5 Kitchen Design Ideas From an Interior Designer Who Has Designed Over 500

Inquire inside designer Caren Rideau how many kitchens she’s renovated in her profession and you will be greeted with a major laugh. “In my lifetime? Oh, my gosh,” she states. “I’ve been executing this for around 30 yrs.” Her estimate: extra than 500. “Everybody will come to me to make magic in the kitchen area.” She’s the founder of Los Angeles–based Kitchen Style Team runs a vineyard in the Santa Ynez Valley with winemaker Andrés Ibarra and just debuted a new e-book, Caren Rideau: Kitchen area Designer, Vintner, Entertaining at Residence.

“Everybody” includes us. We asked Rideau to let us in on a number of of her kitchen area style and design secrets—must-haves she incorporates into most of her projects to double down on performance and effectiveness. Some are so easy you are going to question why you did not think of them 1st. (It is ok, you probably have not introduced hundreds of kitchens to life—yet.)

Food-Prep Essentials

You really don’t essentially have to do a demo to produce far more respiration room—just crystal clear absent visible litter. “I get knife blocks and spices off the countertop and conceal them in [customized] drawers,” Rideau states. “Then there’s a spot for all of these items—and they are not having up room.”

Small Appliances

An equipment centre is central to quite a few of Rideau’s kitchens. A what? “They search like tall storage with pocket doorways,” she points out. When they are closed, you’d never guess the blender, toaster, or gradual cooker are inside of this kind of effortless achieve. Yours can also double as a a single-stop coffee bar, storing a Nespresso machine, espresso grinder, and the like. If you really like to host, the prospects develop even additional in this place, Rideau put in a warming drawer underneath so dishes can stay hidden—and hot—until their dinnertime debut.

Major Appliances

Envision it now: You go by way of all the work (and time and money) of picking out the actual ideal countertop and cupboard colour, but your eye nonetheless catches on the stainless metal fridge. Not in Ridaeu’s initiatives. “I appreciate to conceal the dishwasher and fridge—any large appliance—with cabinet doorways so that you don’t seriously know they’re appliances,” she states. In truth, coated in paneling and a duo of brass straps, the kinds in this kitchen area Rideau intended search extra like stand-on your own household furniture. 

Slicing Boards

We’ve all been there, awkwardly yanking a cutting board out of a too-full cupboard. Rideau’s resolution: integrated versions, either concealed or on display screen. Alternative one particular: “You pull a drawer open up to find a chopping board,” she explains. Give it a wash when you’re performed chopping, then slide it again into put. Solution two: a sink with a built-in lip all around the perimeter to maintain a reducing board aloft (and a colander, if you include a 2nd ledge). Wash, slice, and go.