The Kitchen is the Heart of the Home part 2: Choosing surfaces

This is the second part of our top tips on how to make your new luxury kitchen the heart of your home, this time focusing on the range of surfaces available for worktops, cabinets, quality appliances and flooring.  These important aspects can be properly designed and planned to make the kitchen the favourite family living and gathering place while, at the same time, making the necessary utilitarian functions of a kitchen a pleasure instead of a chore.
   
The worktop.  Worktops take all the wear and tear in your kitchen so if you want to keep that pristine look, think carefully about what worktop to choose.  These days there is a lot of choice from specialist worktops such as granite, quartz, Corian, glass and LG, and non-specialist worktops like laminate, maia, wood and bamboo.  

Cabinets: No single item affects the look, cost, and longevity of your kitchen as much as cabinetry so buy the very best that you can afford.  Think very carefully about the purpose of each unit from pullout drawers for pots and pans, oversized drawers for baking sheets and designated cabinets recycling. Accessories like lazy Susans, built-in spice racks, drawer organizers and other cabinet extras make the kitchen a much more efficient and enjoyable place to prepare and serve meals as well as the less enjoyable job of clearing up!

Quality appliances: Kitchen appliances, from refrigerators to dishwashers and ovens are constantly changing. New products, concepts and designs emerge into the marketplace every year so your choice of appliances is a very personal one. Kitchens are also becoming more environmentally friendly, using recycled materials, environmentally friendly products and incorporating “greener” lifestyles.

Flooring Materials: Your kitchen floor will help establish the style of the room but also take a lot of wear and tear so it’s very important to choose the right flooring for you.  There is a bewildering range of materials on offer but we felt this article could be very helpful in making the choice.  Find out more>

Wall materials:   Your kitchen will have a mixture of wall coverings for the different areas.  From wallpaper or painted surfaces in the sitting area to tiling and splash backs in the kitchen, it is important that these blend together to give a cohesive style.  The majority of surfaces will be regularly cleaned so you want to be sure that they keep their appearance over time.

For more inspiration have a look at some of the luxury kitchens on our website which Richmond Homes has created for our clients

Our final blog post on designing your luxury kitchen will be posted on October 24th - considering an often neglected aspect of lighting

Richmond Homes is awarded Commendation at the Herald Property Awards 2014

The Herald Property Awards for Scotland ceremony was the biggest night for the property industry in Scotland.  Everyone agreed that the 2014 awards have attracted an outstanding response. This year’s ceremony took place on Thursday, 25th September with a gala dinner in Oran Mor in the city’s west end.  The event, in association with Wheatley Group, saw hundreds of figures from across the house-building and development industry gather in Glasgow.

After months of reviewing all of the entries the judges had decided firstly on the finalists for each category and on the night announced the winner and commendation in each category.  Richmond Homes was delighted to be awarded a commendation in the “individual new build” category for our bespoke luxury home at Barnton.

This substantial 5-bedroom luxury home blends the original arts and crafts features of the coach house to the front of the property with a contemporary and spacious design to the rear, delivering a truly exceptional bespoke home.  Find out more about our award-winning bespoke home here>

The Kitchen is the Heart of the Home: 5 top tips for planning and designing your luxury kitchen

The kitchen is the heart of the home; properly designed it can be the favourite family living place while, at the same time, making the necessary utilitarian functions of a kitchen a pleasure instead of a chore.

Here are five of our top tips in planning and designing your luxury kitchen.

Size matters: the size and layout of your kitchen space will depend on your lifestyle.  The current trend for home life is to be more casual in dining and entertaining with the kitchen often the informal gathering place for family and friends.  If this is your taste in living you will want to be sure your kitchen is big enough to accommodate a cooking area, a dining area and a sitting area so that everyone can socialise together.  Open plan has been popular for many years, but families sometimes find that a layout which is suitable for a young family may not work so well for noisy or studying teenagers.  Having the option of partitions may be something to consider for all stages in a growing family.

Circulation and movement: If you have the luxury of designing your kitchen from scratch, why not size everything just as you like it to make movement around your kitchen as easy and efficient as possible? The kitchen work triangle is a design concept that can help create efficient use of kitchen work spaces. The idea is that a line drawn to the refrigerator, sink, and range should create a relatively even-sided triangle within which the major kitchen activities take place. The triangle layout can reduce unnecessary movement in the kitchen, making your use of the space more efficient. You can also look at counter height, counter depth and the clearance of upper cabinets and shelving to suit your particular needs. Having a kitchen island can be a great way to make use of extra space in your kitchen, as well as provide you with an accessible and comfortable place to prepare meals. Many kitchen islands also double as a place to have a quick bite to eat.

Ventilation system: Cooking produces heat, smells, grease, smoke and steam.  So while you are focusing on the enjoyment of designing the appearance of your kitchen, remember it is vital to incorporate top quality ventilation systems so that cooking does not have an undesirable impact on the pleasure of the kitchen as a gathering place for friends and family.  A major facet of ventilation is a hood to absorb all cooking smells and vapours. With so many options on offer you can choose to minimize the hood’s presence or make it the focal point of the room, whichever suits your taste and style.

The designated cooking space: Your kitchen may be the hub of the home but there is no getting away from the fact that its main purpose is as a working environment to produce meals for the family.  Therefore the ease-of-use of the cooking and clearing-up area of the kitchen and the way it relates to the social areas of dining and family relaxation requires careful planning. 

Your kitchen as a workhorse: You want your kitchen to keep its lovely new look and yet it takes such a lot of punishment on a daily basis it is worth thinking through which surfaces will keep their appearance.   

Dont miss our next article, published on October 15th which will focus on the range of surfaces available for worktops, cabinets, quality appliances and flooring. Have a look at some of the luxury kitchens on our website which Richmond Homes has created for their clients

The Herald Property Awards for Scotland

Short listed Richmond Homes Bespoke Home Street Facade

Short listed Richmond Homes Bespoke Home Garden Facade

The Herald Property Awards for Scotland honours the achievements of Scotland’s most innovative and successful house builders, developers and registered social landlords.

Since their inception in 2007, the awards have gained the respect and support of the new build industry as a result of the thorough judging process, and the high calibre awards evening which celebrates the winners and nominees in a range of categories.

As publisher of Scotland’s most comprehensive property guide, Scotland’s Homes, The Herald has a unique understanding of the new build market. There is a range of categories recognising all styles of properties and developments, from bespoke luxury homes to innovative social housing developments, from practical family homes to sympathetic renovations. For 2014 there are 14 categories and Richmond Homes is delighted to be shortlisted in the “Individual New Build or Small Development” category for their individual Bespoke Home in Barnton, Edinburgh.

The focus in the past has been on domestic homes, although in 2012 the Woodhouse Coffee Shop at Kippen carried off an award.  Some of the most innovative solutions have come from the social-housing sector, including in 2013 when Port of Leith Housing Association won  ‘Affordable Development of the Year’.  However, this year, the 14 categories represent a much wider view of the new build industry.
A new award for 2014 is ‘Best Commercial Property’ in a category all of its own. A further three new awards will also seek to recognise those in sales and service roles within the industry. They are: Residential Sales Agents of the Year; Residential Letting Agents of the Year and Commercial Property Agents of the Year.

Within two categories, the judges will scrutinise more than just individual homes, but the whole environment in which they sit. In deciding on the winners of the ‘Development of the Year’ and the ‘Affordable Housing Development of the Year,’ the judges will be scrutinising streetscapes, the way in which properties within the development relate to each other and the sense of community, as well as the design of individual homes.

The winners for 2014 will be announced at a gala awards dinner on Thursday, September 25, 2014, which will be a great celebration of the best of the Scottish home building industry.  We’ll be there and keeping our fingers crossed!