Modern Kitchen Design and Remodel

Kitchen cabinets can visually occupy up to 75% of the room.  Get the cabinets right, and you can consider your modern kitchen design a slam-dunk.  Modern kitchen cabinet manufacturers include Snaidero, IKEA, and Aran.  Eschew embellishments.  Modern kitchen cabinets tend to be flat, smooth, and uncomplicated.  Tones can be on the lighter side, such as the light oak shown here, or stark blacks and grays.

It's unthinkable to remodel a kitchen and call it "modern," without including one of these free-standing range hoods.  They're called "island-mount" range hoods, and they can be mounted over an island's cooktop...or against the wall.  Favored material?  Stainless steel, of course.  If you really want to go fancy (and pay mid four-figures), you can even get a motorized island-mount hood, like the Miele DA5000D, which raises and lowers at the mere touch of a button.

For any modern kitchen, cabinet fixtures are minimized.  Sleek and straight are the order of the day.  Fixture-free cabinets are possible, too, and in many cases are highly desired.  But consider usabilty.  Does your desire for aesthetics outweigh your need to easily grasp and open cabinet doors?

It's simple to order clear or translucent glass for your cabinet doors instead of solid.  Doing so allows you to add in-cabinet lighting for even more dramatic effect.

One added benefit of installing glass tile backsplashes:  eco-friendliness.  Glass tile backsplashes are a tad bit more difficult and expensive to install for the do-it-yourselfer, but with their range of colors and luminosity, they look fantastic.

Pendant lighting is guaranteed to give your kitchen a cool, contemporary look.  Swap out existing 1980s-style can lights for lower-hanging pendant lights that better-illuminate your work surface.

Why settle for laminate or solid surface counters when you can choose more durable and beautiful and...pedigreed countertops?  Corian Quartz and Caesarstone are two types of engineered stone, granite-like materials.  Or the ever-popular slab granite.  But if you want to go truly exotic, try concrete, paper, stainless steel, or even zinc.

This may go without saying, but say we must.  Any modern kitchen worthy of the title has an obsessive, almost OCD, fixation on high-quality, high-ticket appliances, often from little-known manufacturers. 

The kitchen island is the mainstay of every modern kitchen.  If you have floor space in your kitchen for an island, it's highly recommended.  Why?  Even if islands are not your thing, research shows that home buyers expect their kitchens to have islands.  So your kitchen will be at a disadvantage at the time of sale if it does not have a kitchen island.  Go figure.

Another way to make your modern kitchen design even smoother, sleeker, and free of bothersome obstacles:  embed your refrigerator.  Cabinet-depth fridges are specially pared-down to meet the edge of your cabinets at two feet and twenty-seven inches.

The names of these pictured paint colors from Sherwin Williams just about sum it up:  Austere Gray and Super White.  Black, as well as grays and whites of all shades, rule in the monochromatic kitchen paint scheme.