Interior Design Course: Week 3

Here is a recap of what I learnt in Week 3 of the Interior Design Course

WEEK 3

Kitchens Bathrooms and Laundries

Design Layouts

Finishes, Hardware and Fittings

The latest session covered Kitchens Bathrooms and Laundries the layouts for each room and types of finishes and hardware.

I was really interested in this session as we'll be renovating our Kitchen and Laundry next year and although we have renovated our retro purple bathroom late last year, since finding the perfect mirror we haven't yet put the final touches on (towel rail, another coat of paint on the ceiling, paint door frame and a new door and lock). So this session has inspired me to get our Bathroom finished once and for all!

We went through the different Kitchen styles and how important it is to keep the style of your kitchen to your home -  a colonial style home with an industrial kitchen just doesn't work. We were shown a heap of slides on what not to do – don’t go crazy and put in too many different materials and styles because it just ends up looking like a mix match! It’s also important for your appliances to line up so they look neat and pleasing to the eye.

 

Modern

 

Colonial

 

Industrial

We went through different Kitchen layouts, the kitchen triangle, and what to put where – the stove should always be on the back wall as it is the safest place. It was suggested to not go for a big walk in pantry but to put the food and items where you use them – put the baking paper, pots, etc next to the stove so your not running to the pantry and then the cupboards to find what you need. Admittedly I do this with my tea towels – I have to walk to the linen cupboard in the hallway every time I need a tea towel with dripping wet hands instead of keeping them right near the sink. These are all great ideas I’ll be taking into account when I do my kitchen renovation.

We had a guest speaker come in to talk about his kitchen cupboard products and passed around samples of the different kitchen bench tops, springs used in drawers, etc. 

 

We then went on a walking tour of the Home Expo to look at a few different kitchen layouts and to point out what worked with the design and what could be improved on – in one instance the sink was too low you would be bending over to do dishes, in another they changed the colour of the cabinets in an odd spot which made it look clunky and not flow. 

 

The homework was to cut out samples of different kitchen/bathroom/laundry bench top materials and integrated appliances. We also had to research energy efficient appliances but I was too slack to do that part!

 

 

The Bathrooms were covered quite quickly and again we were shown photos of bathroom layouts that could be improved on, the best types of materials to use in wet areas, different tiles and grout colours and the affects they have.

 

Modern

 

Colonial

 

Industrial

An important thing to remember when making rooms flow is to stick with a theme - if you are going to get a square basin then get square taps and handles and follow it through. So often you see round bowls and square handles and round taps and square shower heads and it just doesn’t work as well. I have been really careful with this in our bathroom which is why we have round bowls, round shower heads and round taps, round mirror etc.

 

Square Fittings

 

Round Fittings

 

Finally we touched on the Laundry which is often the smallest room in the house but it has so many functions. You need to think about what is important to you so you can get the quality of bench top and sink etc that suits your lifestyle. The point of storing what you need to use where you need it came up again, why put the ironing board in the laundry if you carry it into the living room each time you use it - try to store things close to the function is such a new way of thinking.

 

 

What I really like about this course is that we are shown what not to do and explained why it doesn't work so that we can start to see in our own designs what to do. It's like that TV show What Not To Wear I feel that you can teach style and still have the things that you love, but they need to blend and flow together and that is what makes great design.

 

Week 1 you can read about here
Week 2 you can read about here
Week 4 is all about Storage

[Images via My Pinterest - Kitchen Style Modern, Colonial, Industrial; Kitchen Triangle; Bathroom Modern, Colonial, Industrial; Bathroom Square, Round; Laundry 1 and 2 and My own images Homework 1 and 2]