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Many home activities such as cooking, cleaning, eating, drinking, socialising take place in the kitchen. This is why a beautiful and functional kitchen is so important. Also, ensuring a kitchen falls into those categories will help to add property value. Melissa Klink, kitchen design expert and creative director of Harvey Jones, has given Express.co.uk readers several kitchen upgrades to add value to a house, as well as what should be avoided.
1. Improve cabinets
Kitchen cabinetry has the greatest impact on the tone of a kitchen and most homeowners remodel their kitchens with the plan of living in their homes for years to come.
However, updated kitchen cabinets are also an investment in the future of a home when it comes time to sell, according to Melissa.
Therefore she advised households to install “solid, durable cabinets that will not deteriorate over time”.
When trying to sell a house, the most important rooms to upkeep are the kitchen and bathroom. Since these are the rooms most routinely used in a home, they are of most interest to potential home buyers. When selecting new kitchen cabinets, households should keep in mind that they might one day have to sell their house.
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She said: “Worktops and splashbacks that are clean, fresh and inviting have great resale value compared to those that are very busy in pattern and colour.”
3. Design a functional layout
The kitchen layout will ultimately make or break the room, both in terms of its functionality and its aesthetic.
Now more than ever, kitchens are being used as spaces that not only serve as a place to prepare meals, but as daytime offices, dining rooms and entertaining spaces too.
When designing a new kitchen, sometimes it’s easy to forget the additional functions a space serves and solely focus on its use for meal preparation.
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Therefore, Melissa advised households to design a layout that “optimises functionality”, but also makes the kitchen “easy to live in”.
She added: “The layout is critical and poorly designed kitchens make you work so hard and travel back and forth between a tiny space.”
The kitchen expert urged households to steer clear from designs that are “too quirky” as this can have a negative impact on the resale value and feel of the room.
Melissa said: “Avoid designing something too quirky, sometimes it can feel exciting to create a bespoke design but you don’t want to take it too far and design something that is so funky it will make a kitchen feel dated rapidly.”
4. Add a larder
Providing heaps of storage space, kitchen larders are distinctive statement pieces in their own right.
A kitchen larder was once a mainstay of any functional kitchen. Often a room in itself, with a marble topped area for keeping meat and dairy products cool, it eventually fell out of favour after domestic fridges became more commonplace.
However, kitchen larders are making a huge comeback in modern homes. Although they are no longer a necessity for preserving food, they still offer a great storage solution that can be modelled to suit the needs of households and their family.
Melissa said: “Designing in larders, in whatever shape and size, will always add value to your kitchen as they are an item people always covet and aspire to have.”
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