Renovate to Adapt Part Two: Preparing Your Home For Family Life

Last week, we discussed the pros and cons of moving vs. renovating your current home to meet your needs. It’s no secret that the time and effort spent preparing your home for sale combined with the costs of involved with moving is staggering.

Is now the right time for you to move? Ultimately, it comes down to how you want to spend your money.

This week, we’ll discuss ways to help those hoping to adapt their home from one that was perfect for two to one that can handle the demands of a busy family.

Moving Forward: From being a couple to having a couple of kids

Congratulations, your family has expanded and life as you knew it has changed! Before, it was just the two of you: taking your time to cook meals; eating out at a moment’s notice; hanging out with friends and spending a great deal of time away from home. 

Although children enrich our lives in so many ways, they also change the way we do things. Bottles and sippy cups now compete for space in your cupboard with the stylish glassware and plates you once used regularly for dinner parties. Baby food and boxed cereal have now become staples in your pantry. What you need is more storage space – it’s time for a more functional and fabulous kitchen!

Open-concept kitchen design by Monarch Kitchen & Bath Design

As the heart of the home, a kitchen with young kids running around becomes the hub for the entire family. With multiple meals being cooked there daily, your kitchen is now the centre for communication, learning, play – and oh yes, eating and storage too!

This space has never needed to be more functional than it does today. So why move? By renovating your space, you are able to work with a designer who is an expert at incorporating all of your hopes, dreams and storage needs into your home, and within your allotted budget.

Open-concept kitchen design by Monarch Kitchen & Bath Design

Consider the advantage of having a large island, where the kids can colour, craft and do homework while you prepare dinner. Tupperware and plastic containers have now infiltrated your kitchen, along with all the cool kid’s cooking tools – new deep drawers are going to be such a help!

Pantry storage doesn’t have to be just for food, it can also be a place to store kids’ things, as can the additional storage space available with in an island.

At Monarch, we can change your space to do all of these things. We can even add electrical outlets and charging stations, up and out of reach of little hands. 

Open-concept kitchen design by Monarch Kitchen & Bath Design

While storage is a priority at this stage, it’s not the only reason for wanting to focus on the kitchen when renovating. Your closed-in kitchen – although still a functional cooking area – is no longer an efficient use of space since you are constantly having to run around the wall to see if the kids in the main room are out of harm’s way. 

Opening up the space and removing a wall not only helps ensure the safety of your family while preparing a meal or unloading groceries, it enhances the overall look of your home.
Now more than ever, our customers are opting to open their homes and remove the barriers that separate them from interacting efficiently with their families. Opening up your living space and creating a great room allows you to live and function more harmoniously.

The staff and designers at Monarch Kitchen & Bath Centre are ready to help you address the changing needs for your home.

Function and Beauty: Making Your Kitchen Island Work For You

In the past few decades, kitchens have transformed from just a place to prepare meals to the social hub of the home. The small closed-off food preparation zones of yesterday have become kitchens that are warm, welcoming spaces that open up into other rooms. Families use their kitchen as project spaces, entertaining centres, dining rooms, and much more.

At the centre of it all? The kitchen island.

If a kitchen island is on your redesign wish list, you’ll want to fully consider what your family’s needs before incorporating it into your new design. Will you be primarily using it to prepare food or will you also need a place for your kids to spread out their homework while you work? If you entertain, do you mind if the guests see what you’re doing? If not, a dual-height island may be for you: it can shield the kitchen mess from an open living area.

Perhaps you’ll want to include a dining bar, or make one end of the island a dining table. Since the island can take up a fair amount of kitchen real estate, it makes sense to take advantage most of every inch. In fact, designers regularly incorporate cooktops, prep sinks, storage and appliances into kitchen island designs.

“You can make your island the focal point of your kitchen by adding legs or turnings to give the warmth of furniture,” says Monarch designer Sarah Holmstrom. “Or choose a different colour for the island cabinetry and countertop, and hanging unique artful lights above.”

To learn more about incorporating an island into your new kitchen design, call Monarch Kitchen and Bath Centre at 905-686-2001, or drop by our showroom and speak with one of our designers.