Small Kitchen Makeover: Smart Design Within Tight Limits — Transcript

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1. 0:00As designers, we know that no project is
2. 0:02truly ideal. And what I mean by this is
3. 0:06that every project comes with its own
4. 0:08handful of limitations and constraints.
5. 0:11And that's truly the challenge behind
6. 0:13interior design. You can look at these
7. 0:15constraints as limiting your creativity.
8. 0:19Or you could look at it as a challenge
9. 0:21to overcome and work around. Hi
10. 0:24everyone, my name is Daniela and I'm an
11. 0:26interior designer. And in this tutorial,
12. 0:28I'm going to be walking you through a
13. 0:30kitchen drawing set that I drew using
14. 0:32rayon. So, you're going to see how I
15. 0:34turned a very dated and drab kitchen to
16. 0:37a beautiful, sleek, and contemporary
17. 0:40kitchen that's actually functional. And
18. 0:42you're going to see that I had to come
19. 0:44up with some very creative ways around
20. 0:46the mill work. I created this drawing
21. 0:48set using rayon design. And Rayon design
22. 0:51is the fastest and easiest way to create
23. 0:54beautiful, stunning 2D interior design
24. 0:58drawing. It's web- based. It's very
25. 1:00intuitive, and I know you'll enjoy this
26. 1:02tool. So, check the link in the
27. 1:04description and download the kitchen
28. 1:06shop drawing templates and follow along
29. 1:08with me in this tutorial.
30. 1:12Okay, so I've zoomed in on the layout
31. 1:14here. And I want to touch upon a few
32. 1:16different things in this layout. As we
33. 1:18go through this drawing set, you'll see
34. 1:20that I'm going to highlight four major
35. 1:22design challenges, and we'll see how I
36. 1:25created solutions within the floor
37. 1:27plans, the sections, and elevations.
38. 1:30Let's start with taking a look at the
39. 1:33layouts and highlighting the first
40. 1:35design challenge.
41. 1:38And what I want to make note of is the
42. 1:40working triangle, the work triangle in
43. 1:43the kitchen. And this is one of the
44. 1:45first things that I actually learned in
45. 1:47design school. And what this means is is
46. 1:51that your major appliances
47. 1:53such as the fridge, the range, the
48. 1:55stove, the sink should create some sort
49. 1:59of a triangle. So if we look at that
50. 2:01here, we can see this present. So this
51. 2:04is point A, point B, and point C. This
52. 2:07would create a triangle.
53. 2:10And you can see here, this is a very
54. 2:12standard layout. an L shape with an
55. 2:14island. It's not anything that hasn't
56. 2:17been done before. However, there were
57. 2:19challenges in creating this island,
58. 2:22which we'll get to later.
59. 2:24However, looking at the function of this
60. 2:27kitchen, I really did want to take
61. 2:30advantage of every single corner and
62. 2:33maximize the space in order to make this
63. 2:36kitchen feel a little larger.
64. 2:39So the first point I want to talk about
65. 2:41is turning dead corners into functional
66. 2:45areas.
67. 2:47So we know that there's typically dead
68. 2:50corners within obviously the corners of
69. 2:53the mill work and that's where you can
70. 2:56incorporate different things. There's
71. 2:58really cool stuff that you can do now.
72. 3:00different types of lazy susanss. And
73. 3:03I'll show you later what I decided to uh
74. 3:06put in this corner, but I actually want
75. 3:09to talk about this corner here. And the
76. 3:12reason why I want to talk about it is
77. 3:14because it doesn't necessarily register
78. 3:17as a part of the kitchen, or at least it
79. 3:20didn't first register as a part of the
80. 3:22kitchen. This actually just it was it
81. 3:25was just a vacant wall when I walked in.
82. 3:27It had this post. It was just dead
83. 3:31space. And my client's original idea was
84. 3:34to just plop anything there just to fill
85. 3:37the void. But the way that I saw it is
86. 3:39that I needed to expand this kitchen. I
87. 3:43needed to create the illusion that it
88. 3:45was bigger than it was. And I needed to
89. 3:47utilize that dead space. And I also
90. 3:50wanted to integrate as much bulk, so
91. 3:53bulkheads, posts into the mill work in a
92. 3:56very, very clever way. So, let's
93. 3:59actually take a look at the elevation of
94. 4:02this dead corner.
95. 4:05And you can see that it actually turned
96. 4:08into a gorgeous display cabinet. So,
97. 4:11there's integrated lighting. We
98. 4:13integrated all of this, the pulse, the
99. 4:16bulk, and I did it in such a clever way
100. 4:19that the clients would really have an
101. 4:21area to display all their little
102. 4:24chachki, which they wanted, but it also
103. 4:27gave them more storage and even a place
104. 4:30for cleaning storage because you'll see
105. 4:33in this small kitchen, there really
106. 4:35wasn't much opportunity for that. So,
107. 4:38this is the first thing that I wanted to
108. 4:41make note of in this kitchen, utilizing
109. 4:45and maximizing each space and dead
110. 4:48corner.
111. 4:50So, now I'm going to move on and talk
112. 4:53about the next two design challenges.
113. 4:57And these design challenges actually go
114. 5:00hand in hand. So, it all had to revolve
115. 5:02around creating a kitchen island in this
116. 5:04space. So one, I had to work around the
117. 5:08air returns,
118. 5:10the HVAC,
119. 5:12it was there, it could not change. Two,
120. 5:15I had to work around support beams.
121. 5:18So as you can see here, this is how the
122. 5:21design ended up. And previous, this was
123. 5:25a wall.
124. 5:27And in an ideal world, my clients, they
125. 5:30would have paid to completely remove
126. 5:32this wall. What did this mean? This
127. 5:34meant getting an engineer on board,
128. 5:37creating the drawings, submitting to the
129. 5:40city, the city of Toronto, which is a
130. 5:43disaster, getting that approved, paying
131. 5:46for that, paying for the labor just so
132. 5:49we didn't have these two beams here.
133. 5:53And once again, would have that been
134. 5:55ideal? Absolutely.
135. 5:58But that wasn't the scenario here.
136. 6:00Simply put, there just wasn't the budget
137. 6:02for that.
138. 6:04So I thought to myself, how do I work
139. 6:06around this loadbearing wall? I can't
140. 6:10demolish it. What I can do is I can
141. 6:14change it up a little bit. I can remove
142. 6:17what isn't absolutely necessary. So that
143. 6:20left me with two beams and the HVAC.
144. 6:25And I thought, this is the prime
145. 6:26location for the island. How am I
146. 6:28supposed to work with this? But I
147. 6:31decided to integrate it in the design,
148. 6:34even try to make it look a little
149. 6:35intentional.
150. 6:38So, let's touch upon the air return in
151. 6:40the kitchen mill work. So, it actually
152. 6:43turned out phenomenal. You honestly
153. 6:46can't even see. So, basically, the HVAC
154. 6:49comes up here. The air return comes out
155. 6:52through the mill work through these
156. 6:55little slits that were created. And
157. 6:57obviously, this is custom mill work.
158. 7:00But it was very very clever. It's not an
159. 7:02eyes sore. Um, it was done beautifully
160. 7:06and it allowed the island to just sit on
161. 7:10top of that spot.
162. 7:12And as you can see, I also had to work
163. 7:15around these two beams.
164. 7:18So once again, not an option to remove
165. 7:21everything, but we ended up with these
166. 7:23two beams. And we also had some
167. 7:25bulkheads that we couldn't avoid. And it
168. 7:28kind of does look intentional in the
169. 7:30end. This sort of looks like a little
170. 7:32bit of an archway to enter. There is
171. 7:35another archway that was created. And as
172. 7:38you can see, I've totally integrated
173. 7:40these beams into the island without
174. 7:43actually taking away function. You can
175. 7:46see that I still was able to integrate a
176. 7:49microwave, which is the below counter
177. 7:52microwaves, which I recommend. And there
178. 7:56is still some storage.
179. 7:58And of course they have counter space.
180. 8:00And I even integrated outlets into the
181. 8:03posts. So it's a very very clever way
182. 8:06instead of adding you know an outlet for
183. 8:10a plug in the stone. I see some
184. 8:12designers doing that or you know in the
185. 8:15mill work I utilize the posts.
186. 8:19So it was a very very tricky process in
187. 8:23terms of installing the countertop and
188. 8:25such. There was a bit of a disaster
189. 8:28story there, but it was worth it in the
190. 8:31end because we truly maximized the space
191. 8:34and we maximized the budget. So, when it
192. 8:38comes to beams,
193. 8:40you really need to think of it as an
194. 8:42element in the design and ask yourself
195. 8:45if there's a way to actually incorporate
196. 8:47it. Can you make it look good in another
197. 8:50world or in another style? I could have
198. 8:53dressed this up in a very rustic manner,
199. 8:56you know, made it a little bit more
200. 8:57woodsy. That's a way that you could make
201. 8:59it look more intentional. You could make
202. 9:01it have looked more industrial. There's
203. 9:04different ways to work around design
204. 9:06challenges. But for the circumstances I
205. 9:09was given, this is what I did with the
206. 9:10island. And I hope that you can
207. 9:13appreciate it and maybe think about it
208. 9:16or use it in your own kitchen design
209. 9:18project.
210. 9:20So, let's talk about the next design
211. 9:22challenge. And I've already touched upon
212. 9:25this a little bit just because this
213. 9:27element was just everywhere in the
214. 9:29kitchen. And I mean bulkheads. So, if we
215. 9:33zoom in here, we can see the beautiful
216. 9:36display cabinet. We can see that I
217. 9:39concealed a bulkhead there. If we look
218. 9:41further into the kitchen, we actually
219. 9:43see that this theme repeats. So, there's
220. 9:47bulkheads all along here. There was more
221. 9:50significant bulk here, all along the
222. 9:53crown of the kitchen to where the
223. 9:56ceiling and the wall met. And we
224. 10:00couldn't remove this. So, I had to work
225. 10:03around it.
226. 10:04So, you can see here I cleverly put a
227. 10:08panel and I was able to build the
228. 10:11cabinet on top of the fridge as I
229. 10:13typically would do. And for the rest of
230. 10:16the cabinetry, I intentionally designed
231. 10:19a beautiful sleek crown to sort of
232. 10:22absorb the bulkhead here. And honestly,
233. 10:27I don't think that you would ever know
234. 10:29that that's the reason why I did this
235. 10:31beautiful crown. It truthfully looks
236. 10:33very intentional.
237. 10:36And that's the thing about good design.
238. 10:38It should look intentional. So that was
239. 10:40my walkthrough on a real life interior
240. 10:43design project that was completed by
241. 10:45yours truly. And I also want to make
242. 10:48note that the software that you use is
243. 10:51very critical. As a designer, you're
244. 10:54going to be using whatever software
245. 10:57you're using a lot for many, many, many
246. 10:59hours. So, you want a reliable and fast
247. 11:03software that is able to facilitate your
248. 11:06interior design projects very easily.
249. 11:09So, if this video has given you a few
250. 11:11ideas for your own small tricky kitchen,
251. 11:14give this video a like. And if you'd
252. 11:17like to see more in this series, leave
253. 11:19us a comment down below. We would love
254. 11:21to get back to you and we'd like to see
255. 11:24you in the next video. So happy
256. 11:26designing.