COUNTERTOP COUTURE
You realize the expression "It's now not the clothes you wear however how you wear them?" Well it's the identical with kitchen design. Materials most effective make the difference in case you understand how to parade them, play with them, and, in the long run, push them on your nice advantage.
So let's prevent thinking what comes subsequent after chrome steel. Because the solution is more: More chrome steel, more wooden-stain shelves, and more stone. Knowing this..Can we be as innovative because the Romans? Or Corbusier? Some of the finest contributions to architecture, in spite of everything, owe to rethinking the maximum conventional materials. The artwork lies within the application.
So permit's take a more in-depth examine the most not unusual kitchen materials, one at a time.
WOOD
Wood is effortlessly reduce, carved, pierced and joined. So why no longer control the same wood in exclusive ways, as seen in this surprisingly textural kitchen by Jim Livingston of Livingston Kitchens in Deer Park, Illinois? Lattice paintings, decorative aprons and baroque corbels are energetic layers when harmonized with the same wooden stain.
Grain is some other attention. The less seams, the more potent a grain's graphic impact. Try matching long expanses
of grain from floor to floor, as seen on this zebrawood island by means of Zack Simmons of CKS Design Studio in Durham.
Or recall how wonderful grains can be artfully mixed with shape and volume, as in this complex part profile with the aid of Craft-Art wood counter tops.
MARBLE
Anyone with deep pockets can galvanize their pals with a big slab of beautifully veined marble. But who could assume to bookmatch smaller slabs right into a butterfly sample? The fee of the material is frequently less and any more set up time minimum. But as Bethesda MD dressmaker Bradford Creer proves on this marble-clad kitchen, the return makes a one-of-a-type pattern out of a clearly varying material.
Now up the ante a piece greater. Marble isn't quarried with the aid of the slab. It comes in blocks that can be cut into numerous slabs of the same grain.
Karen Williams of St. Charles of New York shops this manner, always at the hunt for blocks of stone that can be cut into slabs of various shapes and thicknesses and mounted one high priced layer over another.
Combine the potential of nature and generation, and you've got Stile Artistic Design who create problematic inlays of aluminum in marble the usage of laser-jet technology.
STAINLESS STEEL
As eating places have known for years, this cool commercial floor is truly impenetrable, effortlessly washable, and therefore each safe and hygienic for use on hardworking countertops and appliances. But why lay it flat handiest? It may be quilted (as visible in Fifties diners), woven in strips, or manipulated in more painterly ways as seen on the Coquille hood by using Cheng Designs. Here a 16-gauge chrome steel is hand burnished with a ribbon end that brings difficult metallic the appearance of streaming water.
Another cool choice is to juxtapose machined metallic with its thermal contrary?Natural, heat-stained woods. The pairing is even more hanging inside the kitchen under, some other by means of St. Charles of New York, wherein the selection to wrap wood cabinets with a metallic toe kick makes every use of the fabric appear basically ornamental.
And speaking of ornamental, the ever-practical stainless steel sink is also to be had with couture touches. Among the numerous new customizations provided with the aid of Elkay is a brand new etching era. Choose a greek key border layout or your very own monogram?But the surface is etched, its smoothness (in addition to durability and toughness) remains the equal.
Some might also say what is antique is new once more. Clich? Or surely specific, even if the use of the maximum commonplace materials, the choice is up to you.