The kitchen is one of the hardest working rooms of your home—no matter what your cooking abilities may be!
Why? Because the kitchen is the hub of a home, in addition to where you prepare, cook and share a meal, it provides a welcoming space where family and friends can come together.
If you’re looking to build a new home, here are the top three things you should consider when planning your ideal kitchen with Geelong Homes.
Functionality
It’s important to take the time to think about the look, feel and functionality of your kitchen. Our new home consultants are experts in building new homes—but most importantly they are experts at matching the right home design to the right client. To match you to the right home, our new home consultants learn more about you and help you to understand what you really want and need in a home, and of course what you really want and need in your kitchen!
Some of the questions they will ask you are:
● How do you use your current kitchen?
● What do you like about it?
● What don’t you like about it?
This allows you to truly understand how you want your kitchen to function and then will help you to decide on any tweaks you’d like to make to your kitchen. Changes you might want to consider include, adding joinery, selecting different appliances or choosing a different style window to create a beautifully natural light-filled kitchen—which will ultimately use less artificial lighting.
Kitchen style
Functionality may be the first thing to consider but style is also very important. Kitchens are one of the biggest focal points of a home and can set the tone for the rest of your interiors.
After you have selected your Geelong Homes floor plan, your next step is making your colour selections in our Style Studio. This is where you get to decide on your flooring, tiles, cabinetry, hardware, lighting and paint, decisions which will all be made under the expert guidance of our colour consultants.
● Flooring
Our colour consultants start the selection process with flooring, which has a big influence on the rest of the colours, tones and textures of the remaining selections.
Your flooring selection will also further define and solidify the overall style of your home. For example if you were hoping to achieve an industrial look to your home, similar to what you can find at our Arcadia 206 display in Oakdene Estate in Ocean Grove, then a vinyl flooring offers you many options. Vinyl flooring is durable for heavy foot traffic, scratch resistant, waterproof and easy to maintain. Vinyl offers many choices in colour and texture to choose from, so when you have a specific look in mind, like the industrial look of our Arcadia 206 display, it’s much easy to choose the right colour and texture. In this case, the dark, timber-look vinyl creates the basis of a bold, industrial feel. Once flooring is selected, the rest of your choices will flow from here.
● Creating statements with your splashback and cabinetry
You can create a statement with your splashback by playing with colour, texture, materials and tile patterns. Your cabinetry can also introduce interest, here you can add colour and texture. Again, you can see an example of this in our Arcadia 206 display, where a subtle light grey cabinetry on the overhead joinery contrasts against the white cabinetry below. It’s a subtle design element that provides maximum impact. This is also done in our Noble 196 display in Anchoridge Estate, Armstrong Creek. In this display home, we have also featured a colour and grain on the overhead joinery paired with white cabinetry below. This kitchen also demonstrates what a standard Geelong Homes kitchen looks like, without upgrades.
● Tapware
In the style studio, you’ll also select your tapware—which is another great way to add interest to a space. For something traditional, chrome tapware is the obvious choice, for something a little edgy, matte black tapware is an absolute must.
● Lighting
Other elements that you’ll discuss with our Geelong Homes colour consultants includes lighting. Our colour consultants map out the lighting throughout your home. In terms of your kitchen lighting, pendant lighting is a very popular choice. Pendant lighting can create a statement in your kitchen and also solidify the look you are trying to achieve.
● Rangehood
Another element to consider is your rangehood. A concealed rangehood, as seen in our Thornhill 212 display in Anchoridge Estate, creates a modern, clean look. A rangehood that sits as a canopy, as seen in our Flinders 221 display at Armstrong Mt Duneed, adds shape and form to the overall kitchen design.
Upgrades
All our homes come with quality inclusions—including Artusi appliances, Gainsborough hardware, Clark tapware, and Laminex cabinetry and benchtop. You can see what a standard Geelong Homes kitchen looks like at our Noble 196 display in Anchoridge Estate, Armstrong Creek.
However if you want to elevate your kitchen even further you can. A Geelong Homes upgraded inclusions pack includes; stone benchtops; 900mm appliances; soft close drawers; and Clark taps, sinks and bathware.
With the help of your Geelong Homes new home consultant you can work out which part of your new kitchen you can upgrade. Upgrades like these not only look great but also add value to your home and will improve your day to day living!
Stone bench tops are an excellent upgrade as it instantly adds luxe to your kitchen. Our supplier is Essastone, which offers a wide range of colours and finishes. Essastone, which is made in Europe, is engineered to guard the surface from staining, scratching and citrus acid marks. Each stone slab has a 15-year limited warranty.
If you’ve never had soft close drawers before, then you really don’t know what you’re missing. Drawers get a work-out in your home, especially if you have children. Soft close drawers offer a safe and less noisy option for your kitchen.
And when it comes to passionate home cooks—you can’t ignore two of the most important kitchen appliances—your oven and cooktop. As part of our upgrade pack, you will get a 900mm Artusi dual-fuel freestanding cooker and rangehood—it really is a must-have. You can also further upgrade to an induction cooktop for a more energy efficient option.
In summary
The kitchen is the hub of a home, in addition to where you prepare, cook and share a meal, it provides a welcoming space where family and friends can come together so you want to make this space functional and stylish for the whole family to enjoy.
Functionality
With the help of a Geelong Homes new home consultant, determine exactly how your current kitchen functions and how it can be improved in your new kitchen. Your new home consultant will be able to help you find the right home design and ultimately your kitchen layout.
Kitchen style
A Geelong Homes colour consultant will be able to help you discover your interior style. Starting from flooring up, you’ll be able to confidently choose your tiles, benchtop, cabinetry, paint, tapware and lighting to truly create a kitchen that’s a reflection of you.
Upgrades
All Geelong Homes homes come with quality inclusions—including Artusi appliances, Gainsborough hardware, Clark tapware, and Laminex cabinetry and benchtop.
However, if you want to elevate your kitchen even further you can. With the help of your new home consultant, you can work out what inclusions you would like to upgrade to add value to your home and your daily living. A Geelong homes upgraded inclusions pack includes; stone benchtops; 900mm appliances; soft close drawers; and Clark taps, sinks and bathware.
