5 Kitchen Style and design Tips From an Inside Designer Who Has Made Over 500

Talk to inside designer Caren Rideau how lots of kitchens she’s renovated in her job and you’ll be greeted with a big giggle. “In my lifetime? Oh, my gosh,” she says. “I’ve been executing this for above 30 decades.” Her estimate: extra than 500. “Everybody arrives to me to make magic in the kitchen area.” She’s the founder of Los Angeles–based Kitchen Design and style Team runs a vineyard in the Santa Ynez Valley with winemaker Andrés Ibarra and just debuted a new book, Caren Rideau: Kitchen Designer, Vintner, Entertaining at Home.

“Everybody” incorporates us. We asked Rideau to permit us in on a handful of of her kitchen design secrets—must-haves she incorporates into most of her tasks to double down on operation and performance. Some are so straightforward you’ll surprise why you did not feel of them first. (It is all right, you likely haven’t brought hundreds of kitchens to life—yet.)

Food-Prep Necessities

You do not always have to do a demo to build additional respiration room—just distinct away visual clutter. “I consider knife blocks and spices off the countertop and conceal them in [customized] drawers,” Rideau suggests. “Then there’s a position for all of these items—and they are not taking up house.”

Compact Appliances

An equipment centre is central to a lot of of Rideau’s kitchens. A what? “They glimpse like tall storage with pocket doorways,” she clarifies. When they’re closed, you’d hardly ever guess the blender, toaster, or sluggish cooker are within just these types of effortless access. Yours can also double as a one-end coffee bar, storing a Nespresso equipment, coffee grinder, and the like. If you enjoy to host, the possibilities expand even more in this room, Rideau installed a warming drawer beneath so dishes can remain hidden—and hot—until their dinnertime debut.

Major Appliances

Visualize it now: You go by all the effort (and time and money) of deciding on the specific right countertop and cupboard colour, but your eye however catches on the stainless steel fridge. Not in Ridaeu’s initiatives. “I love to conceal the dishwasher and fridge—any substantial appliance—with cabinet doors so that you never seriously know they’re appliances,” she claims. In reality, protected in paneling and a duo of brass straps, the types in this kitchen Rideau designed seem much more like stand-on your own home furnishings. 

Slicing Boards

We’ve all been there, awkwardly yanking a cutting board out of a way too-complete cabinet. Rideau’s alternative: integrated variations, possibly concealed or on show. Alternative a single: “You pull a drawer open to locate a reducing board,” she explains. Give it a wash as soon as you’re accomplished chopping, then slide it again into location. Selection two: a sink with a designed-in lip all over the perimeter to keep a slicing board aloft (and a colander, if you add a next ledge). Wash, slice, and go.