Three Birds Kitchen Reveal: Designing Your Dream Kitchen

We just LOVED the kitchen and sitting room reveal from Three Birds Renos #House9, especially seeing something a little different from them. The design and pops of colour went somewhere away from their usual style, but still had the same great impact. It really shows that these girls can think outside the box and tackle something away from the usual style.

When we look at the great space created by the kitchen, it gets us thinking about the many questions and considerations you have to make when designing your kitchen.

It really is the heart of every home and a place where MOST of your activity is centred, so it not only has to be beautiful and something you can look at and admire everyday, but it has to be functional.

THE ISLAND

Island benches have been on trend for some time now, and we believe they are becoming more of an expected feature in a kitchen than just something that ‘all the cool kids are doing.’

When thinking about an island bench in your home, not only is there the design aspect, but you also have to consider practicality (which if you watched Three Birds Episode One, Bonnie totally forgot to consider a space for the oven and pantry).

A good place to start is asking yourself some questions about what is important to you.

• Do you want is as a prep bench or eating bar only?
• To sink or not to sink?
• Do you want to have your stovetop (and then potentially a hanging range hood) there?
• How big do you want it vs how much room you have? Make sure it isn’t too large to take over the space or too small that it becomes underwhelming.
• Do you have your heart set on a type of benchtop, have you considered your thickness, does it suit with your overall style of the kitchen and home?
• Where do you spend most of your time in the kitchen and what is the outlook from a potential island?
• What items do you want stored there? Decide where each main utility of the kitchen will be ie. Sink, cook top, dishwasher, oven and then where would be the most practical accessible area for required items to be stored. No one wants to be cooking and having to run around a bench or to the other side of the kitchen for a wooden spoon.
• Do you need extra storage on the backside of it?
• Is this the place for your dishwasher or oven?

The Birds have created something very unique with a curved island, applied a 60mm marble look Caesar stone and utilised the space as a functional area with sink, dishwasher, oven and storage on both sides of the bench. They have made it a sizeable 3.3 metres which really makes a statement and demands the focus of the room. We think the choice was excellent.

CREATING A FEELING

When you spend so much time in a kitchen, think about how you want people in your home to be able to interact with you while you’re cooking, washing, having meals and also what sort of space you want to spend your time in. Do you want something rustic and country, do you want a modern and clean feel, do you want to feel transported into a luxury marble and gold dripping luxe kitchen?

Not only is there consideration for the kitchen itself but also the space around it. How do you want to make it feel or what do you need from the surrounding space?

We love the use of the space off this kitchen to a relaxed sitting area. Bonnie describes is as a “second living space, somewhere you can sit, chat, relax and have coffee with friends… it’s a café style environment where everyone is facing each other, it is conversational.” 

The flow between the two areas is perfect and Intrim’s SK59 skirting boards flow from the kitchen and into the sitting area to help achieve this seamless movement between the spaces.

Think about what’s important to you, where you would like to retreat once you’ve made your coffee or a meal, where your guests can sit while chatting to you, or are you a person who likes to use the island bench as a breakfast bar where your friends and family can be close to you and catch up from the day while you prepare dinner, or sit around the island to discuss the day ahead while sharing breakfast together?

CABINETRY

We are loving the cabinetry in this kitchen!!! The traditional elements with the use of Inlay Mould is VERY on trend, but is timeless enough to last through the years without dating. We have seen many designers using this in their kitchens of late and it is a trend we love (who doesn’t love a moulding everywhere possible?!)

You can use a traditional cabinet with Inlay Mould and modernise the overall look, as Bonnie has done, by adding a vibrant colour, modern black tapware, modern gold knobs and the feature black box.

If you are creating colour pops or stand out features, make sure the rest of your kitchen is neutral and subtle.

If using colour, make sure you paint samples next to each other to choose your colour/s. Our tip is make sure you do the right amount of coats you would do on your final surface and allow it to dry. Paints and tones can change a little between coats and from wet to dry.

And in the words of Bonnie, a never fail tip for lifting a space is to “Add a rattan rug in and luxe it up with a bronze pendant.”