Remodeling your kitchen? Whether you’re planning to have a modern, minimal, classic, traditional, or even farmhouse-style cooking space when your project is done, you’ll love these four kitchen remodeling ideas.

Open Up the Floorplan

No matter who you are or what your personal style is, having more space to move around in your kitchen is always nice! If you’re remodeling your kitchen, assess the walls that currently make up the space you have. Try to figure out if any of them could be knocked out or turned into look-in walls!

If you’ve got a non-load-bearing wall in your space, you can knock it out worry-free! Fill the space with a roomy kitchen island. How you style it is up to you. Keep it simple for a minimal, modern look. Fill it with storage and shelving for a more farmhouse or traditional look. Consider adding some pendants to bring more light into your cooking space!

If you have a load-bearing wall to work with, don’t worry! You can knock out everything but the top lip and the posts and build a serving bar with an open window to make your spaces flow better together.

Add Some Open Shelving

Cabinets are a must-have kitchen item. Not everything you use in your cooking space is aesthetically pleasing enough to be on display (think of your favorite dingy coffee mug or that worn-out metal mixing bowl you’ve had for decades). So, of course, keep the cabinets.

But surely you’ve got some beautiful plates, cups, bowls, cookbooks, plants, or other decors that would look stunning perched atop a wall of open shelving? This trend is nice for any space because it brings a great open feeling to the kitchen!

Having open shelving is also a good way to work in some extra textures or colors into your space! Your open shelves can be made of natural wood grains, you can paint them a bold and bright accent color, or even paint a pattern on them! This type of shelving isn’t necessarily meant to be the most functional. It’s intended to provide you with a place to express your style!

Changing Your Kitchen’s Layout

Changing the layout of your kitchen is one of the best ways to feel like you’re in a whole new house! The most common layout change that’s done in kitchen remodeling is turning a galley kitchen (one that is closed in on both sides) into an open concept by knocking out the wall that connects to the living or dining area! 

Knocking out a wall in your home could potentially be disastrous. Before you get started, you need to find out whether or not it’s load-bearing. If not, you can turn your kitchen into an L-shape with an island that flows with the space next to it. If your wall is load-bearing, you can keep the posts and a lip at the top and create a U-shaped kitchen with a look-in bar. 

Before you give the greenlight on demolition, make sure your new layout plan considers the “kitchen triangle”. You want to make sure that your sink, stovetop, and fridge aren’t too spread out from each other. More than that, you want to be sure the sink and the stove are on opposite counters.

Consider Quartz Countertops

Believe it or not, granite’s getting a run for its money recently from quartz counters! Quartz is 95% natural stone and 5% man-made polymer resin. The fact that it’s not 100% naturally occurring makes it quite a bit more affordable than granite, which is a great selling point. However, people aren’t just loving Quartz for its price!

Quartz counters have a sleek, consistent coloring that tends to really pop in today’s kitchen renovations, no matter what your style is. There are tons of beautiful colors to choose from – think blacks, grays, and tans! You can easily pick a color and look that would perfectly fit any style of kitchen.

Another reason to love Quartz is that it’s much better for the environment than Quartz! It’s not mined out of the earth and it usually doesn’t have to be transported long ways to get to its destination. Sometimes, Quartz can even be made of recycled materials.

One more reason to choose Quartz for your kitchen is that it’s easier to maintain and repair. Get this – you never need to reseal your Quartz counters and they don’t require any special cleaning routines. Since Quartz is really strong, it probably won’t ever get damaged, but if it does you can match your color much easier than you would if your counters were granite.

Not to mention that Quartz is antibacterial, which is perfect for your cooking space.

Install a Hidden Sliding Pantry

Do you have extra space (between 6 inches and 2 feet) between your fridge and a wall – or even behind your refrigerator? You should highly consider installing a sliding, pull-out pantry! Imagine a thin bookshelf with wheels that can just be rolled away out of sight when you’re not grabbing something off its shelves. This is one of our all-time favorite kitchen remodeling ideas for any style space.

You can use a pull-out pantry to store dry goods like cans, boxes, bags, spices, cereals, rice, beans, and anything else you’d like (maybe not the milk, but you get the point)! Add as many shelves as you need, and even make it accessible from both sides – like a bookshelf without a back wall. Not only does this get rid of that gap between your fridge and the wall, but it gives you more storage!

Here’s a good DIY instruction article on how to build a pull-out pantry for your remodel. If you don’t feel like building it yourself, you can always Ozark Kitchens! We love doing custom build-ins for our clients.

Resources: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pC5z6tuTtA 

https://www.crddesignbuild.com/blog/10-advantages-of-quartz-countertops-over-granite 

https://www.diypassion.com/diy-pull-out-pantry/