Kitchen refurbishment Leicester - Craven and Hargreaves

Updating Your Kitchen Lighting Fixtures

Although summer time might seem a funny time to be thinking about your light fittings – there’s never a bad time to plan your next kitchen remodel and planning in advance gives you all the more time to find the perfect fixtures for you. We spend so much time these days in our kitchens and making the most of them makes sense not only from a lifestyle point of view but also from the perspective of adding value to your property. This is exactly the type of advice that those involved in kitchen refurbishment Leicester will give.

After-Two

There are so many light fixtures from which you’ll have the luxury to choose and imprint your own style on your kitchen. These include chandeliers, recessed lighting, under-cabinet lighting, mini pendants, track lighting and elegant, brimful of character hanging pot racks. A nice shade hanging low over a breakfast bar can look wonderful and is a way of introducing colour as well as making a statement. There can be so many options that the problem is deciding where and how to make a start. Of course much will be dependant on your personal taste and the existing style of your kitchen, unless of course your fixtures update comes hand in hand with a complete kitchen overhaul. Do you have a coherent theme in your kitchen? Is it a city style or contemporary kitchen, a small kitchenette or a large country kitchen diner complete with range? Is your favoured theme industrial with cold whites, greys and silvers or a more homely feel with traditional and even antique features?

The functionality of your kitchen must also be considered. Do you have a clear food preparation area like an island? If so, even if you favour recessed lighting throughout the kitchen you can opt for a trio of beautiful pendant lights over the island for a trendy, functional touch. Do you eat your meals in the kitchen or do any paperwork and computer work? If the latter is true then remember computers have their own lights, so it’s the paper that requires illumination. A handy fluorescent task light is a good option.

Lighting the spaces above and below the cabinets has become increasingly desirable. Available in slim, energy-efficient models like miniature track lights or low-voltage linear systems, under and over-cabinet lighting is a great way to illuminate counter tops and cabinet recesses and also accents ceilings. On the subject of accenting it may be the case that you have some favourite pieces of art, posters, decorative plates or even a photo wall in your kitchen that you need to light up. This can be achieved wonderfully with recessed light fixtures or directed track lighting. As you can see, there is a light fixture for every occasion and with a little research and perhaps some expert advice you can achieve a whole lot by overhauling your kitchen lighting.

Clever Storage Solutions for Smaller Kitchens

A lack of space
Not all of us are blessed with the modern day favourite: the large open plan kitchen. Most of us face the eternal dilemma of where to put everything! In fact, I hazard that even those endowed with large open plan kitchen diners that have been ineffectively designed bemoan a lack of STORAGE! Even if a kitchen has been designed relatively effectively, with plenty of storage space the nature of life is that we accumulate things and sound kitchen design necessitates storage that has the capacity to evolve alongside our lives. This is where experts involved in kitchen refurbishment Leicestershire really earn their salt.

Evolving space
Advancements in design and technology have yielded some superb new products and arrangements that enable kitchen designers to get around issues of storage space. The trend towards blurred lines between kitchen and living space need not necessarily be achieved by knocking down partition walls. In fact those with small kitchens can expand into their dining and living space through subtle integration of kitchen storage with stylish tables featuring hidden draws underneath their surfaces, for instance. With minimalism also high on the agendas of an increasing number of people, much can be learned from the emergence of ‘micro homes’ or ‘tiny houses’ which by necessity have involved some truly ingenious space saving ideas, such as fold away tables and benches with storage under the seats.

Larders etc
The life-changing qualities imbued in the magic kitchen larder cannot be overstated. Simply put, when you get a larder there’s no turning back. So if you are in the process of deciding on an extension or have a spare downstairs cupboard or toilet next to your kitchen, or even a corner of your kitchen that could be given a wall-mounted pantry it is an addition that you will never regret.

The words ‘larder’ and ‘pantry’ are so antiquated that they conjure visions of a grim dusty cupboard with a hard concrete floor and a thriving population of spiders and yet it can be über stylish. Imagine a whitewashed room of flexible shelving accessed by pocket glass fronted doors that provides all of the flexible space needed for those awkward but essential bottles of sake, soy sauce and the pots and pans and accessories that just don’t fit in the cupboards! Having all your food storage in the same part of the kitchen can also revolutionise your cooking time as well as making putting away your groceries a snap. Given the choice, a walk-in larder is the ideal solution and can even, given that it is cool, enable you to store your hard cheeses, eggs, potatoes and some fruit there freeing up precious space in the fridge!