Before this time the kitchens I did were one-offs, constructed on site to exact measurements by skilled carpenters. There were also, and still are of course, high-end shops which did made-to-measure kitchens, and I used those too. Now, it is the big-box stores which have taken over the Kitchen Design world, and Interior Designers work within them, doing kitchens only.
Solid surfaces were mostly unknown in the early days; only laminate was widely available.
I specified and designed a kitchen for each floor of a large house in High Park which the partner-owners were duplexing for themselves. This Ikea kitchen was one of the first ever used. The counters were not even laminate, but some sort of synthetic material which actually needed seams.
Even then, these kitchens had style! The glass-paned uppers relieve the solid lowers in this small but hard-working galley kitchen. The floor is raised slightly to accommodate plumbing.
Here is a photo of the galley looking outwards towards the dining room.
The other side of the kitchen betrays its age only by the old, boxy microwave. Otherwise, this kitchen could serve its owner well even today. I chose the same rich grey linoleum tiles as I did for my office/solarium (this time paired with clean white) because they matched the available Ikea counter-top so exactly. Again, placed on an angle the tiles widen the feel of the narrow space. They have a classic European feel too.
The galley kitchen leads right into the adjoining dining room. Double French doors at the end of the room lead to a very spacious wood deck, which sits above the kitchen on the lower floor of this house.
I think this kitchen which is about 25-years-old proves the maxim that good design will stand the test of time, maybe with a few tweaks here and there.
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