5 Interior Design Ideas for the Modern Kitchen

While the kitchen’s main purpose is for feeding, don’t neglect to employ some creative interior design ideas to give the room a modern look. You can choose to integrate the room into your home’s broader design scheme or opt to use it as a playground for different colors, materials and themes. See below for some tips on how to enhance the space with unique, personal and colorful touches.

1. Maximize Counter Space

Many apartment kitchens come with only a few counter tops, so look to hanging shelves and cool storage containers as a way to free up space and eliminate counter clutter. Resort to places like Ikea for sleek shelves and metal fixtures that you can hang on kitchen walls directly above counters. Store your most frequently used ingredients there, such as spices, sugar, salt, oils and flour. Also look to Ikea for metal rods that you can mount on walls and affix hooks to. Dangle utensils like spatulas, stirring spoons and whisks from the hooks for a festive but functional look.

2. Play with Color

Because the kitchen serves a distinct function and is often set off from the rest of the apartment, you can get a bit funkier with the colors you employ there. Think of themes. If the room is covered with black and white tile, accentuate the look with bright colors such as red, turquoise, yellow or even lime green. Hang dish towels, oven mitts and utensils in those colors. Using small items to add color is practical and refreshing; you can cheaply swap one color for another when you’re looking for a change. Find cool clocks or experimental art to hang in the kitchen and let the room serve as test lab for design ideas.

3. Make the Most of Materials

Stainless steel and chrome accents might appear overly futuristic in what should be warmer, cozier spaces like the living room, but they look great in the kitchen. Even if you don’t have stainless steel or flashy appliances, proudly display shiny knives sets or cookware on counters and shelves. To avoid looking too uniform, throw in some strong wood touches, like a chunky cutting board.

4. Get Creative with Containers

Work your ingredients and essential kitchen elements into the design scheme and get the added bonus of reducing clutter. Find brightly colored ceramic or glass bowls to store various fruits and vegetables to create your own life still-life art piece. Use geometric glass jars of varying sizes to house flour, sugar, assorted tea bags and even more colorful ingredients. Arrange them artfully. Let a large spice rack work as a major wall piece.

5. Forget the Fluff

Think of clean, sleek touches as essential elements for a modern kitchen. While you may seek to create warmth throughout the rest of your place with plush fabrics and elegant textures, leave these frills out of the kithen. Fabrics stainly quickly, so avoid fluffy curtains in the room. Instead, let the brightly colored towels, eclectic ingredients, essential utensils and metal accents do all the talking.