guess what?  There is no connection.  Here’s what I discovered:Encaustic tile is also referred to as cement tile, inlaid tile and hydraulic tile.  The name“encaustic” with reference to tile, comes from the nineteenth century.  Turns out there is a third type of encaustic! It is also the name of a process of medieval enameling involving wax.  Victorians thought that inlaid tile resembled this enamel work and began to refer to it as encaustic.  The intricate patterns and designs of encaustic tile mimic the encaustic enameling process. It is a total misnomer but the name “Encaustic tile” stuck. So what is encaustic tile?Cement tiles are not fired; there is no glaze layer on the surface of the tile. They derive their durability from the combination of finely dehydrated ground Portland cement layer and a more coarse layer of sand and cement. The pigment layer is hydraulically pressed into the surface and becomes a part of the tile. This merging of two layers creates the typically crisp clean patterns. Originally these tiles were handmade but naturally today they are mass produced as described above. Encaustic, or cement tiles are known for their durability as floor tile and have lasted centuries. This explanation only scratches the surface as each country town and village in Italy, Spain, Mexico, Turkey etc. has its own history with the technique.In my research I also came across the work of Benedicte Bodard. She lives in Barcelona where she salvages cement tile from dumpsters.  With a little TLC ,she recreates them into furniture, wall hangings and more.So there you have it.  If you have more info or would like to continue the conversation, email me or come by and visit on FaceBook.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Update: Since posting this on Tuesday I have heard from designer Lundy Wilder of Villa Lagoon Tile.  Not only is she an expert on cement tile, she even has a blog devoted to it! Here's what she had to add to the conversation: "Today's cement tiles are indeed still hand made all over the world.  Ours are made in the Caribbean, Morocco, Vietnam, and Mexico. We have been to the factories (workshops is more fitting word)  and know the owners well, all our cement  tiles are made by hand. 

Some UK, Italian and Spanish ceramic tile companies have used ink jet technology to print an image of a real hand made cement tile on the surface of a ceramic tile and fire it under glaze. 

These are fake (or faux) encaustic cement tiles just like the popular 'wood plank' ceramic tiles are fake wood (or faux) wood.  Of course there are some large scale machine made concrete tiles on the market in solid colors like gray and black....but this is a different animal. They are usually called pavers."