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Kohler’s new Riff faucet has three different spray options. Photo from Kohler 7. Spray Options A few manufacturers announced improvements in spray power and spray type for kitchen faucets. Kohler’s new Riff faucet has three different sprays: an aerated stream, a sweeping spray (shown here) and a boost button for increasing the power by 30% to clean pots and pans. Moen’s Align faucet, shown in the next photo, has a button to increase the spray power by 50%.
Kallista’s Juxtapose faucet is an elegant take on the professional-style faucet and is just over 24 inches high. Photo from Kallista 4. New Twists on Professional-Style Faucets Tall professional-style kitchen faucets with integrated pull-down sprayers have been taking faucets to new heights — literally. These faucets, typically more than 20 inches high, have altered the scale of faucets that designers and their clients find acceptable in a kitchen. What’s new about professional-style kitchen faucets is that they’ve evolved far beyond the utilitarian silhouettes in stainless steel or polished chrome offered by restaurant suppliers. Faucet designers have responded to consumer demand for popular finishes, more elegant looks and personalized style. The contrasting finish on Kallista’s Juxtapose faucet, shown here, pops up in small accents on the base, handle, spout and magnetic docking arm. Created by noted kitchen designer Mick De Giulio, the faucet is available in matte black (seen here), polished nickel and stainless steel. Homeowners can customize the faucet by choosing an accent finish in polished chrome, polished nickel, brushed moderne brass or matte black.
Kohler and Moen now offer faucets that allow you to give a verbal command that will trigger a handwashing sequence that follows guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The U by Moen Sarai faucet shown here is a good example of the intersection of technology and style. The faucet can be operated manually, with the wave of a hand or with voice commands. A smartphone app allows homeowners to customize presets or turn the faucet on and off. And Moen, like many other brands, has expanded the number of styles and finishes available with their touchless technology this year. The Sarai is one of five new styles offered with touchless technology. Note: You’ll need an electrical outlet under the sink for touchless faucets. If you have a garbage disposal, it’s likely you already have an outlet.
Touchless Options While touchless faucets have been around for years, the pandemic has heightened demand from homeowners who are eager to prevent germs from spreading within their homes. Riobel added touchless technology to several of its existing faucet collections, including the Art Deco-style Trattoria line shown here. It comes in four finishes and with options for a C-shaped spout, seen here, or a U-shaped spout. Kohler also retrofitted its most popular faucet collections with touchless technology.
Position Bins Strategically Where’s the best place in your kitchen for the trash and recycling bins? To ensure that cleaning up is as efficient as possible, they should be beneath the sink, Byrne says. The goal, she says, is to create “minimum distance between sink and bins, which means minimum opportunities for spills and mess.”
Choose Your Countertop Material Wisely “Select materials such as Corian, quartz, steel or sintered stone [mineral and stone particles bound together with heat and pressure], which are nonporous, prevent stains and are easy to wipe clean,” Delaney says. “Solid-surface [countertops], such as Corian, are probably the most hygienic,” Whyte says. “They have a seamless finish and therefore don’t have grooves to trap dirt. This is why you see them used in hospitals and fast-food chains.”
Energy efficiency isn’t the only important consideration when choosing a new dryer — you’ll also want to know if it requires ventilation. Heat-pump dryers are the most efficient style and don’t need venting, making them suitable for apartments or laundry areas in the middle of the home. Condenser dryers are fairly energy-efficient and likewise don’t require venting. However, they do produce a small amount of moisture when running, so they can’t be installed inside a cupboard to create a hidden laundry. Traditional vented dryers are less energy-efficient. They also need to be installed in a well-ventilated laundry or ducted outside. If they aren’t, mold can develop on your laundry room walls.
When planning your laundry area, consider which appliances you’ll use, make sure you have enough power outlets and ensure they’re positioned in the right spots. In addition to power outlets for the washer and dryer, consider ones you might need for countertop appliances or an ironing station.
In a compact laundry area, consider a sliding door or a bifold style that takes up minimal space when open.
Do You Need to Include Space for Folded or Hanging Items? Will you do the ironing in the laundry room and need space for an ironing board? Do you want somewhere flat to place ironed and folded garments, or a rail to hang them on? If space is tight and you iron regularly, consider a fold-up ironing board that you can pack away when not in use.
Consider the Location of Your Laundry Carefully When thinking about your laundry layout and positioning, don’t forget to factor in any access requirements. For example, do you want access via an external door so you can easily get to an outdoor clothesline? Will you be storing kitchen appliances in the laundry and need direct access to the kitchen? You should also consider any additional storage requirements. Will the laundry double as a mudroom, for example, and if so, do you need somewhere to store soiled shoes and clothing?
Measure Exactly What You Need to Store When specifying cabinetry, think about your specific storage requirements. For example, do you need to store cleaning and washing detergents, or long and awkward items such as mops and brooms? Do you want somewhere to keep pet items, space for hampers or laundry baskets? Having a clear idea about what you need to store will ensure that your specific needs are catered to in the design.
With the potential for chemicals and hot irons in a laundry, you’ll want to choose a countertop material that’s resilient and durable. For the countertops in our projects, we don’t use anything but engineered stone. You’ll want to choose hardy materials for the cabinets — they should be extremely hard-wearing and able to withstand moisture and steam. It’s always a good idea to tile the kickers (the base of your cabinets), as tiles cope better with steam and moisture when you’re mopping or steam cleaning the floor.
Opt for More Closed Overhead Cupboards and Fewer Open Shelves Most of the items you store in a laundry room, such as cleaning products, are ones that you’d want to conceal rather than leave out on display. As such, it makes sense to have more closed cupboards than open shelves in a laundry. I’d also recommend including plenty of overhead cupboards, as this is generally where you’ll store most items, plus a decent-size tall cabinet to accommodate awkward items such as mops, brooms and the ironing board.
Make Your Countertops Deep Enough The biggest mistake I see people make with their laundries is specifying countertops that are too narrow. As a result, their undercounter washing machine and dryer stick out, which makes the laundry look messy and unsightly. I would recommend a minimum countertop depth of 26 inches to ensure that appliances can fit neatly underneath.
Marble-look quartz countertop. Patterned porcelain floor tile. Open shelves between appliances. “The open shelving is good for detergent or a basket for lost socks,” designer Allison Hallman says. “We also used a pocket door to cut down on the doors swinging into the space.”
The client wanted the laundry room to also serve as a mudroom, and therefore be stylish enough to see on a daily basis,” designer Courtney Sempliner says. “The design coincided with the gut renovation of the adjoining kitchen, so we continued the same style of cabinetry through the laundry room, although in a darker color.” Special features. “We loved the stacking washer and dryer as a space saver,” Sempliner says. “We opted for the frosted glass on the paneled upper doors in order to disguise what was in the cabinets, and paired the gray cabinetry with a classic white subway tile.” Designer tip. “We loved adding an upholstered bench to this laundry room, with additional storage below, to be an unexpected detail that you don’t find in many utility rooms,” Sempliner says.
I removed a dingy wooden hanging cabinet and replaced it with two smaller white cabinets. I added a hanging rod that spans the space between the cabinets. The rod is ideal for hanging clothes I don’t want to put in the dryer. I chose to paint my walls bright white, but the silver metallic tile backsplash shown here could also brighten up a dark, windowless laundry space. Since I have a front-loading washer and dryer, my handyman installed a shelf over the top, like the one shown here. This new workspace is a prime location for sorting and folding laundry.
Rollout storage caddy under the sink. I have attractive storage containers for dish soap and other cleaning supplies, but reaching the products was difficult. Due to the placement of my garbage disposal and pipes, I had scant storage for taller items. After measuring the space extremely carefully, I purchased a narrow pullout storage caddy designed for dish soap and supplies. I wasn’t able to find the perfect fit, but the space is much easier to access than before.
Vertical storage for cutting boards, trays and cookie sheets. Since I didn’t have a tall vertical storage space, I would stash these items in a large drawer under my oven. Items rested on top of each other, and it was always difficult to find what I was looking for. My solution was to remove the middle shelf from a small lower cabinet so I would have enough height to store taller items. I purchased a slide-out organizer designed for storing large trays, cutting boards and cookie sheets.
Blind corner lazy Susan. I have a deep lower cabinet in the corner of my kitchen that is extremely inaccessible. I use it to store serveware I don’t use often. My handyman installed a blind corner lazy Susan, which makes accessing these items so much easier. There are several models and options available depending on the size of your cabinet and whether you need a right or left pullout. Remember to measure your kitchen items carefully to make sure they’ll fit after the lazy Susan is installed.
Pullout drawers for cabinets. During a kitchen remodel several years ago, I made the decision to paint my kitchen cabinets rather than replace them. Although this was the right decision from a budget perspective, my older cabinets didn’t have all the bells and whistles that new cabinets offer. Even though my kitchen looks great, storage was a problem. My lower cabinets are quite deep, and pots, pans and small appliances have always been difficult to access. Keeping the contents organized was often problematic. Less-used items were often shoved into the back and were difficult to find when needed. My solution was to install slide-out drawers in the lower cabinets. I carefully measured the dimensions of the cabinets, noting any obstacles such as electrical conduits or gas lines. I also measured my pots, pans and small appliances to make sure they would fit in the new drawers.
Using dark colors on all surfaces can be surprisingly effective in smaller rooms. Although many people tend to steer away from dark colors when it comes to confined spaces, interior designer Terri Symington advises just the opposite for this trend. "I find it to be a real problem solver with rooms that are very small in size. By eliminating contrasts in color or shades on the ceiling and walls and trims it simplifies the room's lines and will de-emphasizes the room's smallness."
One dark wall might be all that's needed. There is something about this room that is incredibly special. It's simple, clean and uncluttered. The charcoal gray wall is used to great effect, helping make the room seem a little larger. This type of treatment is a good starting place if you're hesitant to paint all the walls a dark color.
Use wall color to create an art gallery. The palette in this stunning hallway is simple: white and deep gray-brown. The wall color acts as a perfect backdrop for all the white design elements. Simple white picture frames, white console table and a “porcupine quill” mirror all stand out beautifully.
The design of this master bedroom creates a cocoon-like environment. Chocolate brown walls paired with crisp white linens and warm wood tones create a comfortable, relaxing space.
Because the walls are black. If you’re going to take the plunge and paint your walls black, do you really want to wimp out on the ceiling? The bedroom here is dramatic and supremely sexy, but it wouldn’t have worked half as well without the black ceiling.
Because the rest of the room is black and white. Chaplin, houndstooth, The New Yorker — some things just look better in black and white. In this case the black ceiling is a nice echo of the black floor, and the stringent motif makes the few touches of color pop.
To make a ceiling look taller. Sounds like a contradiction, right? But when you can’t see the boundaries of a room, it can appear bigger. This is especially true if you paint the tops of the walls black as well.
Wallpaper
Crocodile wallpaper
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