Kitchen Decorating

Back in March, I took the No New Plastic for a Month Challenge, and it inspired me to replace all of my plastic food storage containers with glass, and I haven’t looked back. Below the jump, you’ll find out how I transformed my refrigerator.First, I did some research to find the everyday glass food storage containers I now needed. I opted for Duralex Lys Square Bowls because they are stackable, made of tempered glass, and square in shape.

The space above a refrigerator is often overlooked and underused. It’s not particularly accessible for oft-used items, but it’s a shame to have the space go to waste, especially in a small kitchen. I looked at a selection of real homes to see how people were using this space. Some of these examples involve clever built-ins, but many will work for renters, too. Simple shelves were installed on the wall above the fridge to hold a few cookbooks and some barware.

There's nothing like a city kitchen with country charm, right?

We actually liked them all. But we did like one the most!

And he did it all with paint and painter's tape.

Grandmillennial style, meet the kitchen.

The official names: Artichaut and Nectar!

A souped-up version of our favorite kitchen staple!

More meals! Less effort!

It may not be for everyone, but it looks like this trend is here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future.

The dual-purpose pieces will save you space and effort.

Max out your cook space with these savvy storage items.

If you’ve decided 2020 is the year you’ll finally redo your cook space, make sure it fits the new decade.

What if I told you there was an alternative out there to those kind of finicky, often expensive overlapping wood boards Joanna Gaines made so popular?

Think galley kitchens are a relic of the 20th century that needs to stay there? We’re not so sure.

Name: Sam, Chris, Madeleine and Maggie Location: New Town; Edinburgh, Scotland Size: 3,000 square feet Years lived in: 1 1/2 years; Owned From the moment you walk through the front door into the spacious and grand, grey hall, this family home is elegant and beautiful. Chris holds up his hands and tells me firmly that it is “all down to Sam.

A little bit of color goes a long way in this gut renovated Beacon Hill kitchen by designer Liz Caan.

It’s an age old question: “do I keep it or toss it?” This is of course pertaining to food in the fridge that’s been sitting there for a questionable period of time after a power outage. We refer you to our U.S. government guidelines on food safety, recommending just how long our refrigerators and freezers will hold their temperatures, as well as whether to keep or discard food kept inside during a power outage.

Let's dive into each kitchen trend that Pantone's color experts brought to our attention.

When you have a small kitchen (I do), creative problem solving stops becoming a resume catchphrase and starts becoming a way of life. Configuring cookware and food and utensils—while trying to keep it all from looking like a mad scientist’s lab—isn’t easy. Here are 10 great posts in one place to offer some tips, tricks and inspiration for all of us fighting the good I-dream-of-kitchen-storage fight. Don’t neglect the space above your cabinets.

A lot of the kitchens we feature on this site are dramatic and beautiful and… well, huge. So today we’ve rounded up a selection of kitchens that are on the smaller side (some on the really small side) to inspire those of you who want a beautiful room for cooking, but don’t have infinite space. Above: this Parisian kitchen could not be any cuter, and is a great reminder that having a small space doesn’t have to mean skimping on style.

I, like most adults who came to age in the time of Instagram, am a sucker for an aesthetically pleasing household item.

It immediately adds personality to the space.

Because replacing the stove is not always realistic.

We asked the editors from our sister site, Kitchn, to share the little things that they do to make their kitchens better on the daily.

Make the most of your cook space by picking the right layout when you renovate.

It’s been immensely popular in recent years, and if you’re still holding tight to your love of the blended hue, then prepare to be totally smitten with SMEG's latest limited-edition collection.

Some are more dramatic than others.

We're breaking down this popular kitchen style from floor to ceiling.

Eco-friendly and chic!

When people find out I just got home from a two-week trip to Japan with my mom, they invariably say, “I’m so jealous! It’s totally on my bucket list.” And I say, “Yes, up until a few weeks ago I was on your side of this conversation!” I have spent my whole life wanting to go there, and for a recent big birthday (cough) my mom made it happen. It totally lived up to expectations: the temples, the culture, the beauty, and, of course, the food.

The kitchen rug trend isn't going anywhere anytime soon, so here's how to incorporate it into your space.

I’ve spent many years of my life living in and loving the city of Chicago, where interior spaces are relatively small and people can’t wait for the warmer months (40 below, no thank you). As soon as summer hits, folks flood the parks, beaches, and rooftops to host picnic after picnic. Picnic baskets aren’t hard to assemble—in fact, they’re pretty straightforward despite their loosey-goosey nature. You just have to think about what you may need in a pinch.

The look of the kitchen is changing — already granite countertops and dark wood cabinets are starting to look a little late 90s. If you’re thinking of renovating or building a house (or just like looking!), here are five of the top trends for modern kitchens. And the best part? Some of these are things you can do right now, without spending much money at all. White and WoodIt’s modern, but warm — the best of both worlds.

There is one show-off of a tool that I deeply believe everyone should have in their kitchen.

Time to really own your morning coffee routine.

The brand is best known for its colorful, retro 1950s-style refrigerators.

During an incredible visit last week to the White House (for a sneak peek at the new Obama state china service), I swung by the kitchen and snapped all the photos I could manage while hearing about the upcoming State Dinner from the two talented women who are in charge of all things culinary for the Obamas. Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at the kitchen of most famous family in the nation (which was much more compact than expected!

A friend and apartment dweller recently asked us for small play kitchen suggestions for her daughter’s Christmas present. We tried talking her into some DIY ideas, but she is more the DI-Buy type. If you’re in the same boat, here you go – fifteen small play kitchens (under 31″ H) so your kids can play “dorm room” and “flop house” too. My Portable Cooker by Wonderworld ($55.

No matter where you are and what you are doing, there’s always a way to hack something in your kitchen so that you can prepare almost any dish. While a rice cooker isn’t really made to be used as a slow cooker, it can double as one if you don’t have anything else that will do the job.Recently, I had bought a gigantic pork roast that I planned on cooking. Currently I live in Asia, and our apartment doesn’t have an oven.

When I started Apartment Therapy as a design service in NYC in 2001, I quickly noticed that if I helped someone to improve their home, but their refrigerator was empty, progress halted. In other words, no matter how lovely I was able to get a home to look, if my clients didn’t come home to cook and eat, everything got cold and dusty.

One of the many things you can do to transform your kitchen is to change your countertops. If completely replacing them isn’t an option for you right now, updating your existing laminate with countertop coating is a great way to achieve a new, fresh look without breaking the bank. Countertop paint is great for homeowners and renters alike.

Are you thinking about remodeling your kitchen? Here are 15 clever details you might want to consider adding. They’re all elegant solutions that make life in the kitchen just a little bit easier, and we wouldn’t blame you one bit if you want them all. Built-in, pull out cutting boards. From Residence Magazine via Nordicspace. Even better, a pull-out cutting board right about the trash bin, to make sweeping away scraps super-easy. By Gary Wafford.

Open kitchen shelving is a charming little minx. She’ll talk you into bringing her home, swaying you with the promise of beautiful displays of glassware and ceramics. “It’s bohemian and cool,” she’ll say. But after too long, she gets comfortable and starts to look, well, messy. The secret to keeping the spark alive in your open-shelf romance? Working hard every day to make sure that your shelves and the things on them are well-styled.

The floor usually isn’t the design element that first grabs your attention in a kitchen, but these rooms are the exception. Bold, busy patterned floors mix with a variety of decor styles in these examples. What they all have in common? They totally steal the show! Shown above: Bold blue and white floors grab your attention the moment you walk into the kitchen of Anne & Steve’s Relaxed, Eclectic & Casual Home in Cape Town.

Once considered an ultra-modern decor choice, waterfall counters are popping up in a variety of kitchen styles these days. They add a sleek, minimal look to any kitchen design while helping to hide appliances and protect wood cabinets. They’re often easier to clean. And’ if you really love your counter material, you can you can show it off more of it when you pick waterfall style.

If we saw these while scrolling through Instagram, we'd be quick to double tap.

When I make pie, I use my grandmother’s pastry blender and rolling pin, but one thing she did not pass down was her cast iron skillet slick with a history of family feasts. Instead, I received my cast iron pan five years ago—a new Lodge pan, fresh with the factory seasoning. Even with a factory fresh seasoning, the surface never felt smooth; it always had a pebbly texture. I’ve worked with enough cast iron pans that I knew the pan was supposed to be slick enough to fry an egg.

Ever since Lucy Ricardo accidentally baked the world’s biggest loaf of bread on a 1952 episode of I Love Lucy, kitchens have been at the center of virtually every TV family’s story. In honor of TV’s love affair with the kitchen, HomeAdvisor, the marketplace that connects homeowners to home improvement pros, has carefully rendered the floor plans of some of your favorite TV hearts of the home.

Bye bye, bad track lighting.

Kitchen islands are not really polarizing—if you have the room, you probably want one. But bathroom islands? Now there's something new to covet.

If you live in a small space, chances are that your kitchen is also equally diminutive. As you can see, my particular kind of tiny rental kitchen is of the single wall variety, with a paltry two cabinets width of counter to speak of. While that (and the single outlet) mean I have to cull the clutter and keep appliances elsewhere when not in use, even when the counter is cleared, that’s not a ton of space to work with if you’re trying to cook a meal.

Fun fact: You don’t need to be a professional chef to take advantage of some of the smart tools used in restaurant kitchens. And no, we’re not talking about $200 knives or fancy sous vide machines. We’re talking about the inexpensive, everyday sort of stuff that’ll make your time in the kitchen neater, easier, and just a tad bit better. See, many of the gadgets and tools that professional chefs use in restaurant kitchens can be just as useful to us casual home cooks.

If you’ve been to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in midtown Manhattan, you’ve probably marveled at its permanent collection, which includes some of the most iconic and immediately recognizable works, ever — there’s the melting clocks of Salvador Dalí’s The Persistence of Memory, the soft-focus pastels of Claude Monet’s massive Water Lilies triptych, and everyone’s go-to poster from their freshman year, Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night.

Upper cabinets are starting to disappear from kitchens, and I’m not sure how to feel about it. It all started with the open-shelving phenomenon, and now, in some cases, it has morphed into this total lack of anything structural above the countertops. On the one hand, it is visually beautiful. You can really go to town with tile—think an uninterrupted, ceiling-high wall of subways or a bold geometric backsplash. But on the other hand, where exactly are you supposed to put your stuff?

Warning/workspace/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/atmedia-cloudinary-image-block/atmedia-cloudinary-image-block.php82 I have a small kitchen. And most days, it’s cool. I have accepted the fact that I’m not going to have a proper place to make meals (or eat them frankly) until I move out of New York City. That hasn’t stopped me from dreaming about the future—and looking at oodles of kitchen porn to serve as inspiration for my someday reno.

For all the talk around wood versus plastic, there’s very little talk about the SIZE of cutting boards. And this is one case where size really does matter. One of the biggest mistakes we see time and time again? People opting for cutting boards that are too small. A too-small cutting board is not only awkward to use, but it can also be unsafe! We’ve all done it before: You’ve pulled out a little guy, thinking you just have to mince some garlic.

#Ihavethisthingwithtiles, and it’s sort of unfortunate because I’ve never actually picked any of my own. I fell in love with subway tiles nearly a decade ago, and I was crushing hard on those matte patterned cement tiles that popped up a couple years ago. I’m even into faux “wood” larger scale ceramic tiles and teeny tiny, mesh-backed penny tiles. And I’m not mad at a fish scale or arabesque shape either.

Kitchen design has kind of been the same for a few years now—subway tile backsplash, splashy pendant lights, as big of an island as possible, and maybe some open shelving for good measure. Cabinet color has started to shift a little bit from all white to a little more bold in some instances, but it hasn’t fully taken off yet.

The only thing better than a stylish kitchen utensil is one that didn’t cost you an arm and a leg. Luckily, IKEA is brimming with inexpensive, Scandi-style kitchen essentials that probably cost less than your fancy morning coffee. From wine racks to colanders, here are 13 go-to kitchen wares at IKEA for under 10 bucks.

Every once in a while I come across an organizer that seriously makes my heart skip a beat. It’s rare, so when it happens I have to take a minute to tell you guys about it. Earlier this year, I waxed poetic about this $10 flatware organizer for narrow drawers, which I’ll still talk about to anyone who will listen. And just a few weeks ago I came across this wire under-shelf basket … in copper! Yes, I’ve seen under-shelf baskets before.

Available in a dizzying array of colors, materials, patterns, sizes, and shapes, tiles are the incredibly versatile and durable decor tool that’s been adorning interiors for thousands of years. Whether you’re looking for fresh inspiration or overwhelmed by all the choices available, these 10 one-of-kind rooms narrow in on unbelievably bold and unique looks you can achieve with tile. In Daniel and Diego’s small Buenos Aires, Argentina home, they went BOLD in the bathroom.

When taking on a home improvement project as major, time-consuming, and expensive (!!!) as designing a new kitchen, the last thing that you want to do is make a few choices now that you end up regretting later—especially if that ends up meaning you wasted money. To help identify the biggest money-wasting no-nos to avoid, we consulted a few kitchen design experts. Having been around plenty of renovations, they had some good live-and-learn lessons and what-not-to-dos to share.

I’ve been cooking for most of my adult life, and I’ve never actually been completely sure just what that drawer under the oven is for. It seems like a good enough place to store baking pans, but that also feels like wasted space, or that it should actually be for something besides storage. I’ve never really used that drawer for anything.

When it comes to buying furniture, some pieces stay with you for a year or two, and some for a lifetime. But when it comes to buying furniture on a budget, more can fall into the former camp. And while some inexpensive options might be required to get started while you save up for more investment pieces, it’s also nice when those inexpensive pieces can grow with you.

Every kitchen needs a KitchenAid mixer. Yes, they are a bit pricey and take up a decent amount of space, but they are so versatile. You can make cakes, cookies, pies, dough, and so much more using your mixer, especially if you get the KitchenAid attachments. Not only can you get a lot done with this mixer, it really stands the test of time. People can have their mixers for decades, as long as they take good care of them. KitchenAid is celebrating a big anniversary in 2019.

Sneaky homeowners used to fill bowls with fake apples, grapes, and bananas—but don't you dare take a bite.

Minimalism and functionality are two key elements that can take a hum-drum, cluttered kitchen and turn it into a beautiful space to cook and entertain in. As I mentioned in this Scandinavian-style house tour round-up last month, perhaps the greatest feature of Scandi-inspired style is that it can be interpreted and used in so many different ways.

There’s something about a well-designed kitchen that makes me want to abandon my takeout-loving ways and transform into the type of person who hosts dinner parties on the regular and whips up delectable meals with ease. Or at least someone who plays the part on Instagram. And nothing piques my interest more than a light, airy kitchen with a few pops of pastel. Coincidentally that seems to be exactly the aesthetic of most popular Instagram influencers. The secret to their style?

I admit it: I am a kitchen appliance junkie. I have been for more than a decade, since I fell in love with cooking. I want to buy nearly everything that comes on the market, but actually only buy the ones I know I will use on a regular basis. I make sure that the ones I do buy are the best value for the money no matter how inexpensive or expensive they may be. And then I love them to no end. I have a few high-speed blenders (because is one really enough?

I pride myself on the fact that I have never dropped my phone in a toilet or spilled coffee on it. (My poor laptop is another story. RIP, Lisa’s MacBook!) And I tend to do everything in my power to keep up those bragging rights. But as someone who cooks a lot, following recipes (from Kitchn!) on my phone, it’s not always easy to keep my phone safe. Which is where this plastic bag comes in. I oddly got the idea while treating myself to a manicure.