Ultimate Storage-Packed Kitchens
Smart planning and innovative kitchen design solutions transform these kitchens into storage-packed spaces.
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The owner of this 1940s Hollywood Regency-style place in the Hollywood Hills is an interior designer who decided to revitalize his own kitchen by applying lessons learned from previous remodels. Designing the kitchen for people who love to cook, with an adjacent space for friends and family to hang out, he shifted around the kitchen, dining room, and den to create a great-room concept. Another nod to modern living: a large, multifunctional island with seating and plenty of smart storage strategies.
The island offers prep space, close-to-the-range storage for pots and pans, and proximity to a pullout trash and recycling center. This drawer-within-a-drawer in the island makes it easy to keep pots and lids separate and organized.
The homeowner was determined to infuse the kitchen with rich elements to give it distinction. The Calacatta marble tile backsplash, for example, runs up the wall to meet horizontally oriented beaded-board paneling, which also appears in the adjacent family room. Turning beaded board sideways creates strong horizontal lines that make walls appear longer.
A sink made of the same material as the countertops presents a sleek, clean look. A window ledge provides bonus display and storage space behind the integrated sink and traditional bridge faucet.
A firm believer in open storage, the homeowner uses shelves to keep everyday items easy to see and reach. Shelves next to the refrigerator hold the microwave and wine cooler; the latter frees up space in the fridge.
A slender corner space by the refrigerator is ideal for storing baking sheets. The cabinet is outfitted with a divider to keep pans even more organized.
More open storage opposite the refrigerator wall is supported by shapely brackets. The dark metal complements similar tones in the floor, counters, doors, and window frames, and it adds pizzazz to simple open shelves that provide both display and storage space. The shelves keep items used every day in an easily accessible place, and a top shelf, which might be hard to reach, is used to showcase art and decorative objects rather than kitchen essentials.
The space around the range was smartly outfitted for cooking. A knife drawer on one side of the range features an integrated cutting board for quick chopping.
To the right of the range, a drawer stores spices neatly and out of the light, keeping them fresh and easily to grab when cooking at the range or doing prep work on the counter above.
A major renovation to this kitchen yielded a gain of 130 square feet, taken from a seldom-used exterior porch. Plenty of smart storage was carefully planned to make the most of every inch. The new design gave the homeowners more than enough space to hold all their wish-list items, including a large kitchen island and a peninsula separating the kitchen and the adjoining dining room.
The small peninsula serves as a bar area, complete with undercounter beverage chillers and a pullout liquor cabinet. A deep, cased archway provides a gracious transition from the dining room to the colorful kitchen.
There wasn't enough space for a walk-in pantry, so the custom-designed cabinetry extends to the ceiling to maximize storage. A library ladder that rolls along a rail provides access to the top row of cabinets. Cleverly concealed pullouts store spices, bottles, platters, and trays. The slim pullout shelf below the pantry cabinet serves as a temporary landing space for items without permanently intruding on the walkway.
A corner pullout unit stores large cookware and avoids wasting space in a corner cabinet. The pullout unit brings the cabinet contents into clear view, eliminating the likelihood of losing items in the recesses of a deep cabinet.
Appliances were also chosen with capacity in mind. Paired refrigerators with stacked freezer drawers blend in with the cabinetry and give the couple plenty of space to stock up on food for a house full of guests. A pullout cabinet beside the refrigerators makes use of an awkward space. The slender dimensions of the unit make it ideal for storing small containers and bottles.
The couple also opted for a trash compactor and two sink areas: one for preparing food and one for rallying dirty dishes. Two sets of dishwasher drawers between the sinks ease cleanup.
The rail above the pantry continues around the rest of the kitchen. Transom cabinets take the place of soffits and are within reach, thanks to the library ladder.
Before a much-needed makeover, this kitchen hadn't been updated since the 1970s. All the appliances were outdated, and the pink kitchen's terra-cotta tile floors didn't fit with the home's midcentury architecture. An interior designer guided the homeowners through a project that would encompass both aesthetics and function. The first step to this simple, clean, modern look was to gut the room, even though that meant losing two large pantries on either side of the dining room door. In lieu of the spacious yet awkwardly positioned pantries, the homeowners gained plenty of in-kitchen storage.
The homeowners worked closely with a designer to create storage for everything from spices and packaged foods to baking sheets and oversize pots. A flip-up door keeps the microwave above the oven out of sight when not in use, and side-by-side pullout pantries near the oven more than make up for the lost storage space.
While they were going for a contemporary feel, the homeowners also wanted the kitchen to be a warm, comfortable place, so they opted for wood-look cabinetry. Zebrawood (named for its dark stripes on a light background) was their first choice, but it was also a budget buster, so they went with custom cabinetry finished with a faux-zebrawood laminate. To keep the look of the cabinetry simple, the couple used few door pulls, opting instead for push mechanisms, which make it easy to open the sleek cabinets and access their contents.
The homeowners matched the modern feel of their cabinetry with a sleek faucet and water-filtration system. An LED ring built into the faucet lights the sink at night, and slim rectangular metal bars embedded in the concrete countertop create an integrated drainboard, eliminating the need to have and store a bulky ancillary drainboard.
The two-drawer dishwasher cuts water and energy use because the family often only needs to run one drawer at a time. Covering the dishwasher drawers with panels that match the cabinetry minimized the amount of visible stainless steel and boosted the kitchen's warmth factor.
Open shelves above the sink hold the family's everyday dishware, making loading and unloading the dishwasher a breeze. Plus, the homeowners love the way the cookbooks look on display.
A cooktop across from the wall oven and microwave makes it easy to keep track of everything that's cooking. The 36-inch-wide range hood matches the dimensions of the cooktop and the clean lines of the kitchen. The extra-long vent was custom fabricated.
An appliance garage by the refrigerator makes a perfect coffee station. There is preparation space in front of the coffeemaker and the microwave is close by for reheating coffee. There is space above the garage for storage and drawers below for storing utensils.
With handsome tiles and striking bottles, the cooktop niche boosts storage and style. The wall becomes the focal point of the kitchen and the recess provides an easy way to store cooking supplies.
They replaced the walk-in pantry with a 21-inch deep pantry unit that features an array of pullout storage options that prevent items from getting lost. The new unit is accessible from both the kitchen and the adjacent dining room.
Wrape and Interior Designer Sue Ann Armstrong incorporated landing spaces (such as this one near the sink) to give the homeowners room to move food from the pantry and refrigerator to the island, cooktop, and sink.
