Make your bespoke kitchen truly yours
August 15, 2024
Bespoke kitchens provide unmatched advantages, enabling you to create a space that reflects your taste and meets your unique requirements. Layout and material choices play a crucial role in defining your kitchen’s look and feel, durability and general ease of maintenance. But it’s important to get the balance right between personalisation and functionality.
High-quality materials tend to ensure long-lasting performance, while thoughtful selections can enhance visual qualities. Cube has put a handy cheat sheet together to help you make informed decisions for a bespoke kitchen that reflects your vision and enhances your daily living experience.
WHAT DO YOU NEED?
Functionality is very important however your bespoke kitchen should also reflect your personal style, covering your needs and preferences in order to see the bigger picture. Be specific, think about how often you typically cook and what kinds of meals you like to prepare. These factors are key ingredients when it comes to layout and material choices, helping you to achieve a nice balance between utility and optics.
Visiting showrooms, browsing catalogues or the Cube portfolio are great sources to draw inspiration from and to scope out trends. After all, you want to achieve a kitchen that is uniquely yours.
OPEN-PLAN OR BROKEN-PLAN?
Ideally your kitchen layout multitasks effectively by maximising space and optimising entertainment areas. People who love to cook tend to prefer open-plan kitchens as they can interact with family and friends whilst preparing meals. Broken-plan is all about defined, functional areas which can create a sense of journey when entertaining. Ultimately, the layout choice is yours and should reflect your personal taste rather than the latest design trends. Delve deeper into this topic with our blog which gives you practical tips for transitioning between these popular design trends.
CABINET CHOICES ARE MATERIAL
Cabinet materials hugely contribute to the overall look of your bespoke kitchen, so again balancing aesthetics and functionality is important. Solid wood cabinets are beautiful, timeless and very durable, though they can be costly. Plywood is very commendable as it’s sturdy and more budget-friendly, whereas MDF is ideal for painting and also warp resistant but it might not last as long as natural wood. Smaller kitchens can really benefit from glass-fronted cupboards, adding depth and dimension to the room by maximizing the natural flow of light. With cabinets, it’s best to first evaluate your budget, desired style and expectations on durability and then base your choice on your best cabinet material match.
WHICH WORKTOP WORKS?
We like to refer to them as the ‘unsung hero’ because kitchen worktops are one of the hardest working surfaces in your kitchen. They endure constant wear and tear from food preparation, cooking and cleaning but with so many options available, choosing the right material can be tough. Functionality and aesthetics are again as crucial as durability and maintenance. We’ve got a great read to help you weigh up the merits of popular worktops such as granite, quartz and marble: indulge in our blog ‘How to avoid the kitchen worktop flop’.
FINAL FACETS
Lighting can truly transform any room. The rule of thumb is that a well-lit kitchen looks more expensive than a poorly-lit one. There are plenty of lighting options to consider of course, so we’re shedding light on a couple of contemporary options: characterful chandeliers or a trio of stylish focal-point pendant lights can bring in a little sophistication when hung above an island or kitchen dining table.
Dressing your walls with wallpaper can be far more powerful than simply painting them. Colours and patterns create interest, especially when hung cleverly. Play with illusions such as making a small kitchen appear bigger or a large kitchen more intimate.
You can really turn on the taps by making brassware, usually seen as simply a functional essential, more of a feature: opt for sleek matt black for a modern touch, aged brass fixtures for vintage charm or gold for a splash of opulence.
As for sink choices, stainless steel sinks are a winner when it comes to maintenance although we suspect you may prefer something less basic for your bespoke kitchen. In any case, the sink type should suit your needs and overall kitchen style. Copper or cast iron sinks are certainly both eye-catching albeit they hugely differ in terms of maintenance and durability. Stone or fireclay are ideal choices if you’re looking for a material with high heat resistance, a long lifespan and easy to maintain. Cottage-themed kitchens really suit a farmhouse or Belfast sink which offer plenty of room for pots and pans.
On the note of making your bespoke kitchen work hard and look the part: consider built-in appliances such as a lovely wine chiller that lives inside the kitchen island or a separate laundry room to keep clutter and noise behind closed doors.
Last but not least, let’s take it to the floor. Similar to worktop materials, every flooring type carries its own set of pros and cons, so you need to decide which one you want to walk on: the timeless, elegant and warm hardwood, the affordable laminate, the water-resistant luxury vinyl or durable tiles.
LET’S MAKE IT YOURS
Here at Cube, we find that our customers’ desire to create dream kitchens has never been greater. Whether you wish for your kitchen to become a space that incorporates everything from entertaining and dining to your home office or if you prefer organised zones, we’re here to design, manage and build your bespoke kitchen as part of any wider home improvement project.
Our award-winning team will help you navigate the vast array of options and create a bespoke kitchen that not only looks stunning but caters perfectly to your needs.
Contact us today, so we can book you in for a free design consultation: