How to Make Your Kitchen the Focal Point of Your Great Room
Your great room is designed to serve several purposes in a singular open area. Rather than separate your living room, family room, kitchen, and dining room using walls and doors, you might enjoy a more fluid space that offers everything you need without the barriers. While all great rooms serve this similar multi-purpose function, they can vary wildly in size, layout, and overall design. Your neighbor, for instance, might want their living space to be their great room’s main attraction. You, on the other hand, might prefer for your kitchen to wear the crown. If so, here are some ways to make your kitchen the focal point of your great room.
How to Make Your Kitchen the Focal Point
Make Your Kitchen Visible from All Angles
In most great rooms, the kitchen won’t be placed dead center due to plumbing constraints and other factors. That said, if you want your kitchen to be central in terms of prominence, you’ll want to make sure that it’s easily seen regardless of your position within the great room. This constant visibility is easily achieved in most great rooms considering their lack of barriers between spaces. Still, you can embellish your kitchen further by installing accented furniture and other accessories as well as making key residential interior painting decisions, which we’ll discuss next.
Refinish Your Kitchen Cabinets
If you truly want your kitchen to stand out in your great room, you can’t neglect your cabinets. Your kitchen’s cabinets are some of the most prominent and visible features in this area. By refinishing your cabinets and/or doing some kitchen cabinet painting, you can transform this room’s aesthetic and, in doing so, alter the balance of your great room as a whole in favor of your kitchen.
Add an Accent Wall
There’s much more to your kitchen than its cabinets, of course. While painting or refinishing your cabinets will make a major mark, so will repainting your kitchen’s walls -- especially if you treat one of the walls differently than the rest. An accent wall refers to a wall that dons a different color, texture, and/or style than the walls adjacent to it. This interior painting design technique can draw the eyes to a specific part of a room by virtue of the contrast it creates. If you paint one of the walls of your kitchen (or all of them) a different tone than the remaining walls of your great room, then your kitchen will naturally become the focal point of this space.
Install an Island
Beyond some strategic interior painting, you can further prioritize your great room’s kitchen with some key installations. A kitchen island or cart is an aesthetically appealing and practical addition to any kitchen that’s large enough to contain it. This installment provides a place for people to gather around for informal meals and drinks, offers plenty of surface area for decorative features and food, and can create a gentle barrier/transition between the kitchen and the rest of your great room.
Light it Up
The way you light your great room also has major implications on which areas are emphasized. Hanging ornate light fixtures or those with a different tonal output in your kitchen (i.e., above your island) can distinguish this area from the rest of the room. Pay attention to the angle of your great room’s lighting as well, as the direction of light and shadows can serve to accentuate or detract from certain spaces.
Highlight Your Kitchen Flooring
Lastly, you can make your kitchen the centerpiece of your great room by doing something different with its flooring. Many great rooms contain the same type of flooring throughout, which unifies the space. But if you want your kitchen to stand on its own and/or steal the show, consider installing a different type of flooring in this area (i.e., tile flooring while the rest of the room has hardwood floors). If you don’t want to go this far, you might install a special floor coating in your kitchen to adjust its color and finish while providing additional protection from spills, impact, moisture, etc. At the very least, you might install a large, beautiful rug that draws attention to itself.
Make Your Kitchen the Greatest Part of Your Great Room
There’s so much to admire about a great room, but the unique aspects of each separate space can get lost in the mix. At Anderson Painting, we can help you make your great room’s kitchen stand out via our interior painting services and design expertise. To learn more about us and all we do, call today at 919-610-1855 or email us at info@andersonpaintingnc.com!
