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Friday, November 22, 2024 • B3
THE GARDEN ISLAND
Eliminate kitchen clutter with style Francisco with his wife, Vivian Lee. The couple has designed such spaces for clients, and in their own kitchen. “It’s essentially a cabinet that can be opened for day-to-day use, but is easy to close up when we’re having company and entertaining,” Edmonds said. “We love secret doors,” added Lee, “because it’s a great way to maximize space. In our kitchen, in addition to the bento box, we hid the powder room behind one of the door panels.” British company deVOL Kitchens frequently does the same, even with traditional-looking cabinets, by concealing a counter and storage shelves behind regular swing doors.
Tim McKeough NEW YORK TIMES One of the joys of undertaking a home renovation is getting to build the kitchen of your dreams. Once that kitchen is in use, though, clutter often finds a way of spoiling the look of prized counters. Some of the biggest offenders tend to be small appliances — coffee makers, toasters, microwaves. “Years ago, the kitchen was a place that was tucked away, closed off and not for guests,” said Elizabeth Bennett, who with Mallory Robins runs Kobel & Co, an interior design firm in Kansas City, Missouri. “But now that the kitchen is usually a showpiece that expresses the personality of the owners, you don’t want all the appliances on the counter, looking messy.” Blenders can even be the source of marital strife, added Robins: “There’s typically one spouse who’s a heavy small-appliance user and the other says, ‘I can’t stand to see it on the counter.’ But somebody still needs their smoothie maker.” Fortunately, with a little planning, it’s possible to conceal small appliances while keeping them easy to use. Here’s how Bennett, Robins and other designers do it.
Find a separate area
DEVOL VIA NEW YORK TIMES
A pantry-like cupboard by deVOL Kitchens includes an integrated counter for small appliances and plenty of storage. Park them in a garage is integrated into a wall of cabin- and ready for use, and some inAn increasingly popular way etry and opens onto one end of clude in-cabinet lighting. to store small appliances while the main kitchen counter. In anConceal a larger area keeping them available is to park other home, the garage is a tall, them in an appliance garage. Some designers are building stand-alone countertop cabinet. Typically, that’s a cabinet that In yet another, it is part of a stor- larger, floor-to-ceiling concealed sits on a kitchen counter, or at age wall positioned across from areas that serve as supersized one end of the counter, and appliance garages, where tall the kitchen island. Take stock opens to reveal the appliances cabinet doors open and slide Many appliance garages use back to reveal a stand-alone It’s easy to accidentally amass inside. Some also have pullout pocket-door hardware that alshelves. an arsenal of plug-in kitchen lows the doors to slide back into counter for appliances as well as Swabb now often designs shelves and drawers for dishes tools dedicated to different tasks: the sides of the cabinet when and supplies. immersion blender, food proces- kitchens with different types of open, so they’re not in the way. appliance garages, depending on They’re almost always equipped “We call it a bento box,” said sor, juicer, rice cooker, pressure the layout of the room. In one Robert Edmonds, who runs Edwith multiple outlets that allow cooker, mixer, waffle maker, home she designed, the garage appliances to remain plugged in monds & Lee Architects in San toaster oven, ice cream maker, coffee grinder and more. The first step to preventing these products from overrunning your kitchen is considering which you really use, and how often, said Sara Swabb, founder of Storie Collective, an interior design firm in Washington, D.C. “We talk to our clients a lot about what they’re actually using, and ask if they can cull some items,” she said. Then Swabb studies how often the remaining appliances get used. Everyday items such as kettles, coffee makers and toasters get priority placement. Appliances that are used a few times a year can usually be stored deep in cabinets that aren’t necessarily the easiest to access. Identify showpiece appliances Many small appliances have an appealing look when seen on their own, and only begin to look unsightly when grouped among mismatched gadgets. So, consider which appliances you might want to leave out on the counter as decorative elements, suggested Adam Hunter, an interior designer in Los Angeles. For instance, some espresso machines “look like an art piece,” Hunter said, adding that he especially likes a model from AnZa that is made of concrete: “It’s so beautiful that it’s something you would like to put on your countertop.” The same can be said for many teakettles, which are routinely transformed into pieces of countertop sculpture by product designers. Build them in Another way to take pressure off kitchen counters is to build additional functions into cabinetry, much like wall ovens. Hunter often uses built-in microwaves, which sometimes come as drawer-based models or have dropdown doors that lend them a more integrated look. Caren Rideau, principal of the Kitchen Design Group in Los Angeles, occasionally uses built-in coffee machines to reduce the number of small appliances on counters. “It’s one machine that consolidates,” she said, noting that it can grind beans, froth milk, brew coffee and provide hot water for tea. “It gets all those tasks off the counter.”
If you don’t have room for an appliance garage in the kitchen, or if you simply desire a place to spread out more, it might be possible to borrow space adjacent to the kitchen. Swabb and Rideau, for instance, have designed dedicated coffee bars in corridors running off larger kitchens. A walk-in pantry is another option. “The back pantry used to be where we did floor-to-ceiling open shelves, where you could put a lot of bulk food and extra pots,” Rideau said. “But I find that people don’t necessarily stock the bulk items they maybe did years ago, so we’re adding countertops, and it becomes a place to put the toaster oven or coffee maker.” ••• This article originally appeared in The New York Times.