Finally, we’ve come to the last reveal of this beautiful home – the kitchen of Vivid. One look at the pic below, and you can see how that gorgeous blue fits right into this ‘vivid’ home!
Kitchen of Vivid
In terms of size, the kitchen of Vivid can be rated as an average. I would describe it as a regular sized kitchen in a regular Mumbai apartment.
But the layout is very odd. With half of one wall taken up by the kitchen entrance and the fridge, and half of another by the door to the utility, there isn’t much wall space left in this kitchen. Which means there isn’t much space to make the counters. And the way I see it, a kitchen is only as large as the counter space available to work in it.
We had to plan around these odditties, and this is how we did it.
The Plan
The wall facing the entrance is the one, long, uninterrupted wall of this kitchen, so we placed a counter along it’s entire length. We centred the hob in front of the window, so that the chimney centres on it too. The sink goes into the right corner.
On the opposite side, we placed the fridge. The clients decided to do without a dishwasher for now, to maximise storage space in the kitchen. We planned the counter near the fridge in such a way, that if they ever decide to get a dishwasher in the future, it can fit under here.
To make sure we had enough space for the dishwasher, the counter on the right wall had to be made very narrow.
The utility area, again being a narrow space, was fit in with floor to ceiling storage cabinets along the long wall. The washing machine goes under the counter on the wall facing the entryway to the utility.
The Hob Wall
The window makes the focal point of the longest wall of the kitchen of Vivid. Luckily for us, the window is not in the centre of this wall.
So when we centred the chimney, and therefore the hob, along the centre of the window, they automatically came to one side of the platform.
This gave us enough space to place the sink at the other end of the platform.
We anyway could not have placed storage cabinets in front of the window. Placing the chimney in front of the window, instead of along the wall, gives us the added advantage of the extra wall space. We could place the overhead cabinets along every inch of the walls to maximise our storage space.
The Fridge Wall
Opposite the main hob and sink wall, we have space for the fridge, and a short length of counter next to it.
As you can see here, this counter is higher than the other counters in the kitchen. That’s because it has been designed to fit in a dishwasher if the clients decide they have a requirement for it in the future.
For now, we have fit the area with drawers which can be removed at any point to fit in the dishwasher.
Above the counter, the rolling shutter houses all gadgets and appliances like the microwave, toaster etc.
The Pantry Counter
There wasn’t much space on the facing wall to fit in a full depth counter. In fact, the original kitchen came only with the counters on the left and right. The facing wall was vacant.
But we realised we could fit in a ten inch deep counter here, along with overhead cabinets of the same depth. This is sufficient depth to fit in most 1 to 2 kg grocery jars. It also fits in smaller crockery items and drink-ware.
Adding the narrow counter and overhead cabinets added a lot of super useful storage to this kitchen.
It also made a great spot to include a decorative shelf in this kitchen without compromising on storage area.
The Utility Area
We increased the functionality of the narrow utility area by fitting in ‘L’ shaped storage there. The washing machine is placed under a counter on the facing wall. A folding drying rack on the wall above the machine makes it easy to hang clothes to dry as you pull them out of the machine.
After making sure we had enough space in the front to fit in and access that machine, we used the remaining space on the left for full height storage units. Once again, this adds a lot of storage space into the small kitchen, including space for tall items like ladders, mop sticks etc.
Look & Feel
The first thing we picked for this kitchen was that lovely patterned tile. The small pattern in monochromatic shades is just right for the small space. It’s interesting without being too bold.
Since we didn’t want to overdo the pattern, we decided to use those tiles only on the backsplash above the counter. We went for a plain, light grey for the remaining kitchen walls.
The counter stone, though white, has little flecks of blue sprinkled all over it. So the blue cabinets automatically followed. This beautiful inky blue adds a rich vibrancy to this kitchen… and helps make this space ‘vivid’ too!
LED lights running below the cabinets, shelf, and even around the skirting, are the icing on the cake. Once the cooking is done, you can put off the ceiling lights and just have these LEDs on for a moody vibe… making the kitchen of Vivid almost an extension of the living room beyond.
Before and Afters
Here are a few before and afters to bring the magic to life.
The window wall…
We used the window as the focal point of this kitchen, centering the chimney and hob to it.
The right side of the kitchen…
We squeezed in that extra 10 inch counter between the two larger counters on the left and right to add a whole lot of useful storage space here.
The narrow utility area…
Squeezes in full height storage on the left side, leaving just enough space to fit in a washing machine on the facing wall.
That’s all from this beautiful blue kitchen for today. I love the contrast of the subtle patterned tile with the vibrant blue cabinets in this one. It makes for an unusual and striking combination.
This also brings us to the end of the home tour of Vivid. Every room of this home has been striking and intense in it’s own way, all with an underlying simplicity. I hope you’ve had the chance to tour the home with me over the last few weeks, to truly get what I mean. Click here in case you’ve missed any of the un-missable spaces of this home.
Until next time,
.
Photography: Biju Gopal of @bizou.photos