Every home that is designed by the KWD team focuses on creating the best possible kitchen that will service the needs of our clients. We understand what a significant part a kitchen plays in our lives. The heart of the home, the kitchen is where families gather, cook and spend time together, every day. And it was no different when it came to designing the Biscayne kitchen for my own family. It was so important to me that we created a space that not only looked incredible, it had to feel light, bright, inviting and relaxed, and it needed to function seamlessly.
The original kitchen at Biscayne was an antiquated corner style design that simply doesn’t work for the way we live today. Australian families love light and space, where they can congregate not only for meals, but for entertaining, for sharing, for working or for doing homework. And that’s exactly how I needed the Biscayne kitchen to function.
The first step was the space planning. A carefully considered floor plan is the key to a successful kitchen. We decided to remove the walk in pantry to create one large space, and designed an open plan kitchen zone and dining zone to make the most of the ample windows that flood the area with natural light. This space planning change made an enormous difference to the way in which we interact and enjoy the most used room in the home. ⠀
My vision was clear. I wanted to emphasise the resort-style essence of Biscayne by creating the feeling you get in a commercial kitchen, like you would find when you’re away on holiday. My family absolutely loves our time at the Sheraton Mirage in Port Douglas, and one of our favourite times is starting the day with the ultimate buffet breakfast. We adore the hustle and bustle of the chefs preparing delicious breakfast delights, like the omelette station where you can request exactly what you want to enjoy each morning. I love the swing doors that burst open with the staff moving back and forth refilling the buffet offering and serving fresh coffee. It’s this feeling of joy that I wanted to replicate in the Biscayne kitchen, and the double doors with the round porthole create this effect so beautifully.
Once the vision is clear, the next step for a successful kitchen design is the appliance selection. The style of the appliances and the dimensions form the basis for the joinery specification. So in order to create a real sense of a commercial kitchen at Biscayne, it was really important to select appliances that would work well in such a large space. The appliances needed to be gutsy, with a masculine, industrial edge. And they needed to function well for a large family and for entertaining. We met with our friends at Winning Appliances at their Richmond showroom. It’s the most inviting, elegant, well laid out space where you can explore appliances in beautiful displays and talk with appliance experts who will guide and advise according to your brief. For me, it was not just about finding the right appliances from a visual perspective, they needed to be easy to use, easy to clean and 100% reliable.
The Winning Appliances response to me was spot on. I knew immediately that the sleek stainless steel Fhiaba fridge and wine cabinet would add that sense of industrial masculinity I wanted to achieve.
The Abey Australia Montego sink was the ideal size and format for a busy kitchen, and we brought in the brass detailing with the most beautiful Perrin & Rowe Ionian kitchen tap from The English Tapware company. The Ilve dishwasher integrated seamlessly into the joinery.
And then I was introduced to the Ilve Majestic cooker. It was love at first sight. I knew it would become the centrepiece of the room with its custom brass knobs. And the white actually set the colour for the kitchen. The design team and I had discussed so many colour options as we are renowned for our bold colour choices. Green, pink, yellow, blue – we workshopped them all – but when we saw the white Ilve Majestic oven, we knew that white was the perfect colour choice. We wanted the texture to be the colour.
Installing the whisper quiet Qasair rangehood was an engineering feat. Damien from DMA kitchens, who manufactured our joinery to perfection, did an amazing job with the rangehood. He brought our design dream to life by creating two intersecting concave sections that joined seamlessly. The rangehood creates a focal point and frames the oven perfectly, giving it a real sense of place. The splashback features stunning Zellige tiles in a chalky white matt finish, so expertly laid by Henry Master Tiler. We completed the story with a Perrin & Rowe pot filler that complements the brass detailing on the cooker.
When we found the Brazilian Amazonia at Gladstones Granite, we knew the incredible natural stone had found its forever home. It worked so beautifully on the massive multi-functional kitchen island bench, and set the tone for the kitchen with its bold personality and depth of colour.
One of the keys to the success of the Biscayne kitchen was deciding to have a seating area at one end of the island bench where the family could congregate for breakfast and after school, and to do homework or work on the computer, and in the evening we could entertain guests. The beautifully designed joinery morphs from a breakfast cupboard in the morning to a backlit bar in the evening.
Creating a dining space facing out to the back garden added the perfect finishing touch, separating the more formal dining area (complete with the original fireplace) from the more functional kitchen zone.
The joinery design brings the whole kitchen together. When I sat down with my KWD joinery design team, I wanted to make sure that we brought something different to this home, something that hadn’t been seen before. As with all designs, we take inspiration from different countries, cultures and experiences, and the Biscayne joinery door panels were inspired by a pair of 18th Century Chinese doors. When we showed our design idea to the incredible team at Farmers Doors, we workshopped the concept of how we could transform this influence and create a design that would work for a contemporary kitchen. What they created is absolute perfection.
KWD’s THREE C’s:
A KWD kitchen is not only designed to look beautiful, it is designed to be practical and functional – following our ‘Three C’s’ principle:
- The cooking zone (oven and cooktop with space to prepare)
- The consumables zone (the fridge, freezer and pantry)
- The cleaning zone (the sink, dishwasher and bin)
KITCHEN MUST HAVES:
- A breakfast cupboard
- An appliance cupboard
- A built-in bar
- A coffee machine
- An integrated bin
FAVE DESIGN ELEMENT:
The porthole swing doors add such whimsy to the kitchen and are perfect for achieving the resort-style commercial kitchen feeling I wanted to create.
Images: Armelle Habib / Photo shoot styling: Greenhouse Interiors
A heartfelt thank you to our valued supply partners and trades who helped me bring the vision of Biscayne to life:
| COMPANY: | WEBSITE: |
| Montique Construction | montiqueconstruction.com |
| Rod Hannah Design | rodhannahandassociates.com.au |
| Reality 3D | reality3d.com.au |
| Plume Studio | plumestudio.com.au |
| Farmers Doors | farmersdoors.com |
| Winning Appliances | winningappliances.com.au |
| Lynch’s Window Fashions | lynchswindowfashions.com.au |
| 3D Windows | 3dwindows.com.au |
| DMA Kitchens | dmakitchens.com.au |
| The Montauk Lighting Co. | montauklightingco.com |
| The English Tapware Company | englishtapware.com.au |
| Domino Architectural Fittings | dominobrass.com.au |
| Laguna Pools | lagunapools.com.au |
| Vogue Grange | voguegrange.com.au |
| The Nursery Co. | thenurseryco.com.au |
| Court Construct | courtconstruct.com.au |
| Gladstones Granite & Marble | gladstonesgranite.com.au |
| Henry Tiler | mastertiling.com.au |
| National Tiles | nationaltiles.com.au |
| Klay Tiles | klaytiles.com.au |
| Fibonacci TBC | fibonaccistone.com.au |
| RMS Natural Stone TBC | rmsnaturalstone.com |
| Direct Stone | directstone.com.au |
| Marble Mosaics | marblemosaics.com.au |
| Hepburn Hardware | hepburnhardware.com.au |
| Lincoln Sentry | lincolnsentry.com.au |
| Bathe | bathe.net.au |
| Carpet World | carpetworld.com.au |
| Inspired Floors | inspiredfloors.com.au |
| Morgan’s Painters and Decorators | morganpd.com.au |
| Boyd Blue | boydblue.com |
| Classic with a Twist | classicwithatwist.com.au |
| Sorrento Furniture | sorrentofurniture.com.au |
| Elliot Clarke | elliotclarke.com.au |
| Cromwell | cromwellaustralia.com.au |
| The Lens Collective | thelenscollective.com.au |
| Edward Pope (artist) | edwardpope.com.au |
| Red Hill Country Gates | gates.net.au |
| CSR (Gyprock) | csrgyprock.com.au |
| Whelan Airconditioning | whelanair.com.au |
| Gregory Croxford Living | gregorycroxfordliving.com.au |
| Handleworks | handleworks.com.au |
http://www.katewalkerdesign.com.au / http://www.kwdandco.com.au