Unique kitchen ideas please!!!!

hey guys,

Just in the final processes of finalising our house plan with our builder and then onto selections. we have designed our ground floor to be very open creating a very communal kitchen, dining and lounge area with the kitchen being the feature of the room. just after some unique ideas on how to make our kitchen island bench or kitchen in general look different and standout.
Thanks heaps! photos would be awesome!!

Check out the "Show Us Your Kitchen" thread. There are lots of us that have an open plan kitchen / living area.

For instance ours is open plan kitchen / dining / living - all up around 12m by 10m so my island is 4m by 1.2m in blue so it is the centerpiece of the area.

Have a look at the kitchen thread rather then having the same photos posted again.

Enjoy your planning.

ill check it out! thanks!

Sorry must have missed the previous one, new to the forum!

Ta.

That's ok Chad - the thread is huge, has nearly every member's kitchen on it LOL.

Have fun reading through it.

Hi,
if you are having an island breakfast bar set up, what about having a piece of toughened glass fixed to the back of it? You can fix it with stainless steel spacers and acorn nuts. I have done a few of these before and installed some LED strip lighting behind the glass on to the breakfast bar panels. When lit up at night it makes a great feature. I will try to post a photo or two.


Cheers

Hi Kitchenpro,
I would love to see the pics of LED strip lighting!
mimi

Hi Mimi,
lets see if this works

http://i1233.photobucket.com/albums/ff3 ... G_0918.jpg

and another in black

http://i1233.photobucket.com/albums/ff3 ... wImage.jpg

Wow!
That looks great!

This looks more like a bar in a nightclub not a kitchen! I'd only want to make cocktails not dinner!! Looks gorgeous but WAY OVER THE TOP!!!

Hey Mclaren, funny you say that. The red one was for a guy that is a real bachelor and owns a big bachelor pad. We also lit up the handleless grooved channels with LED lighting (see link below). Not my cup of tea, but let's just say it does light up at night. Not sure about his selection of wall tiles, but each to their own.

The glass panel does look quite effective on a breakfast bar back if the right colour is chosen. Red does seem to be popular at the moment, but lighter colours also look really good.


http://i1233.photobucket.com/albums/ff3 ... G_0922.jpg

Amazing - I can only imagine what it cost $$$$$

That looks great, i might actually do something like that for my bar! Any rough idea on cost? Really impressive!

Me too! It's more fun making cocktails than dinner... and I'm pretty sure I'm better at cocktails

Hi,
the glass panel is not as expensive as it looks. The glass is manufactured by the same companies that do glass splashbacks so you are paying per metre what you would normally being paying for your splashback. It obviously needs to be toughend (like your splashback).

The rest is just four stainless steel spacers and acorn nuts (from Bunnings) and some LED strip lighting.

Hope this helps

actually interested in the detail of how you got the fingerpull grooves backlit, they look awesome

G

If you look closely, particularly the area in red, it looks like the led's are attached to the cabinet above the groves and not the draws themselves.

I like that red one Kitchenpro, any chance you remember what he used for the splashback?
It looks like tiles that look like diamonds/crystal?
Or is it some type of veener sheeting like laminate in a new fancy design?
cheers

Hi Noodles,
the splashback is actually a small glass tile - rippled silver, about an inch square. The tile was quite thick which gave the splashback a sparkle.

As for the lighting for the grooved channel, well thats a secret (but I will share with you). It's achieved by using strip lighting from Haffele. It comes in roles 4 meters long and can be cut to lenght using a pair of scissors. You can attached up to four lenghts to a single transformer. The strip has a peel and stick backing which sticks very well, and the lights come in a range of colours (including an ultra violet blue). Some companies are now doing these strips where you can change the colour (up to ten different colours) at the flick of a switch. So I guess you can change the lighting in your kitchen to suit your mood.

Hope this helps

we used a similar product on the makeup mirrors at the Hilton Hotel project on the GoldCoast.

We sandblasted the back side of the mirror, leaving two frosted strips that get lit up with that LED system. they come up great.

as for the finger pulls, they look great, and different. I think we are doing a customers pace at the moment in a similar style, i will have to pay more attention to it when it comes thru my office.

G